Mt. Nebo and the Baptism Site of Jesus Christ

Last Week.

I fell behind on blogging this week. There wasn't much to write home about, but I am not only keeping this blog for friends and family that are interested, but also for Jake, so that one day when he is old enough he can see where he's been.

I think I left off with the Embassy post. So most of the week, Jake and I hung out at home and went to the park at the Embassy. They have a pretty nice park. It's free and the obstacles are appropriate for Jake's age.

We found and bought a car this week from another Embassy employee. We are now the proud owners of a white Mitsubishi Pajero. It's a little anticlimactic because we can't drive it until all the registration and insurance paperwork goes through. That takes about 3 weeks to complete. Everything seems to take about 3 weeks. In the meantime, we need to figure out which one is ours. There are two parked in the Embassy parking lot and we don't even know which one is ours! Chris will have to take the keys back in this week and find out. So much for that fun feeling you get when you drive a new "used" car off the lot.

We have a household helper, Ailyn, who has been coming to the house about 3 times a week to help with some household cleaning and looking after Jake. She's great and Jake loves her. She is from the Philippines and has been living in Jordan for 5 years. Much of the household help in Jordan is from the Philippines or Sri Lanka and are here on work visas. It's an interesting way of life. Ailyn has a 6 year old daughter, Chloe who is living in the Philippines with her grandmother while her mom sends money home. I'm not sure how I feel about the whole idea of this. I feel terrible that she doesn't get to see her daughter, but am also glad that I can give her some employment and treat her fairly. Apparently, some of the Middle Eastern families can treat their household help very harshly. I wanted to mention Ailyn because I feel like she we be mentioned in some future posts and wanted to provide a little background.

As I mentioned before, it's still Ramadan and will be until July 28th. This religious culture is fascinating to me, especially as we are living amongst it. So many restaurants are closed for Ramadan, at least until evening. We ventured out after dinner earlier this week to try and find an ice-cream shop founded and owned by some Syrian refugees. The shop is called Bakdash and serves a really unique ice-cream. A co-worker of Chris' recommended it so we set out to try and find it. We drove around Amman for a while and never did find it. But we did recognize something really unique about Ramadan. The traffic nearly stops at 7:45 P.M., which is also when Iftar (literally means "breakfast" but is used during Ramadan at the end of the day for the "Breaking of the day's Fast").  These Iftar meals are much like our Thanksgiving and Christmas type meals. Lots of community and gathering of friends and family. Everyone is eating at this time and nobody is on the roads. Although we didn't find the ice-cream shop, we did have a far more pleasant drive home with far fewer cars on the road.

Later in the week, Ailyn watched Jake while we went on a date night. We went to a restaurant pretty close to our house. It is one of the few restaurants that is open during Ramadan, they just have window shades pulled so those fasting on the outside couldn't see those who were eating on the inside. We were finished with our meal by 7 PM and Ailyn was scheduled to stay until 9 PM, so we decided to see if we could find Bakdash again. It was heavy traffic, but we managed to find it. We just didn't drive far enough the first time.

We found a parking spot and at about 7:20 PM went in to Bakdash to give this Syrian ice-cream a try. Of course, it was too early to be seen eating in public, so we decided to wait. Instead of sitting in the ice-cream shop, we walked down the street. It was absolutely fascinating to see all of the people hustling and bustling to get their food for carry out to take to their Iftar meals. We walked by Swarma stands, fruit juice stands, pastry shops, bread shops, and much more. As we walked by a few restaurants, people were seated at tables, but nobody was eating. As we walked it got closer and closer to 7:45 PM. And it seemed like everyone was waiting for a magic buzzer to go off so they could break their fast. And then it did. 7:45 PM rolled around and everyone was allowed to start eating. As we circled back toward the Bakdash, some employees of some of the stores were eating their Iftar meals out on the side walk. As we walked by, they invited us to join them. They were all so generous and hospitable. We politely declined and continued back to Bakdash, where they were just closing. They too, wanted to eat their Iftar meal. But they obliged us, sold us a chocolate ice-cream, and let us sit outside on the terrace. It was good ice-cream. It had a unique texture. It was gummy and not a sweet as the ice-cream we are normally used to.

That's what we did last week.

Below are two photos of the street Bakdash is on. The top photo was taken at 7:30 PM. The bottom photo at 7:40 PM. There s a huge difference once Iftar commences.

