An Outing in Amman

Day 48

So, it has been almost two weeks since this trip happened but it may still deserve some blogging. Coming off the group weekend in Petra and Aqaba, I decided I needed a solo outing to Amman to explore at my own pace and according to my own agenda (read: no agenda). I hopped a bus in Irbid and enjoyed my Ipod, Jordan guidebook, and people-watching my fellow passengers for the ~hour ride. Lots of families heading to visit relatives and commuter college kids heading home for the weekend. Our driver meant business so we were at the North Amman station in no time and I grabbed a cab downtown and started hotel hunting.

One advantage of going it alone for this trip was freedom of choice as far as my accommodations. The hotel Venecia is about as charming as it gets for 5JD (~$7) / night. Actually, it would have been 3JD but they only had a double room available. But hey, it had a sink, a more comfortable twin bed than my Yarmouk dorm room, and most importantly a working ceiling fan. The locale was the chief perk though, nestled in a bustling alley of counterfit DVD stands and dessert vendors between two major thoroughfares in downtown Amman.

Much of the capital is basically a city of hills, dividing its dozens of different neighborhoods according to where the streets climb from the flats of downtown. After dropping my bag off I set out on foot that Thursday afternoon for the well-preserved Roman Amphitheater and the crumbling remains of the Umayyid dynasty era Islamic palace (another earthquake victim) far atop just one such hill. My Yarmouk U ID was good for 90% of the tourist admissions at these sites so so far my expenditures were next to nil.

The best way to access these neighborhoods is by climbing one of the hundreds of long sets of stairs that snake unassumingly between homes and shops on street level. The only caveat is you have no idea whether a particular staircase will lead you up to your destination or into someone's courtyard garden. After the Ummayyid palace I took one flight down to a modern art gallery (Dar al-Fanun) inside a beautiful walled garden--Amman gets pretty cosmopolitan in some neighborhoods and has a strong art scene.

Unfortunately the place had closed for the employees' month long vacation literally minutes before I got there, so I diverted back downtown and checked out the oldest townhouse in Amman ("The Duke's Diwan"). The Duke is not royalty, but a very wealthy Egyptian businessman that bought and painstakingly renovated the site into a historic landmark. The entrance is easy to miss (thank you Jordan guidebook), and I found myself alone with the old caretaker. We chatted history of Amman and his life story over some coffee as I signed the well-worn guestbook. I held my own in our Arabic convo and so was pretty happy with my Duke's Diwan experience before my growing hunger compelled me to leave.

My restaurant choice, a trendy Indian food place (the Indu) on the first floor of the Hotel Continental--goodbye low expenditures by the way--didn't open til 7 so I ducked into a dive bar named Uncle Sam's. I didn't exactly feel at home as an American though amid a bunch of Jordanians drinking solo at different tables and gazing upon racey (by Arab standards) Lebanese music videos. But the Amstel was flowing and I had an hour or so to kill so I pulled out an Arabic newspaper and drank away the grim news stories of this region.

The Indu was excellent fare, but I was dining solo obviously, and spent most of my dinner ease dropping on the only other early-diners at 7. I'm pretty sure they were four State Department employees, judging from their exclusive use of English and griping about the bureaucracy of American foreign policy.

Full and happy, I headed over to my favorite neighborhood Jabal Amman to scare up some nightlife. I had heard of Amman's sole Turkish Bath and looked it up (after much wandering around) at about 10pm. The place was pricey but I figured it was a once in a lifetime treat so I indulged myself. Unfortunately I had forgotten my swimsuit that weekend and had to use the communal trunks (well washed of course--I used the smell test, but let's just say there was barely enough drawstring to bind them to my runner waste). The bath room was beautifully tiled and decorated in an authentic Turkish style. They were maybe 10 other guests in there with me, including three Frenchies, with whom I conversed in our only common language of broken Arabic. Apparently there is a process to the 2 hr. Turkish bath experience involving a shower, a spell in the hotteset sauna I've ever been in, jacuzzi time, another shower, a scrub-down atop a stone table by a huge Arab guy with a rough sponge, and capped off with a very soothing olive oil massage from another huge Arab guy. It did take a few attempts for me to explain to this last gentleman that he should avoid the rub-down on my shins as they are still tender from accumulated high-mileage weeks of running over the years. All the while, us pampered guests sipped on a delicious pomegranate smoothy to stay hydrated.

