The Bible Is Alive!, or Day 3 of the Epic May Adventure

We awoke early and checked out of our hotel. I was sad to leave my room with its beautiful view.

We awoke early, again, then to go explore Madaba since we didn't get a chance to yesterday. It was a bus to a bus to Madaba, then a walk to the visitor's center. We got a handy dandy map and started walking around.

Madaba is all about mosaics, so our first stop was a mosaic restoration school, then an archaeology museum with some Greek mythology (Eros, in particular caught my eye, and another god named Charimus, like charisma!). I learned quite a bit about mosaics from Istanbul, so I got a refresher course around here.

There was another little church, then the big St. George's Cathedral with a map of the Middle East. According to a cab driver, when Egypt and Israel were trying to decided who got Taba (a city between them), they came and referred to this map to decided (and it went to Egypt).

Today was (sadly) hotter than yesterday, and quite hazy, so our quick trip up to Mount Nebo was a bit disappointing. I mean, here we are, at the mountain where Moses took his last look over the Promised Land that he couldn't enter, and we can hardly see the Dead Sea for all the dust in the air. We could see Jericho (or what we were told was Jericho), and it is very interesting seeing the Biblical cities come to life.

A bus to Petra area (long but cheap), and we are here! Tomorrow will be a lot of looking at cool things. I'm pretty excited!