stole this from Rach...

FRIDAY:

We all woke up and got dressed and meeted up outside waiting for the tour to pick us up.


So in the facebook event I had written that the trip only includes lunch, a snack, and water. People asked me many times and I said that there is no breakfast. Do people listen to me? no, of course not. Jessica Michal and I had bought cheese in Beersheba to go with our crackers for the morning. Others bitched most of the day about not eating anything for breakfast.


Michal and Monica didn't get money the night before so they went with Tomer, tour coordinator, to get money and meet us at the border. The rest of us were in the mini bus going to another hotel to get a bunch of others including a bunch of juniors that are doing a semester abroad in Tel Aviv University. They were mostly from the east coast so while we were waiting at the border crossing into Jordan we played Jewish Geography. In the actual line for passport control I met someone from Poway who actually went to Chabad of Poway for a bit and went there for preschool and we knew all the same Jews but not each other. He is two years older.


We all cleared the border and walked through no man's land to the Jordanian side. We boarded our DesertEco Tour coach bus and started on the 2ish hour drive to Petra with our tour guide Alie. Along the way our tour guide told us about Jordan, the coast line, and Acaba-the fastest growing city in Jordan. Mt Aaron was pointed out, Aaron, Moses brother, is supposidely burried and is a holy site for Jordanians bc he was a profit for monotheism. We looked at the country side and napped. The towns we dove through look like Arab towns in Israel.


We made a pit stop along the way. We stretched and took pictures. Driving along we had passed these huge tents that people live in. They reminded me of Bedouin tents more more rectangular instead of circular. We passed them while driving so I didn't get that good of a look at them.


Things took longer than expected at the border so we didn't get to Petra till almost 1ish. We went to the visitor center after having baklava where we could go to the bathroom, get a map and other information stuff.


Then we finally started on our tour.

Here is a little blurb about Petra from Wikipedia:


Petra means rock in Arabic and is a historic and archaeological city in the Jordanian governate of Ma’an. It has rock cut architecture and water conduits system. Established around the 6th Century as the capital city of the Nabataeans. It was unknown to the Western world until 1812, when it was indroduced by Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. “A rose-red city half as old as time” and “one of the most precious cultural properties of man’s cultural heritage.” Chosen by BBC as one of the “40 places you have to see before you die.”

So it was good to check Petra off our Bucket Lists. It was beyond beautiful but an exhausting day. We finally all made it back to the bus at 4, hot and tired. We then drove 10 mins to Petra's Magical Restaurant where we had a buffet lunch that was delicious. As soon as we entered the establishment we bee lined for the bathroom to wash our hands. There was an assortment of salads, rice, beef/vegie stuff to put on rice, chicken, fish, steamrd veggies and pasta. It was all yummy and it was supposed to be authentic Jordanian food but it's all the same to me. I love middle eastern food. And the best part was there was watermelon! I love watermelon season! We relaxed and then got back on the bus to head back to the border. We all slept on the bus. Katie got me back and took a picture of Jess and I sleeping bc I had taken one of her and Naomi.


We arrive to the Yitzchak Rabin Border Crossing and we are all ready to just get back to our hostel and shower and get sushi or something. I turn my phone back on and bc it says cellcom I decide to call home. I talk to my parents for a little bit but then had to go through security and passport control. We all proceeded through security and are doing fine till Elana's bag goes through the xray machine. And just like that we all get whisked away to the outside. Some of us have our bags others don't. Some don't have their passports bc the security personel were still holding them. We had no idea what was going on other than shit it's elana's bag again-there had been issues in the CBS in Jerusalem but they never had this big of a problem. Most people were by the exit but the 9 of us were kind of cornered off. Some security guards are talking to Elana and we are all amazed that she isn't crying. Eventually nothing is settled but they let us get our bags and continue to passport control. The security personel weren't allowed to share with Elana what exactly the issue was. While In line for passport control everyone is talking about it and us. We clearify that it wasn't bomb and that it's just her backpack. Everyone recommended that she gets a new one. We all got visas for a month. Sadly we were again reminded that we have just over 2 weeks left. :(


So eventually we all got back to the hostel. We procceed to shower in the 4 showers. These are the nicest showers I've had in a while. My shower in arad is a showerhead in the middle of a bathtub so there is very limitted rom, sarel is just a faucet head and katie's apartment is leaking a little bit. It was wonderful.


We put on clean clothing, and for four of us--Naomi, Jessica, Katie and I- that meant the same thing, black skirt and white tank. I got dressed first. I was outside hanging out when she comes out to tell us something. Naomi was outside with us in pjs and was like wouldn't it be funny if I put that on too. Do it! Jessica was like guess what katie is putting on? No! Yea! We looked like fools. It was funny.


We were all just hanging out at the picnic tables out front, drinking, playing cards and what not. Our game of bullshit was never completed.


Monica Michal and Hailey left to go to the infected mushroom concert. They were pretty out of it when thy left.


We were hungry so we went to the 24 hr store to but stuff. We really wanted to buy challah and eggs to make French toast in the morning but they didn't have any. We thought that everything would be open even though it was shabbat but it's only like that in the city center apparently. So we bought some chips and just hung out outside. Where we met some israelis from Beersheba that we hung out with for a bit. Eventually we went back to the arava. The boys weren't outside so we decided to go to sleep.