Amman!

So the taxi riding is going to have to be a whole separate post. Taxis here are...interesting. But we took several taxis to Amman (there were 15 of us or something close to that), and arrived at our hotel right in downtown Amman (in the old city) in decent time. After everyone made it, we went walking around the city and ate at this fabulous (and well-known) restaurant where they only serve falafel, hummus, foul, and bread. By this time I was starving, so I pretty much just stuffed my face. We just kind of walked around after dinner, went to the Gold Souq (souq = market) to look at very very pretty displays of jewelry that I would have loved to buy, and saw just a couple of sites like the King Hussein Mosque (which was right near our hotel).

I headed back to the hotel after that with Lilly and Kevin, and those two decided that this juice (smoothie) stand looked interesting so we stopped there for them to get smoothies. The guys at the smoothie stand became our new BFFs- they were so so funny and legitimately nice. They talked to us in some English about the soccer game between Egypt and Italy (I think Italy?), because the one guy was from Egypt. We talked to him about how we were studying Arabic at Yarmouk University and such, and he introduced us to this guy from New Zealand who was living in Amman, so we also talked to him for a bit (fabulous accent!). At this point, we were sitting in chairs right in front of the stand, and I failed to notice that some juice was dripping out of the blender and down the side of the stand right onto my back. Some women near us kindly pointed this out, and after the juice guys realized what had happened they were profusely apologizing and absolutely falling all over themselves to get me some napkins and water to clean myself up. Furthermore, they gave me a free smoothie for my troubles, even though I assured them that it was totally fine. This is just one of many examples of how people in Amman are like the nicest people I've ever met.

We left the nightlife plans to one of our program guys who has family in Amman and therefore knows the city fairly well, so he led us to a super nice rooftop bar with a great view of the city. We hung out there for a fair amount of time, rang up an astronomical bar tab (don't worry, I didn't account for any substantial part of the tab!), then went to a club to dance until like 3:00 AM. I originally was just going to stay in the hotel because, as you probably know, I'm kind of a homebody, I don't really go out much, and I am a horrible dancer. However, I did want to hang out with everyone else and get to know them better- it's kind of hard to hang out with people who aren't in your class level, and it's especially hard to hang out with the guys because they live in a separate part of the building and we can't visit each other in our apartments. In the end, I was glad I went, and I had fun with my terrible dancing- though I didn't go to sleep until about 4:00 AM.

We left the hotel by 9:30-ish the next morning (not enough sleep.) to go check out the Citadel and the Roman Theater (of which I posted pictures). It was amazing to be somewhere with so much history. We had a beautiful view of Amman from the top of the mountain (the Citadel is up way high), so I got a lot of pictures. I totally forget the exact ruins in some of my pictures, but we saw a Roman bath house, Byzantine church, and a bunch of other really old ruins. After the Citadel, we hiked down the hill and over to the Roman Theater, where we had to climb some dangerous-looking, weatherbeaten stairs to get to the top. The view from the top was totally worth the fear of death. Apparently they still hold summer concerts in the theater today, which I thought was pretty sweet.

We were all in desperate need of food after all of that hiking, so the group went to a restaurant recommended by our Citadel tour guide, where they supposedly served the best mansef in Amman. Mansef is like the Jordanian national dish- it's made up of lamb (or chicken), rice, and then this sauce made from yogurt that is dried out and then reconstituted with some water. You eat it all with bread, just like you do with almost all food here! It sounds weird, but it was actually delicious.

Post-food, I went shopping around with my friend Lilly and we both bought pretty hijabs and shirts. It was the first time I've had to haggle! It went okay, both the hijab and the shirt were cheap already, so it wasn't like we had to bring them down very far. By this time, I was absolutely exhausted from lack of sleep + walking around ALL DAY, so I went back to the apartment to shower (because I was gross and covered in ancient dirt) and take a wonderful nap. The bathrooms in this hotel were...interesting. They were shared by all the other rooms in our hallway, the shower was big enough to stand in and not move much, and we had to use our own toilet paper. That night wasn't as exciting as our first night, but I went out to eat with a small group and then we met the rest of the group at this Irish Pub place. Some of the group danced there, but I was so exhausted that I just sat around and had a few interesting conversations with all of the other tired people.

The next day, before we left, we got to actually go inside the King Abdullah Mosque, which was BEAUTIFUL. The girls had to cover our hair (hence, the hijab) and also wear a long black cloak (abayya), because we were walking around the entire mosque and not just staying in the women's area. They had abayyas for tourists to borrow, so it was no problem. It was the first mosque I'd ever been in, so I was just so stunned by how pretty it really was. My pictures don't even do it justice. And the guys at the mosque were super nice and gave us free tea after we were done looking around. The rest of the group went to visit a museum, but I went with 3 others back to our university because A) did I mention we were tired? and B) we had a load of homework to do before class the next day!

So, basically this whole long post can be summed up by saying: Amman is amazing. Please visit it if you are ever anywhere close to Jordan. The people there are literally the nicest people I've ever met- I know from some of my friends that some people in other Middle Eastern countries try to rip you off at every corner, but people in Amman were bending over backwards to welcome us, help us find places, and recommend good things to do and eat. I know for me, it's hard to tell sometimes if people (guys) in Irbid are being nice or if they are just talking at me because I look like some American floozy. But I felt so much more comfortable walking around Amman at all hours- I wasn't getting anywhere close to the attention I get in Irbid, because there are a lot of foreigners in Amman, and the city isn't nearly as conservative as Irbid anyway.

Oh, and useful info: being a student, rather than a tourist, gets you a lot of reduced prices! Tourists have to pay more at the ruins (and in taxis, but that's just another rip-off story for another time), but we showed our student IDs to the ticket windows and got in for almost no money. Well, actually, I forgot my ID, but at the Citadel, the tour guide just let me in with the rest of the group, and at the Theater I just went up and gave the ticket guy my most charming smile and told him (in Arabic, of course) that I had forgotten my ID, and he just smiled, laughed, and let me in cheaply anyway. I am not above using my smile to get into places!

Okay, so if you've made it to the bottom of this post, congrats. I now have to go work on my mountain of homework, which is the price to pay for having a fab weekend.

--K