well right now i'm in israel but i just spent the day in jordan

shalom! so eilat and petra. thursday after class the 6 of us "scampered" over to the bus station- scampered? lies. actually what happened is the bus took forever to get to our bus stop, we hit TONS of traffic, and all desperately looked at our watches as we arrived to the central bus station with 5 minutes to retrieve our tickets and find and board our bus. 5 minutes wasnt enough...2 girls missed the bus. Thankfully there was a 2nd bus going at the same time and they managed to stowe away on that bus until we met up at the first rest stop. adventures already.
we stayed at the eilat youth hostel and guest house..my first first hostel and it was a success. once we arrived (around 830pmish) we strolled the boardwalk for a place to eat- boardwalk was sooooo jersey shore. we had dinner at a kinda shanty place but it was good and then we all passed out and went to bed! we woke up promptly at 830am and headed to the beach for a full day of mid 90s weather on the beach! it was amazingggg but sososo hot. instead of lounge chairs we went to the beach that has mattresses its like being in bed on the beach they were amazing and the only reason we moved all day was to cool off in the RED SEA and reluctantly to get food. then we went banana boating around 430- large mistake. the guys running the "ship" were young beach bum israelis who spent the entire time trying to make us fall into the water- thankfully they failed- but my arms and legs are still sore from fighting to stay on. then we returned to our hostel and got ready for emma's bday dinner! we went to this amazing tapas restaurant where we ate an insane amount and variety of food and i got a delicious passion fruit margarita. after, we got emma her first legal shot at midnight and went to a club for a little bit- sounds lame but were quite exhausted from the heat and also anticipating our 630am wake up the next morning for petra!

petra: we arose at 630. hurts. we got our boxed lunches and were picked up in a van by our tour company. our group was only 20 and consisted of a american/japanese fam with little girls and grandparents, travelling alone man with camera, three ppl in israel for a conference, and two kibbutzy type girls that left the group half way into jordan...and never came back...20 in total very nice. we got to the border of jordan at 7am...it opens at 8am. but it was all in the name of being the first at the border and the first to cross. and first we were! once inside the border (seems not make sense but there is an inside) we made friends with the jordanian shop ppl and one specifically who made the sand in the bottle stuff (ya know what i mean? designs made by colored sand in bottles?) i got one that says my name in arabic and has camels. once the company processed our passports and stuff we crossed the border into jordan. here is a picture of the 6 of us at the border:

next we drove for 2 hours through "jordan" aka mountains and desert. it was absoutely beautiful. there were tiny villages perched so high into the mountains with the most beautiful views and random "flocks" of sheep and goats everywhere. eventually we made it to the center of petra and began our tour. our walk was three hours through the silica quarries. essentially it is a bunch of rocks but a longlong time ago used to be a booming civilization. there are lots of tombs and distorted rocks that were clearly columns or houses. everything is HUGE and minerals in the rocks have brought out some gorgeous colors. naturally things have changed over time and some of the rocks have even taken on new shapes like this elephant below:

this big site of petra is at the very end and is called the treasury. it is the most well preserved piece in petra, is enormous, and gorgeous. when looking at pictures u must notice the size of people compared to the treasury but its really impossible to see. heres another pic of the 6 of us hanging during the walk

at the end of the tour there were two camels chillin. obvs we needed pictures. unfortunately this fly started attacking my camel and the camel got really angry and tried to eat the fly/me. this is the picture that was captured during my near death experience with the camel:

after our three hour tour we had a few options of how to return to the beginning and opted to go on a donkey ride through a benduoin "village". lies we went up lots of hills and mountains but didnt see a village. but thats ok. our donkeys were sweeeet and their cushions were made from kids blankets so they had spiderman and barbie on them. loved it. our guides were two young benduoin boys who were hilarious and everytime they got tired they awkwardly jumped on our donkeys and rode along with one of us. heres me on my donkey :

*note spiderman blanket on the nose

after the donkey ride we went to back to the bus and got lunch with the group. i also bought a tapestry- its gorgeous and a good jordanian souvenir! then we started our 2 hour drive back to the border, went through again and said bybye to the sand man, and returned to eilat. in sum: petra was amazing. its really hard to explain but the whole place is sooo beautiful and such a surreal site. i guess its why its one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. being in jordan was a cool experience as well- theres arabic all over israel but theres also hebrew with it and there was certainly no hebrew in jordan but it was a different feeling than being in turkey. i would definitely be curious to travel further into jordan to amman and other cities but i dont think i'll be doing that anytime soon.

back to eilat: we returned to eilat and went to dinner at this chic japanese place. then we passed out. we once again arose early in the am put our packed bags away in the storage room of the hostel and headed to the beach. thankfully there was a breeze on sunday so less getting up. we even had lunch on the beach to maximize our time. wanting no more adventures we left the beach early, got fro yo, and headed to the bus station with plenty of time to spare. we boarded our bus and finally arrived back in tel aviv around 1030pm. it was exhausting!

so thats about it! it was such an amazing weekend- i loved travelling to a new place in israel and getting to soak up the sun in 90 degree weather. travelling in and out of a different country in one day was a cool thing as well and getting to be at an ancient wonder of the world was a really cool experience. it was so relaxing just to travel with us 6 girls and i really couldnt have asked for a better weekend!

next up on the agenda: mommy comes to israel!!! tomorrow!!!! i cant wait! i'm so excited to show mom around her first time in israel (probs not her last since im never leaving...oops did i say that out loud!) and after mommy i will be "going to greece" as long the whole country isnt on strike- dont they know i booked my flights already! rude!

p.s. if you want to see all my pictures from petra (gorgeous) email me and i can send you the link

xoxo