12/21/2013

The majority of my group doesn't get in until late tonight so I have the day to explore. I had considered going to the Dead Sea or Amman but decided instead to stay in Madaba. I started my day with the continental breakfast at the hotel. There was a funny selection of Western and Middle Eastern dishes. Boxed cereal, hummus, pancakes, chickpea curry.

After breakfast I went for a wander. I went to the mosaic map which is one of Madaba's main attractions. It is now housed in the Greek Orothodox church but is an ancient mosaic of biblical sites. If you stand at the bottom it is oriented as if you are standing in the Mediterranean and looking east. 

I wandered further and found street markets in every direction. I walked for a few hours just looking. Somehow on my way I lost my scarf from Tasmania. How sad. 

I took a bit of a break around 1:30 to go back to the hotel and see if I could find anyone from my group. No luck so I headed back out in search of lunch. I got a churro like item, a falafel and a Turkish coffee on my wanders. In case anyone was wondering falafel still makes me sick but not as bad as it used to. Now it's more of a 3 day stomach ache and less respiratory problems. (I tried it in the hospital in Tel Aviv, incase things turned bad) So not wanting to ruin my trip with digestive problems I actually ate my falafel without the actual falafel. 

In Israel I was paying for most everything on card. In Jordan it's all cash. A Jordanian Diner is actually worth about 1:15 USD but the prices are very low. So far(yesterday and today)I have spent $0.90JD on food.

I went back to the hotel and relaxed for a bit and the. Went out to dinner with the tour guide and the one other person from my tour who had arrived. It was lovely. Jordan is really excited about birthdays. I saw 2 today they had a song, a light show, a cake, and sparklers. 

The movies of the night were less exciting than yesterday so I skipped them and went to bed.