Mt. Nebo and the Baptism Site

Our other big adventure was on Friday. We went to Mt. Nebo, where Moses when to look upon the Promised Land at the end of his life. It is a beautiful view and was really exciting to walk where figures of the Bible once walked.

On the way to Mt. Nebo we encountered an adventure. We listened exclusively to "James" our British GPS, who took us on some interesting back roads. It took us much longer to get to Mt. Nebo, than it would have if we had looked at a map and planned our route a head of time. But we would have missed this:

A nice heard of sheep and goats in the middle of the road. Jake slept through this part, but I found it amusing. 

From Wikipedia: Mount Nebo (Arabic: جبل نيبو‎ Jabal Nībū; Hebrew: הַר נְבוֹ‎ Har Nevo) is an elevated ridge in Jordan, approximately 817 meters (2680 feet)above sea level, mentioned in the Bible as the place where Moses was granted a view of the Promised Land that he would never enter. The view from the summit provides a panorama of the Holy Land and, to the north, a more limited one of the valley of the River Jordan. The West Bank city of Jericho is usually visible from the summit, as is Jerusalem on a very clear day.

The large circle rock is a rolling stone used as fortified door in a Byzantine Monastery in the old village of Faisailiyah. The bottom right is the view looking toward Jericho.

From Wikipedia: The serpentine cross sculpture (the Brazen Serpent Monument) atop Mount Nebo was created by Italian artist Giovanni Fantoni. It is symbolic of the bronze serpent created by Moses in the wilderness (Numbers 21:4–9) and the cross upon which Jesus was crucified (John 3:14).

We drove the long winding road down from Mt. Nebo to the Baptism Site of Jesus Christ. Jake's favorite part was seeing the camels along the road. This area is the epitome of rough desert terrain. It's not the sand dune terrain that might come to mind, but it's dry and pretty barren. 

 "James" leading us toward the Promised Land.

I keep posting all the photos of our entry tickets incase I one day feel include to create a digital scrapbook with them. It's a wonder we ever even manage to acquire tickets because NOTHING is clearly marked. Each of the sites we've visited, there is always some random, unmarked shack or booth that sells tickets. This was no different. We arrived at the "main gate" or parking lot of the Baptism site. It looked a bit like a ghost town, except for a group of tourists who looked like they were waiting on their tour bus. We wandered through the souk and nothing was open, maybe because it was a Friday, or maybe because they are always closed. Who knows...but we managed to find the guy selling tickets in a small building with no sign indicating that this is where you should go to buy tickets. Once we had tickets in hand, there was no clear guidance on what should happen next. But a little shuttle bus pulled up (one my Army friends would appreciate, because it was the same as those that would take us to the PX in Iraq) and the group of tourists all boarded. Chris quickly went to the car to grab a half a bottle of water that was in the counsel and we boarded the bus. Jake loved the bus too! Then we all got off and a guide took us to the Baptism site. We missed most of the tour because we were putting Jake in the Ergo backpack and then I stopped to take some pictures and we fell behind the group. We fell so far behind that the road forked and we didn't know which way we were supposed to go. I insisted we go left because that would be logical to go in a clockwise route, but I was wrong. We eventually caught up to the group and missed all of the information the guide offered.  But we were relieved to re-join the group and not get in trouble for trying to cross boundaries we weren't supposed to, especially with the current political climate regarding East Bank, West Bank, Israel, Jordan, etc. Then we went into a Greek Orthodox Church and put our feet in the River Jordan. It was a very hot day and we didn't have much water. Luckily there was a man selling some water when we got back to the bus. 

The Baptism Site

 Greek Orthodox Church

 The top left is the path down to the river. Top Right is Jake's and my feet in the River Jordan. Bottom left is the Baptism site. Bottom right is the remains of a mosaic on the floor of the ruins of a church.

 Top left is Chris with his back to the Jordan River. The other side is Israel. Top right is Jake and I sweating in the heat. Bottom left is on top of Mt. Nebo. and Bottom right is Jake asking for his picture to be taken on top of Mt. Nebo.

And on our way home, which was much less complicated than getting there, we were passed by not one, but two red Ferrari's. We saw another when we went to dinner the other night. Some pretty snazzy cars driving around Jordan...

The Gold Market

Yesterday (Saturday) Jake and I went to the park in the morning while Chris studied with an Arabic tutor. And after Jake's nap we went down to The Gold Market. Down in the older part of the city, there is a souk and lots of shops. And is also known for it's gold market. There are more than 20 stores selling gold and silver jewelry. I didn't take pictures to post, but will next time we go. We have a finite amount of time Jake will spend riding on my back in the Ergo, so we didn't want to press our luck by slowing down. He did pretty good on our adventure that isn't fun for him in any way.