I capped my night off with some juice, apple pie, and an argilah at the trendy Booksah cafe. All the 20-somethings waitstaff speak excellent English and apparently Booksah is a popular hangout for Amman's young crowd. A bookstore downstairs, the top two floors of the place are a series of indoor bars and outdoor terraces nestled in steep hill that gives great views of the surrounding city. I think I maybe do too much people watching when I dine alone, and I took note of an older American gentlemen who had to be an American contractor from Iraq on his break.

After a good night of sleep I returned to Booksah for a Western brunch of omelets and pancakes and a huge mug of coffee with some homework (the Program's work is never done...). I spent my last hour in the city walking around Jabal Amman, checking out the villas, gardens, and craft stores in this beautiful neighborhood.

Booksah Cafe middle terrace at brunch

It was exactly the kind of relaxing solo outing I needed, and my sometimes aimless wanderings should be of some value to me for the 8 months of my research I will spend at U of Jordan in Amman...

Growl

Day 39

Very busyish these days.

Spent a weekend in Amman--more on that and pictures later--and will be heading to Jerusalem/Tel Aviv starting tomorrow evening. Probably off the reservation for 5 days or so...

Petra, Aqaba, and the Dead Sea

Day 31

All I can say was that was a weekend.

33 of us students plus a few administrator types (usually cooler than their title might imply) piled into a semi-air conditioned Yarmouk U bus Thrusday afteroon for the ~4 hr. trip south past Amman down to the ancient Nabitean city of Petra. The locals in the small surrounding modern city, and really all Jordanians, are pretty proud that Petra was just voted on of the new 7 wonders of the world in an international electronic poll (yay democracy!) and will stop at nothing to mention it to you every time you drop the P word. We spent that first night relaxing in the swanky Crown Plaza hotel--Amstel never tasted so good--and its terrace pool overlooking the rocky mountain range from which the stone city was carved.

Setting out at 630am the next day sounded like a terrible idea wilst lying peacefully in my cushy hotel bed (our Yarmouk beds are pretty much petrified foam mattresses), but the logic of it all became readily apparent having hiked out of Petra 4 hours later just as the heat of the day was bearing down on the throngs of less fortunate arriving tourists and Jordanians. The approach to the city weaves through a narow canyon pass, a river bed dried long before even the Nabitean people happened upon the site. It provides a kind of surreal difference in scale between you and the high canyon walls, as well as a building anticipation for whether the city lies around the next bend.

The siq, as it were, finally opens up into a canyon, with the magnificent facade of the Nabitean treasury carved back into the rock face dead ahead. The interior chamber o the treasury is actually pretty small (maybe they shunned materialism), but its face is likely the image voters saw when tagging Petra a world wonder. The whole structure is maybe 70/80 ft. tall yet intricately detailed, and honestly very impressive.

The main structures--tombs for the rich, amphitheatres, city hall, etc.--aren't the only buildings carved out of the rock face, however. The cityscape is also dotted with crude homes and a network of stairs that wind up the sides of the canyon to access the mountaintop monastery and sacrificial altar and whatnot. It was quite a workout climbing up to see them (the monastery for example is 850+ steps up) but definitely worth it not only for the architecture but for the fantastic views of the valley below.

Somtimes, we didn't even know where to go or exactly which stairs led to the summits. A good rule of thumb was to just follow the odd Bedouin Arabs here and there selling their handycraft (some of whom actually live in the smaller, simpler Nabitean houses further away from the main city center), or the droppings from the donkeys/camels that locals try to goad Westerners into riding for the climbs up the canyon.

