Jerash, the adventure

Day 1 Amman:
At the breakfast table we all talked about the day's agenda, swapping ideas of nearby sites to visit. We gathered a couple people for a trip to Jerash in the early afternoon to see the Roman ruins. As the morning went on we picked up a few more tag a longs, with hopes of having a UCSD graduate student to guide us, we were soon set with reality. At 1030 a.m., we began to walk to the street to catch a cab: 10 Jordan newbies, non-Arabic speakers and 2 Lonely Planet guide books. This was mistake number one. Clearly we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, because of the number of people we were forced to take 3 taxis, mistake number two. We instructed for all of them to head towards the main Abu-dali bus station. On our way there I notice our taxi cab driver is a tad bit reckless and as one of the passengers is discussing a statistic of the accident rate between America and Jordan...Boom we get hit, how's that for timing. We rough it all the way to the station, even gave a tip, mistake number three. After looking lost waiting for the other taxis, we soon realize we were at the old Abu-dali station, clearly not stated in Lonely Planet, remind me to bitch them out later for not revising their information. We should have been dropped off at the North Abu-dali station, the brand new one. Without delay and slight concern of the others we dodge traffic to find a taxi headed to the other end of Amman. Did I mention my wallet was in a friend's backpack who was in the other taxi? Long story short we get to the station no sign of the others, hop on a bus for 45 minutes, 2 JD later, we arrived at our destination. We made it to Jerash, with help from a local Jordanian who was chatty and very interested in Americans lives. We walk amongst miles of ruins, sad we lost everyone, happy we made it and exhausted from the delay. Then I spotted a big group across the site it was our friends we see them and say ...Emillliiio, just kidding, but really it was the rest of our group..reunited, again. We held it together throughout the day with sight seeing of all the ruins and were able to all get a bus home together. Long story, Happy ending, thanks Jerash, you made this one hell of an adventure.