Today we went to the park and Chris wen to work. So begins another week. The weeks run Sunday-Thursday here and Friday/Saturday are the weekends. We are headed to the Dead Sea next weekend, so begins another adventure...

Ambassador's Fourth of July Party

Last night we went to the U.S. Ambassador's Fourth of July Party at the Embassy. It was in his garden and it was a beautiful evening.

This 4th of July party was for Jordanian dignitaries and other Ambassadors in Jordan. Due to Ramadan, the party didn’t officially begin until 9 P.M. and was scheduled to go until 11 P.M. We volunteered to help be greeters at the door, but by the time our shift started, the receiving line had already ended. We arrived at 8 P.M. and mingled among the guests and other Embassy personnel. 

They served juice at this party. Lots of sugary, thick, fruit juice. One guy who works in Chris’s office came up to us while we were holding a glass of juice and said, “I could only drink one glass and still felt like I just got diabetes. Again, because its Ramadan and it’s Muslim country, there was no alcohol at this particular party. 

It was a “cocktail” party so the food was presented by roving waiters. There were lots of little sandwich bites, mini hamburgers, and brownie bites. There was a lot of food, but I think many of the Muslims had just had their Iftar meal (breaking their fast) before arriving (see more on Iftar at the bottom of this post explains the juice.) The gate guards we actually enjoying their Iftar meal as we arrived. They were so hospitable, they tried to invite us in as we passed by the checkpoint office. 

I think the favorite food served was ice-cream. We didn’t have any, but I found it amusing to see a bunch of adults in cocktail dresses and suits eating a big chocolate or strawberry waffle cone.

We met a few interesting people. We met a Sheik from Saudi Arabia, the County of Georgia’s Ambassador, the Ambassador of Azerbaijan, a tribal leader of one of the tribes in Jordan, and my favorite was a little Armenian shopkeeper. We met some others as well, but the Armenian was eating a chocolate ice-cream cone and introduced himself to us. He owns a hand-blown glass shop in Amman and his name, Hagop, translates to Jacob. We told him that was our son’s name, he offered to make a Christmas ornament for Jake. He apparently has some of his pieces in the Embassy gift shop. He was just so cute eating that ice-cream cone and he was so sweet.

It was a nice party and we enjoyed seeing some fireworks of the 4th of July, even if it was really the 6th of July and this was our third Fourth of July celebration since we arrived in Jordan.

A picture of us outside at the party. We were the classy ones taking a selfie. But to be fair, it was hard to tell who was important and we didn't want to be the ones asking the Ambassador of some country to take a picture of us.

The upper right picture, we did have someone to take our picture. The upper right is obviously the fireworks. The lower left is just a photo of the band and some of the outdoor scenery. And the bottom right is a picture of some guys from Saudi Arabia who wanted their picture taken with Chris The man on the far left is the Sheik we had met earlier.

Today we have just been hanging out. We went to City Mall to get some cleaning supplies and to the park at the Embassy. We have been going through the process of trying to buy a car and Chris is doing all the legwork. The guy we are buying it from is always busy so it keeps getting bumped every day. Once we've paid for the car and have the title, we still can't really drive it until we get it registered in our names, which takes about 2 weeks. I'm getting anxious. Fortunately, my friend Kaylan left me the keys to her car while she's in Israel and I was able to drive for the first time today. I felt so liberated! 

From Wikipedia: Iftar

In the evening, dates are usually the first food to break the fast; according to tradition, Muhammad broke fast with three dates. Following that, Muslims generally adjourn for the Maghrib prayer, the fourth of the five daily prayers, after which the main meal is served.^[43]

Social gatherings, many times in a buffet style, at iftar are frequent, and traditional dishes are often highlighted, including traditional desserts, especially those made only during Ramadan. Water is usually the beverage of choice, but juice and milk are also consumed. Soft drinks and caffeinated beverages are consumed to a lesser extent.^[39]

In the Middle East, the iftar meal consists of water, juices, dates, salads and appetizers, one or more main dishes, and various kinds of desserts. Usually, the dessert is the most important part during iftar. Typical main dishes are lamb stewed with wheat berries, lamb kebabs with grilled vegetables, or roast chicken served with chickpea-studded rice pilaf. A rich dessert such as luqaimat, baklava orkunafeh (a buttery, syrup-sweetened kadaifi noodle pastry filled with cheese) concludes the meal.^[44]

Over time, iftar has grown into banquet festivals. This is a time of fellowship with families, friends and surrounding communities, but may also occupy larger spaces at masjid or banquet halls for 100 or more diners.^[45]

Independence Day and FAO Friends

Yesterday was the 4th of July. We spent the day mostly at home. We did take a trip to IKEA to get a shelf for the bathroom, but otherwise had a low key day. After Jake's nap, we went to the Embassy for dinner and played at the park.

