Last some of you reading this heard, I was in the Paris airport on a 7 hour layover. I thought the layover was going to be boring and I was going to try to sleep (I didn't sleep on the plane at all), but when I got there (about an hour and a half after my flight landed, due to the aforementioned going through customs debacle) there were a couple of CIEE students waiting. We started chatting and every hour or so another couple of 20-something Americans would show up and we'd ask them if they were CIEE, and they all were. The flight ended up being filled with 15 or so of us. The rest of the night was surprisingly uneventful--we arrived, went through customs, got to the hotel, ate, and went to bed. So I'm going to move on to the official Day 1 now, the day after I arrived in Amman. First though, here is a picture of the Queen Alia airport, the first thing we saw upon arrival:
We got up at really early o'clock on the first full day to start touring Amman. The day was basically dedicated to doing all of the touristy things, which meant it was a PACKED day. There are a lot of touristy things to do in Amman. First we went one of Amman's most famous tourist sites, the Roman Amphitheater. It was pretty cool, and super, super steep to climb up. The view from the top was pretty excellent though, and you could really hear people from all the way down at the bottom:
The view of the Amphitheater from close to the top
The stairs were very steep.
View from the top.
After that we walked a very long ways, up many steep steps, to a local restaurant. It wasn't a sit down and order kind of restaurant; instead, waiters brought out a lot of sauces and condiments (like hummus) and some bread. They kept bringing out more sauces, over the course of about a half an hour. We kept loading up on bread, because after a while it seemed like that was all we were going to get. They brought us some cheesy, doughy things too. Then I was full. Immediately thereafter, they brought out the real meal: a plate of rice, lamb, chicken, beef, and potatoes. WTF. Virtually everyone glanced around like, "Wait, seriously, they expect us to eat all of this?" The worst part was that it was REALLY good. The meat was cooked really well, I'm a meat and potatoes gal, it was great. But I was full and my stomach could not take more than a few bites of each thing, and my plate was still way more than half full. We had all decided we were done when they brought out dessert. It had little, really sweet raisins that were really tasty, but again, I was FULL. Sam says we're each in the wrong country, at least in terms of food. I have no doubt he could have tucked in all of the food they gave us.
After the gigantic lunch, we had a session on "Where You Aren't," kind of a "we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto" lecture. We were given some pretty interesting statistics--turns out Jordanians have an average life expectancy of 78, whereas the average American (at least according to the CIA World Factbook) will live to be 71. Also, 101% of Jordanians own a cell phone. There are more cell phones here than there are Jordanians.
Aaaaand, finally, we also went to the Citadel. It's an old historical site, with an archaeology museum and a lot of crumbling old buildings. There's an old mosque reception hall, and columns from thousands of years ago... it would be great if I had retained any information on this site, but I didn't really--we were all too busy taking pictures:
The Citadel
This was in the archaeology museum; for some reason I thought it was sort of a silly sign.
The view from the Citadel is amazing; it's a totally panoramic view of East Amman. I can definitely believe that nearly 3 million people live in Amman. This city is PACKED.
Jordanian flag in the distance.
And a hand. I don't know if it ever had a body.
Today was equally packed, but it's almost 1am here and I have to get up early tomorrow. I'm moving into my homestay tomorrow and I don't know if I'll have any access to internet there... if I do, I'll probably update soon, if not, not until next week sometime. I'm experiencing some homesickness here, and a decent amount of fear and anxiety and general nervousness. I like it here a lot, but I also miss home and Beloit A LOT, so I would greatly appreciate any and all emails from people. I'll be sending postcards and letters to those who give me their address!
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