Amman and the Red Sea

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We spent about a week in Jordan, making our way from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea. Ryan has been working more, leaving less time on the computer to blog, and we've finally adjusted to the copious amounts of tea with copious amounts of sugar that had been keeping me up until the wee hours, looking for something to do. Jordan was amazing, although it was more expensive and the places we went were more touristy than Syria or Lebanon. Jordanians are definitely more relaxed than Syrians, and seem to like to argue less (maybe Connecticut to the US' New York)...

On Tuesday, April 7, we headed out of Damascus via Sarah's wonderful taxi service to Amman. There was some new rule at the border, so our cab driver had to drive us to a shopping mall where he put us in another taxi that could cross the border. Luckily Sarah had warned us this would happen, or we would have been sure we were being kidnapped again. On our way, we stopped at a market to grab lunch, and finally solved the mystery of the delicious green fruits that are being sold on carts in every city we visit. They are fuzzy, and really crunchy, and are served with salt, and they are... fresh almonds! They are in season for just a short time, and are sold fresh like that throughout the Middle East.

We had heard that Amman was different than the other big cities we've been in, and it is. It doesn't have the Old City that Damascus has, and it is harder to get around than Beiurt, because the City was originally built on six hills (back when it was ancient Philadelphia! Go Philly!). Now the hills are each little neighborhoods, which are really only accessible by car or bus or taxi, although the City has built a bunch of pedestrian staircases cutting up the hills. We went to a couple of the hill neighborhods, though not the nicest ones. Tuesday was Ryan's birthday, so we went out to a fancy dinner at the Blue Fig, where we had super good chicken, flat bread and pasta. After dinner, we wandered around the Roman ruins which are smack in the middle of the modern downtown.

The next day, we took a hotel tour to the Dead Sea, stopping by a City called Madaba and two biblical sites. Madaba is famous for mosaics, including a large mosaic map found on the floor of a church. The map was made in AD560 and shows all of the major biblical sites of the ancient world, labeled in Greek. Then we went to Mount Nemo, where Moses is said to have seen the promised land before he died.

The Dead Sea was awesome, tempered only by the fact that two days ago, I had some kind of allergic reaction and had little bumps all over my arms and back, which hurt a lot in the salty water. Despite this, we floated around quite a bit (so, so cool!) and I got a mud treatment.

On the way back to Amman, we visited Bethany-Beyond-the-Jordan, where ancient baptismal pools have been found, believed to be used by John the Baptist, including to baptise Jesus. There is a lovely little church there, built on the ruins of two earlier churches first built by the Byzantines, but not much else to denote the area. Very near the baptism site, Jordan and Israel (the West Bank, actually) are separated only by about 10 feet of river. Israel has a huge military building there, where two women where sitting with machine guns (hot, Ryan says), and a Jordanian soldier was walking around on the Jordan side. Our first view of the conflict, really, and a striking one.

That night, we went to a very cool cafe attached to the Jordan Conservation Society, which served delicious food, and has a study room with a small library. While Ryan did some work, I poked around the shelves and found the Amman City Plan!! It had all the same buzz words and goals we use back home.

A snapshot of headlines from the Jordan Times on April 7:

front page -
"Europe's role in middle east peace process critical"
"Palestinians, Israel hail Obama's commitment to peace"

inside -
"Syrian smokers puff away millions"
"Teen charged in murdering sister in latest so-called honour killing"

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