Jake started the day by playing in a dry tub while lining up his ducks. He always makes sure they are in a straight line and all facing the same direction.

Then he asked Daddy to help county his piggies. Jake loves to count and he's pretty good at 1-8, but his favorite number is eleven-teen. And once he gets to eleven-teen, he repeats it over and over. 

Then he took a nap. I went in to check on him and found him like this, holding a giant roll of paper and foot propped on the wall.

Then we went to the Embassy and enjoyed some burgers with fries.

And today our big outing was going to Cosmo, the grocery store, to get some groceries. We had friends over for dinner tonight. Reid, Julie, Mitchell and Hank Farmer came over to do some laundry after their travels in Jordan this past week. And Dan, Kaylan, and Leila Pesature came over too. They are all headed to Israel this coming week and we will miss them all. The Farmers will return to Kuwait from Israel, so we won't get to see them again for a while. It was a good night and I'm glad we all got to get together before they left. Jake even had toys to share, now that we have our household goods. Safe travels friends!


Jake, Leila, Mitchell, and Hank

Julie, Bridget, and Kaylan

Dan, Chris, and Reid

The kids...

Wonderful Day in Madaba

Household Goods.

It's been a few days since my last posting. It has been a busy week, but has been pretty normal. A few significant events included the arrival of Jake's Mickey Mouse toddler bed in the mail and the arrival of some of our household goods from Alabama arrived. We also attended two playgroups, one at our social sponsor's house and one at the British Embassy.

 Above,  Jake enjoys his Mickey bed. And below Jake enjoys his "new" toys and our household goods.

Ramadan.

Ramadan started on Sunday, so things change slightly in the Middle East for the Holy Month. Muslims fast from sun up to sundown. Ramadan is based on the lunar calendar so the dates change a little each year. The first "experience" I had with Ramadan was during my first deployment to Iraq and I specifically remember Ramadan occurring during the month of October when days are a little shorter. Because Ramadan is in the summer months this year, Sunrise is at 5:30 AM and Sundown isn't until 7:45 PM. It make for a long day a fasting. Businesses and Restaurants have later hours and most aren't open during the day. We went to a wing restaurant last night and we had to sit upstairs where the windows were covered so we wouldn't offend anyone who could see into the restaurant.

Madaba. 

Today was a great day in Jordan. Chris had the day off since tomorrow is the 4th of July. We went with our friends Dan and Kaylan to the city of Madaba. It's about 30 minutes from Amman. We left our kids with a babysitter and had a baby-free day today enjoy with friends.

Madaba is a city known for it's mosaics.

From Wikipedia: Madaba (Arabic: مادبا‎), is the capital city of Madaba Governorate in central Jordan, which has a population of about 60,000. It is best known for its Byzantine and Umayyad mosaics, especially a large Byzantine-era mosaic map of The Holy Land. Madaba is located 30 kilometres (19 miles) south-west of the capital Amman.

The Catholic Church's list of titular sees uses the spelling "Medaba", traditional in reference to the ancient bishopric centred on this city, while at the same time referring to the modern city as 'Madaba".^[2]

Dan and Kaylan have been here since the end of January and they've been to Madaba quite a few times and have a "guy" there named Osama. Osama is a business man in Madaba that they connected with through another military family that is in the same program as Chris and Dan. They ordered a table from Osama a few months ago and it was ready to be picked up, so we asked to tag along.

Last night Dan and Kaylan called Osama to let him know that we were planning to come pick up their table today. Osama insisted that we come for lunch at 1PM. We were to meet him at his shop in town at 12:30 and then we would go to his house for lunch because he had some friends visiting and also coming to lunch. The friends are Mormons and consultants to the American University in Jordan. They are good friends with Osama and he does a lot of mosaic work for the Mormon churches in Utah, so they have a long-standing friendship.

