Holiday Inn Amman

... s projects and we had students from all three areas as well, including my group from King's Academy. Some of the breakout session were rough for me since everything was taking place in Arabic and Hebrew and translators were sometimes unavailable but it was still quite good. Lunch was a feast fit for a king and his entire court. After gorging ourselves Masashi, Yoichi, and I peaced out because we were behind schedule anyways and the translators weren't available ...

... was quite interesting<br>with mostly new 4-6 storey buildings of stone, glass and concrete lining the road; shops on<br>the ground floor and residential above. Shops are mostly small, and nothing very unusual,<br>but it&#8217;s always interesting seeing the local people going about their business. Traffic is<br>horrendous - there seems to be very little public transport - just the occasional bus on<br>principal roads only, some shared taxis and lots of ordinary taxis ...

Thursday: I successfully took the bus to and from work. Enough said. In the evening I was getting ready to out for Rawan's birthday and I was totally sad and jonesing for a clutch and a pair of heels. If I were at home I would have jumped in The Honda and made a mad dash for TJ Maxx and DSW. Alas I was not home so I called Tony up and said, "I know you're a dude, but let's say you're a woman and you need cute heels for a cheap price now, where would you go?" He ...

There is much less to write about this *visit* to Amman. The city looks even less impressive in the daylight, than it did in the night.The ride itself was a bliss, the bus took me from Afula all the way to the city, it was really convenient.There were more folks ...

... had an awesome American coffee and an avocado, chicken, tomato salsa sandwich with a side salad. Yum, yum, yum. It was so nice to eat out in public during the day! Haha. Plus Wild Jordan is located right on Jebel Amman overlooking downtown and a few of the other jebels (hills). Gorgeous view. You can see miles of Jordanian sandstone homes, green domed mosques lining the horizon, roman ruins perched on a nearby jebel, and the country&#8217;s flag (the largest fee ...

... stuff was working really well on my end which was sweet but I guess I was frozen in time on his end. Either way it was good to know my new mic and headphones work well for those types of calls because I have heard that calling cards are very expensive if you want to contact people in the States.<br><br> Casey drove us to the Plaza grocery store and I stocked up on mujadrah stuffs, cheese, pita, juice, and eggs. Yum. The pita ...

Marhaba (Arabic for hello):<br><br>Today we were invited to Aunt Eman's house to celebrate our cousin Malak's tenth birthday. She prepared a delicious dish called mousekhen. It is flat bread with spices, onions and chicken on top. Following dinner we had birthday cake and some Arabic dancing.<br><br>Hope

... including Wadi Rum and Petra and therefore had a cab to take them to Petra from Wadi Rum. Most cab drivers charge 30 JD for the hour and a half trip, but we could "split the cab" for only 20 JD. It kind of was a rip off, but we kind of didn't have a choice, because no one seemed to know, or cared to tell us, the schedule of the bus from Wadi Rum to Petra. That bus also cost 5 JD each, so we'd only save 10 JD and have to worry about unreliable bus time tables. <br ...

... city of Gerasa, built around the first century AD, and a large part of the city could still be explored. There was a roman theatre as we entered, as well as the odion. In the middle of the site is a huge oval shaped forum, which is a paved marketplace, surrounded by columns, and leading off to a number of column-lined streets. The main street of Jerash was flanked by huge columns and walls, and temples to such gods as Zeus and Artemis. We spent ...