Jerash

Yesterday, some of the SIT kids took a trip to Jerash, one of the oldest Roman-era cities in the region. Jerash is about 2000 something years old and used to had a population of 30,000 during the Roman era, a good-sized city then and now. We started our day off with checking out all the ruins, the Roman ruins are just sprinkled inside the city itself. There is the main chunk of ruins with a massive theatre, what used to be the city center, and the hippodrome. The hippodrome is where they used to have chariot races, gladiator fights and all that jazz. We saw re-enactments of all of this which was just hilarious, I loved it. Afterwards, we went to the theatre where we heard a bagpiper and drummer play Amazing Grace
(I'm not exactly sure why, but Jordan is the only other country I've seen that has adopted the bagpipe as one of it's main instruments). We were given a little freetime to just roam around the ruins which was great, we got to climb on them and explore around, they don't really keep them as intact as they probably want but it was cool to experience that. After running around Jerash for most of the time, we went to an elk reservation thing, they kept saying gazelles but once we got there, we realized they were just deer, kind of anti-climatic but still a good time. Afterwards, we went to an area close to Jerash where we saw the sunset. Very beautiful. We were kind of rushed the whole time we were in Jerash but it was still a gorgeous city and I had an amazing time. I also bought a painting while I was their for 20 Dinar, about 30 US dollars. It was done by a local artist and sold by his friend in a market we went too, I didn't bargain with him too hard because he was a legit guy but I still knocked the price down 5 Dinar. I usually spend around $100 or less on art pieces whenever I travel so I'm still going to keep my eyes open for another piece since I still have around $70 more in the art fund.
This Friday, we're going to Egypt. I'm sure I'll post before then but I just wanted to let you all know how sweet that's going to be and how excited I am to finally see the pyramids and junk. All for now.