We arrived in Madaba at 12:15 and we barely got out of the car before we were greeted by Osama. He is referred to as an Arabic George Clooney, and actually does share a resemblance. He took us to his shop and showed us Dan and Kaylan's table. They also have an ostrich egg that is painted with tiny, pin drops and I knew I wanted one too, so we made our first big souvenir purchase in Jordan. Osama threw in a few other things from his gift shop too. We left our things there and went to his big shop where tour buses stop on their way from Mt. Nebo. This is where we were to meet his other friends. The shop has a number of souvenirs from surrounding Middle Eastern countries. We spent about 2 hours waiting in the shop and looking around, and we got to see how the mosaics are made. They have 78 artists who handcraft the mosaics. It takes 4 years of schooling to become a mosaic craftsman and another year of apprenticeship before they artists can work on the really intricate mosaics.

At around 3:15, we went to Osama's house for our 1 PM lunch. But it was well worth the wait. His wife made us a HUGE lunch and it was wonderful. She fed 10 of us Americans in her house, all the while, she is fasting for Ramadan. She prepared Maqluba with all the trimmings.

From Wikipedia: Maqluba (Arabic: مقلوبة‎; Turkish: maklube; Persian: مقلوبه‎; Hebrew: מקלובה‎; ) is a traditional dish of the Arab Levant,Persia, and Jordan.^[1] The dish includes meat, rice, and fried vegetables placed in a pot, which is then flipped upside down when served, hence the name maqluba, which translates literally as "upside-down".

The dish can include a variety of vegetables, such as fried tomatoes, potatoes, cauliflower, eggplant, and chicken or lamb.^[2] When the casserole is inverted, the top is bright red from the tomatoes that now form the top layer and cover the golden eggplant.

Maqluba is usually served with either yogurt or a simple Arab salad (salata Arabia) of diced tomato, cucumber, parsley, and lemon juice, often mixed with a tahina sauce.

After lunch, we went back to the small shop downtown to pay for our ostrich egg and we also ordered a small coffee/end table, our second big purchase in Jordan. It was a fun day.

Below: Top left is a photo of one of Osama's shops. Top right is Dan and Kaylan seeing their completed table for the first time. Bottom left is a mosaic of St. George and bottom right is of the Tree of Life.

From Wikipedia: The concept of a tree of life has been used in science, religion, philosophy, and mythology. A tree of life is a common motif in various world theologies, mythologies, and philosophies. It alludes to the interconnection of all life on our planet and serves as a metaphor for common descent in the evolutionary sense. The term tree of life may also be used as a synonym for sacred tree.^[1]

Above: This is how the mosaics are made. They stretch out a piece of cloth and then draw and outline of the design on the cloth (the middle left photo shows the outline drawn on the cloth). 

A machine will cut stone into long, thin strips (the right side of the upper right photo shows a few of these strips of machine cut strips of stone).

From there, they use the plier-looking tool (like the one in the upper left photo) to clip the stone into pieces to place in the mosaic. The pieces are glued to the cloth, smooth side down. 

Once the mosaic is finished, they flip the mosaic over and remove the cloth so the smooth shiny side with be face up. Then they mount into a frame/table top with cement. The size of the piece and the size of the stones used determines the amount of time it will take to complete. Smaller stone mosaics can take a month or two, but ones using larger stones may only take a week. 

The above photos are of a Syrian craft where wood is inlayed with Mother of Pearl to make elaborate furniture. In the upper left corner is a photo of the wood in it's original form. The bottom piece of wood is Walnut, then to the left is Olive wood and to the right is lemon wood, and the thin piece on top is rosewood. All are used in making this furniture. The wood is machine cut into thin strips shaped like triangles, then glued together. In this case the middle left photo shows the circular block that is used in this piece. Once the triangular pieces form the circle, they cut the circle into thin pieces and inlay into the furniture. Once the wood is in place, the Mother of Pearl is glued into the piece (top right photo). The bottom left shows a pot of the glue. It's a natural animal glue and it didn't have a smell to it. The bottom right shows the finished product. It's a chess table with chairs built in. It is a beautiful piece of furniture and very intricate. One of these tables runs upwards of $8,000. But it is all handmade and crafted.

The upper left and right photos show the Maqluba that Osama's wife prepared for us. It was delicious. It was in a big red pot that looked like a big pot of rice. Then he tipped it over, exposing the other hidden treasures within. The chicken was wonderful. 

