Leaving Jordan

After that less-than-memorable post from the Dead Sea with more typos than a Rupert Murdoch newspaper, this is a brief post to say that we had a great final day seeing some of the ancient sites around Amman itself. First off to Jerash, a city the Romans built around 70AD. Even though ancient earthquakes had knocked much of it down, there was still plenty standing.

Then we went to the Citadel in Amman proper. It, too, has remains of temples, monuments and churches that were very interesting. But the best part was that the open-air museum stands high in the city with great views all around. No, that's the second best part. The best part is the museum on the grounds actually has some of the Dead Sea Scrolls and a statue believed to be the oldest known statue ever found. Some times the things you see in this area of the world just bowl you over.

Well, it was a long day touring and a short night getting ready to fly out. Our plane leaves at 3:05am - can you believe they even schedule something at that hour? And we have to pack and get out of here before midnight. So, given the choice between a nice last-night's dinner with a good bottle of wine or a detailed post, I've chosen the obvious.

But there's a long layover in Frankfurt and a 9-hour flight to the US so I will try to catch up and tell you more about the stuff we saw today and some of the other things I skipped over in the earlier posts. I will certainly try to get the pictures from today up on Shutterfly.

And finally, LK and I have decided that we should not have been surprised by all the flies we encountered yesterday at the Dead Sea. In fact, a quick look around the Internet shows what we should have guessed, anyhow.


According to a recent survey, flies rate The Dead Sea as their No 1 holiday destination. The Top Ten list is:

Why I didn't finish the beer

1. The Dead Sea
2. Rotterdam
3. Death Valley
4. Mucking, UK
5. Shittlehope, New Zealand
6. Toronto (where they filmed the 1968 film "The Fly")
7. Pennsylvania Dutch Country (home of Shoe-Fly Pie)
8. Lower Slaughter in the Cotswolds, UK
9. Maui (where they filmed "Lord of the Flies"), and
10. Philadelphia, home of the Philadelphia Flyers.

I know. Google has a lot to answer for. Anyhow, on to America.