One More Day in Amman

Yesterday I loafed around Amman to have a quiet moment for myself and I think that I succeeded pretty well. I already mentioned that I'd visited the Roman amphitheater and afterward I spent a record 5 hours in an internet cafe finishing up old posts, doing some online banking, and ordering a netbook from Dell. Erika can bring it to me in May when she visits. It's a good thing to have because it allows one to email frequently enough to use CouchSurfing.org, a social networking website where you can find people who have an unnatural interest in letting strangers sleep for free at their homes and to share stories and information. It's a great way to get closer to the real local culture and to make friends, also to save money. That would be most useful in an expensive place like Greece. Note that Greece is only really expensive relative to all the cheap places that I'm going like Syria.

Anyways, after the blogging I went out and got a great Bedouin dinner of lamb cooked in camel milk and served over rice. It's called mensaf. It came with a fresh salad of tomato, cabbage, and parsley with no dressing as is common in the middle east. Usually a squirt of lemon juice is added to bring out the flavor of the vegetables. After that I went back to the hostel to continue reading my book, Flaubert in Egypt, and made some real progress. Eventually couple American girls (Abby and Jenny) interrupted me and invited me to go with them the next day to visit Madaba, Mt Nebo, and some hot spring. I've already seen the first two, but it was hazy on Nebo last time, the whole trip was to be under $11 per person, and I liked the sound of swimming so I reluctantly agreed.

First we went to Mt Nebo, where Moses died after seeing the holy land. He wasn't allowed to go there himself as punishment for breaking the first set of tablets, but I still don't know what happened to the second set. Oh yea, there were in the Ark of the Covenant right? I learned that from Raiders of the Lost Ark. The picture is of the 3 of us trying to roll a fortified door of the old monastery on the site. They're building a spiffy new church there too, but it's not completed. Other than that the only thing there was a hazy view towards Israel and a very strange sculptured tribute to Moses called the Christiological Symbol.

Next stop was Madaba. I didn't care for the mosaics there the first time, so I just picked up some lunch to go and we eventually continued on to the hot springs. They were located near the dead sea and there was a rather spectacular drive down a canyon to reach them. Once we got there I was very annoyed to find out that it cost another $14 to enter the springs and I did not have the optin of sitting it out because you paid at a checkpoint on the road. Oh well. The springs were really great. Hot but not too hot and a huge waterfall dropping on your head. I had a good time talking with Abby and Jenny, but when we got back to the Hostel I declined to go with them to Jerash tomorrow. I don't really want to spend the money to see some OK roman ruins and I want to move on to Syria to meet up with my friend Min. So, tomorrow morning I'm headed out there and we'll see what I find.

For dinner I went back to the fantastic felafel place from the other day, Hashem. They've got pictures on the wall from the many times that the royal family has eaten there and it's considered the best in the city for that kind of food. I should mention that the royal family here is greatly beloved and pictures of the king and prince are absolutely everywhere. Part of the love comes from the general prosperity of the country, and part of it comes from the fact that the royal family created a lasting constitution in the 50s and led the elections of political parties and a representative government in the 90s. They also have banned the Islamists from running for power and have reaffirmed peace treaties with Israel and the US, despite losing the West Bank to Israel in some war a while back. The efforts have paid off for the people of Jordan. The people also love Queen Rania, a serious hottie, and last night someone struck up a conversation with me on the street about how much they admired her. Back to the food. The dish is felafel, a mixture of ground chickpeas, fried into balls. Served on the side is a salad of raw tomatoes and sweet onions garnished with mint. Also I was given hummus, pita, and some sugary tea to wash it all down. Very filling and only $2.