The middle left photo is of some of the ostrich eggs in the gift shop.

The bottom right is a photo of our lemon and mint drinks. Jordan and probably other Mid-East countries, serve this wonderful drink. It is lemon juice, fresh mint and sugar. So refreshing on a hot day. The plates are Turkish and just happen to be in the photo.

The bottom left photo is of a kid who looked to be about 12 trying to get a car out of our way so we could get out of the parking lot. Our funny story for the day is that after a long day of experiencing Osama's shops and generous hospitality, we were ready to go home and relieve our baby sitter of our kids and get ourselves home too, but we were blocked in. Osama tracked down the driver or some kid who had the keys to this car and asked him to move the car. I don't think the kid had ever driven before. It was funny to watch him try to back the car out of a very full parking lot. Osama is the man in the picture talking to the driver. Eventually, he got in and moved the car out of the way so we could be on our way. Just a funny little thing at the end of the day to make us laugh.

This is a picture of our Ostrich Egg.

And on our way home, we were not in so much of a hurry to get back to our kids that we didn't have time for desert. We stopped at a pastry store and picked up a kilogram of these wonderful treats.

That was our day. So much fun and it was nice to not have a toddler to chase around in the gift shops, but we missed our little bear. Tomorrow, maybe we can get him to the park. Or maybe we'll go to the Embassy for the Independence Day BBQ.

Jerash

We went to Jerash yesterday. It was HOT! The car read 100 degrees for external temperature and it felt every bit of 100. Somehow, that didn't slow Jake down much. We had to keep yelling at him to slow down and stop running so he wouldn't get heat stroke. The kid is pumped full of energy.

Jerash is located about 30 miles north of Amman. It was a pretty easy drive (of course I wasn't in the driver's seat), and a very scenic drive compared to the drive we took to the airport.

Located in Jerash is supposed to be the largest concentration of Roman ruins outside of Rome.

We met our friends, The Farmer's, at Jerash and toured the ruins together. We had trouble finding the ticket booth and it took a while to get started. Many of the tourist attractions are not well maintained compared to American standards. They have different rates for residents of Jordan and tourists. A tourist pays 8JD (about $11) and a resident pays .05JD (about $0.75).  There were no paper maps or clear directions or markings, other than the signs posted at some of the major features (paid for by USAID). Regardless, it was still really neat, just has more potential.

From Wikipedia:

Jerash, the Gerasa of Antiquity (Ancient Greek: Γέρασα), is the capital and largest city of Jerash Governorate(محافظة جرش), which is situated in the north of Jordan, 48 kilometres (30 mi) north of the capital Amman towards Syria. Jerash Governorate's geographical features vary from cold mountains to fertile valleys from 250 to 300 metres (820 to 980 ft) above sea level, suitable for growing a wide variety of crops.

In the latter Ottoman period, the city of Jerash's name was abandoned and changed to Sakib, yet this was not a permanent development, as the name "Jerash" reappears in Ottoman tax registers by the end of 16th century.^[2][3]

A strong earthquake in 749 AD destroyed large parts of Jerash, while subsequent earthquakes along with the wars and turmoil contributed to additional destruction. Its destruction and ruins remained buried in the soil for hundreds of years until they were discovered by German Orientalist Ulrich Jasper Seetzen in 1806.^[4] He began excavation and a return to life of the current Jerash by inhabitants of older villages. 70 years later, this was followed by the Muslim community, Circassians, who emigrated to Jordan from the Caucasus in 1878 after the Ottoman-Russian war. Subsequently a large community of people from Syria came to the area at the beginning of the 20th century.

Hadrian's Arch and our entry/exit point.

In the bottom right photo, Jake was very concerned about getting to see a TRACTOR that was was nearby. The tractor was his favorite part of the day.

Top right is in front of the Sanctuary of Artemis. Bottom left is in the Hippodrome. And the bottom right is the Farmer family, Reid, Mitchell, Julie, and Hank.

On the way home we stopped and bought some fruit from this guy. They have these little fruit stands all along the roads. Some aren't very far off the road and not far from the fields they come from. Some very sweet pears, figs, and plums.

And today, we played. Jake went over to the Pesature's house to play with their daughter, Leila, while the housekeeper watched them. Kaylan and I went and got groceries. She showed me a few stores that will be great in the future. After a few hours at home and a nap, we all went over to the Pesatures and had dinner. It was wonderful eggplant parmesan! Thank you Kaylan and Dan!!!