Amman Arrival

9 September

After a flight with the best cabin crew ever, we arrived in Amman along with a small group of other Fulbrighters. We sat next to a delightful young Iraqi woman. Very fashionably dressed, she was traveling from Brussels where her family lives to meet her boyfriend in Amman.

 The Queen Alia airport is large and open with big dome shaped windows at one end and lots of billboards advertising banks. The bathroom had no toilet paper, towels, or hot water. For a minute, we both remembered the Warsaw airport back in 1988—there was even that familiar fuel smell from Eastern Europe. But soon we were greeted warmly by Hussein and his son (emissaries from the Fulbright House) and two big vans. We rode with Gita and Aaron—she (Indian American) has the Fulbright, but they are both young filmmakers and on their honey moon). They just finished making a documentary about “threading,” the Middle Eastern art of removing unwanted hair with a string.
As we entered the city, we passed a Kentucky Fried Chicken, a MacDonalds, a Popeyes, a Burger King, a Pizza King, all busy in spite of the early hour. We entered what looked to be a nice neighborhood and were dropped off at a Howard Johnsons where most of us had a room waiting.

There was some confusion and two young Fulbriyhters had to leave for a hostel. We were in bed by three am.

We awoke and had a hearty breakfast. Beautiful olives, pickles, and peppers; watermelon slices, red oranges, yellow oranges, and spicy apples; eggs, sausages, fried potatoes, tomatoes, and mushrooms;  yogurt, cheeses, butter and breads. We keep meeting Fulbriyhters.

One from Athens, Georgia, James Reap, a specialist in preservation and environmental law (and more our age) walked us around the corner to C Town, a big plaza with a great super market. Big bins of spices fragranced the air. The fruit bins spilled over with luscious fruit-- figs and dates (dried and fresh), quavas, mangos, grapes, apples, melons, peaches, nectarines, etc. The vegetable bins were just as impressive. After that we found a bank easily withdrew dinars at an ATM.

It is becoming clear that we won’t be spending as much time shopping and looking for things as we did in Poland and in Palestine. We even had some luck with the wireless internet in the hotel; however, it is expensive.

We had a nice walk in the neighborhoods around the hotel, a good Italian dinner in the hotel (listening to Andre Bocelli on the sound system), and watched a little BBC World on television in the hotel room. (Where the shower curtain pole in the bath room had fallen down on Becky after taking her shower this morning.)

10 September—Another great day but this streak of bad luck continues to plague us.
We started off with another great breakfast at HoJo’s and we planned a field trip with James, Elizabeth, Robin, Sara, and Josh. We started at the Citadel which had magnificent views and paid five JDs for a guide who had studied English in US. He was good. We ended with a tour of the archeological museum. This area has a fascinating history. We left in two taxies—these young Fulbrighters have all studied Arabic at Middlebury College and make it easy for us to get along. They are also trying to teach us the basic Arabic words, such as please and thank you.

We had lunch at a hole in the wall soda shop. A nice woman fixed us sandwiches of Lebanon yogurt with a tart taste and a cheesy texture and sweet bread. Kevin had pepper cheese in his. Then we went to the National Gallery of Art—two graceful white buildings with a garden in the middle. The art was all done by contemporary Arab artists working in several different countries. The art in one building was mainly abstract, some with interesting Arabic script. The art in the other building had much more representational art with interesting political pictures, at least more easily interpretable as such, for example, a young boy throwing stones at Israeli soldiers in Gaza. The museum had a café with a balcony overlooking the King Abdullah Mosque which has a beautiful blue dome. A Coptic church tower and dome sits right in front. We drank cappuccinos and Amstel beers (which are brewed in Amman) looking at this beautiful view.

But, it was here that Becky realized she had lost her trusty Olympic camera somewhere, probably in the cab. Anyway, we still have the digital camera.

Amman has hills. Residential areas are joined together in the whole design, but areas are clearly marked. Some steep descents/ascents. The gallery and the small shop where we lunched is apparently a Christian part of town. We heard church bells. A funeral was followed by a wedding in a Catholic church we passed and then passed again coming back. Directions are really tough to get straight, and names of streets—it’s not a grid system at all. It’s hot in the sun but much cooler in the shade, of olive and horse chestnut trees among others.

Becky, Josh, Elizabeth, James, Sarah, Robin

Blue Mosque behind Kevin

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