It was a tiring but rewarding trek. My kuffiyeh scarf managed to keep the sun of my neck, but our legs were pretty dogged by noon when we headed back for more four-star hotel pampering and ice cream. Oh the life of a foreign tourist ain't easy in Jordan...

But alas, there was more relaxing to be done at the Red Sea resort city of Aqaba, at the Southern tip of Jordan. Clearly designed to be as tourist friendly as possible, the clothing conventions and levels of spoken English are a clear departure from sleepy insular Irbid. What's more we were shacked up at the swanky MovenPick (Swiss chain), which had three pools, three restaurants, four bars, and most importantly, a strip of well manicured beachfront. It's clear take-away selling point though was a massive Western European style brunch. It was a welcome departure from the standard fare, and breakfast food happens to be among my favorite eats anyway. I ate six pastries with my meal for example.



The Red Sea is on the saltier side and not crystal clear by any means, but let me assure you it felt amazing after walking around in the stuffy humid coastal weather. A lot of laying around on beach chairs was also done. Being 22 going on 40, I brought one of the Jordanian national papers to read (picture below about sums up my serenity in the moment...).

The 2-day trip was capped off with a stop at the Dead Sea at sunset en route back to Irbid. It was perfect timing and the sky was a nice soft pink. Didn't get to dip into the water because of time constraints but we did check out the pillar of rock that Lot's wife is said to have been transformed into. Ok, so Jordan is just East of the Holy Land, but so many Biblical references on our weekend outings here is enough to guilt trip you about so many inattentive Sunday mornings throughout childhood. Still, a fittingly-picturesque ending to the weekend.

















Still catching up on work and sleep but happy to have missed them both for a couple days.

Staying Local

Day 27

Pretty relaxed week here. I've been keeping busy with work, and unfortunately a lingering stomach bug prevented me from a trip to Amman last weekend. Fully recovered now (actually by Sunday), and after today's test--another challenge, to put it lightly--I'm looking forward to our group trip South to the ancient city of Petra, now one of the new 7 wonders of the world, and the Red Sea resort city of Aqaba. More on that trip later.

Cheers.

As Sham

Day 19

Finally decompressing from last weekend's trip to Damascus (As Sham) in Syria...

It was another stellar weekend outing, leading me to believe I should pretty much travel every free day I get (not too many here) regardless of work. A largish group of 13 of us + one of our program directors Medhat (a former UN translator turned UVa prof and all-around great guy) departed Irbid on Thursday eve. We piled into 3 hired private taxis for the 2+ hour drive north across the border.

Two of the cars were straight out of Dukes of Hazard--huge Chevys with wide seats and a lot of torque. Our drivers were all brothers and knew the ins and outs of the border crossing. I should say border crossings; there are about 4 checkpoints on each side of the line. It was more of a pain coming back actually, because our trunks had to be searched to prevent Syrians smuggling arms in to the small Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan or en route to Palestine.

The group got a lot more manageable when we split up to find lodging in Damascus. I ended up in a group of 6 splitting two rooms at a relatively nice (read: air conditioned) hotel in the middle of the new part of the city. Most of each of our three days was filled with long walks to explore the city and check out the sites. Getting lost and then found in a foreign city on foot is pretty much the best way to learn its layout, so many miles later we had journeyed into the old (walled) city.

Syria is definitely a police state. Our hotel was a stone's throw from the Interior Ministry, so the place had guards everywhere. But there are also armed police on every other street corner it seemed. It turned out to be a real benefit actually, as they are great people to ask directions and are either bored enough or intrigued enough to have very nice conversations with us Americans. If nothing else, we all felt extremely safe here, contrary to U.S. State Dept. travel warnings...

If new Damascus is a pretty normal modern city of concrete *medium-rises, old Dimashq is straight out of centuries-old Byzantine and Islamic eras, with narrow alleys, tunnels, and small stone buildings--many of which have been converted to cafes, shops, and restaurants catering to both tourists and the throngs of Syrians walking the same ancient streets.

