Amman West

Today is November 6 and, with 5 stops included on our tour, it is going to be a very busy day. So we leave our hotel at 7 AM to get an early jump on the day. We drive for ½ hour and reach the main highway between Aqaba and Amman, called the “the Kings Highway” which covers a distance of 330 km. (205 mi.). It is an excellent four lane divided road with a top speed of 120 kph (75 mph). As it is Friday (and Jordanians have Friday and Saturday ...

... from farewell drinks), headed straight out and up to the citadel and the ruins up there. Checked out the Archeology museum where they have some of the Dead Sea Scrolls on display.<br><br>Walked down to the Roman Theatre and around through some of the bazaars into downtown Amman - lunch at a place out of the Lonely Planet guide and they were right on.<br><br>Went back to the hotel ...

... password. Adib did his Arabic thing and then I did my pretend-I-am-Mary-Lshamada-Berger-becau se-she-is-the-person-on-the-contract-an d-you-can-only-get-a-contract-if-you-ha ve-residency thing. It didn't go well. I sort of ********ted through the "what's you passport number" question, but when he asked me what my (Mary's) date of birth was I just hung up. I never even met Mary for jebus' sake. Solution: we put a call into DeVan all the way in little ole' Dubai ...

... will actually be taking Arabic at the FCC too but in the afternoon, and Shawn who is from Minnesota heckled me all night since they were whooping Detroit's ass, haha. It was nice to see the game though, even if we did lose. I also learned that standing by yourself watching sports on TV is apparently a great way to attract guys, whether you want to or not. My favorite question was ::charming smile:: "Are you really watching this?" I should have said "Watching ...

... up for work in the morning. In the U.S. I believe we call this Matt Morey style, Haha. No, actually they stay up even later during Ramadan because they can eat while the sun is down. Anywho, it was a blast. We played cards, had coffee, had sweets, had Turkish coffee, and then had more sweets. So much coffee and sugar...at such an odd hour! Everyone was so friendly and nice and even though they spoke Arabic maybe 96% of the time they tried to keep me included and ...

... last night, I ate loads of food, 1/2 a kilo of cherries, falafal, hummus bread and salad and had a wonderful chery shisha - I feel fat now though!<br><br>I also went with an American dude to the citidel, high up above Amman to see the sun set - it was beautiful - Amman at 1st glance is a great city - I really like it here.<br><br>P.S Th drunk Swedish guy from Petra. I gave him a pillow th evening before I left when he was passed out on the floor. I went out ...

... and cooper scrolls. It took my breath away to see these. Now the Dead Sea Scrolls were found by accident when a shepard boy was following one of his sheep that got lost and went into a cave in a mountain. He decided to do what all good shepards do and throw a rock into the cave first to see if there were any lions or animals in there. When he throw the rock instead of hearing the dull thud as the rock hit the floor of the cave he heard a smash of terracotta ...

... or more times on the way down). We made two stops along the way, one of which Cory and I got out at, it was right along the Suez Canal. Unfortunately neither of us thought to ask where in Cairo we were getting dropped off. We (incorrectly) assumed that we were to be taken to the bus station we had left from, which was very nice and air conditioned. Our intent was to stay there for a couple of hours in the comfort before leaving for the ...

... a good price. <br><br>At El Arabi we had mixed salads with all the traditional timmings, hummus, falafal, etc., and water which came to 9 JD on the menu...but we mentioned Moseleh and it cost us 6. Sweet. <br><br>After dinner I wanted to call Aaron Mieszczanski for his birthday, so the waiter sent us to the mobile phone store across the street. I asked if they did international calls and they said they did for half a dinar a minute, or about 70 cents. That worked for ...

... couple of dollars. They kindly wrote the directions down in Arabic so that I could just hand this to the taxi driver in case he didn&#8217;t speak English. I was told that it was best to go early as there wouldn&#8217;t be that many people on the bus. I went to the bus station at about 6 am for the first bus out. Just like they had mentioned, there were only five other people on bus.<br><br> The interesting part of this bus ride is that it would ...