On Friday, we checked out the Muslim section of old Damascus, namely the HUGE open air market suq hamidiyya and the very old Ummayyid Mosque. The market and mosque were closed for the (Muslim) sabbath, so we pretty much just took in the outside of the mosque and tried out the famous ice cream at the one shop still open in the suq. It was a softer, more subtley-flavored strawberry cone, covered in crushed pistachios. Different and good.

The mosque is beautiful. First a pagan temple in Greek/Roman times and later a vast Byzantine church, the Muslim conquerors offered to trade several prominent captured churches for the Christians' major worship center in the 8th century. Although we didn't venture inside until Saturday, the 6 of us dined at a classy roof-top terrace restaurant overlooking the mosque on a beautiful and pleasant summer eve. The view couldn't be beat and the excellent food (plus rare offering of beer) made it a great choice. I guess the place is an expat hangout, because someone from our group randomly met up with a classmate from Middlebury College, and a large group of French students dined behind us. Its probably the good eats, views, and booze that draws us all, along with Damascus' upper class.

View of the Ummayyid Mosque from our roof-top dinner.

On Saturday we returned to check out the inside of the mosque and do some shopping at suq hamidiyya. Our ladies had to dawn some drab gray robes for the visit inside the mosque, but fortunately the patriarchy only required me to take off my sandals. The mosque has a giant walled courtyard and a vast prayer room covered with carpets, inside of which lies the tomb of John the Baptist (also a holy figure for Muslims). Self-directed wanderings and photos are the norm in the mosque. Actually I didn't feel that out of place compared to the giant Asian tour group making its way about the place. We also checked out the (supposed) resting place of the crusades hero Salahidin, which turned out to be not as impressive as his statue outside the old city walls.

The suq is absolutely filled with people on Saturdays. Not only do small shops line its sides--divided into sections according to their fare: spices, gold, trinkets, hukahs :), etc,--but pushy vendors also try to hawk their stuff in the middle of the wide streets. I did my share of gift-getting (after some haggling, which made me feel good about my Arabic), and also picked up a kufiyya for myself. Rather than dawn it Yasser Arafat-style, I prefer to wear it as kind of a messy scarf. I think it's a good (and stylish) compromise for the Westerner. Oh, and another random expat encounter: one shop we bought some refreshments from opened up into a courtyard and the owner's house. When he heard that we were studying Arabic he invited us all in to meet the Swathmore College student he was hosting for the year as an exchange student. The guy was only a week into his stay so he was probably pretty pumped to see some other Americans about town. It's also refreshing to know they're are other people crazy enough to just jump into immersion language study in the region.

Anyway--finally, we took a walking tour of the Christian quarter led by Medhat. He is a native Lebanese but met his wife in Damascus and was a great tour guide. We saw St. Anis' underground chapel and tracked St. Paul's trip through the city, including the spot where he was lowered over the walls in a basket to escape some angry Jewish residents. I'm a little rusty on my Biblical history I will admit, so the tour was doubly-educational. We also squeezed in some trips to various denominational churches--Greek Orthodox, Maronite, etc. before calling it a day and grabbing some quality food at Medhat's favorite haunt in the middle of the new city.

The only real downside to the trip (besides perhaps a 10pm return time on a school night) was the stomach bug I brought back with me to Irbid. No details necessary but suffice it to say it kept me from running for another two days.

Alright, long post. Plus I'm tired. I'm planning a trip to Amman with some folks this weekend for some more city exploration + night clubbing (not available in sleepy Irbid), so more after that trip for sure if not before.

Salahidin

A Week in the Trenches

Day 19

Apologies for the dearth in updates.

Things got a touch crazy here last week. Just a heavy work week, capped off by additional studying for the first of 4 progress exams. Stuff kind of piled up, and I've had much better tests in my day. Eventually I convinced myself that the most important thing is what I am learning, of which the exam may or may not be an accurate gauge.

The real victim last week, however, was my running. Only hit the pavement for two days, because the 7pm magic weather hour was often sacrificed for group work or more reading. I am going to try to prevent that from happening again, whatever the work load. It's just a good dose of mental/spiritual health. Anywho, more to say...