Rio Jordan Hotel Amman

... Part 1 only, Part 2 was atrocious and the movie even worse), which captures the feel for the era's pulp fiction entertainment and lower social strata in an over-the-top narrative the way, well, Pulp Fiction does for ours.

In the spirit of fairness and full disclosure, David Copperfield landed a pretty good preemptive sucker punch against me. On page 759, David observes that:

"Again, Mr Micawber had a relish in this formal piling ...

... cabana boy walks into my office and asks me if I would like some coffee. The answer of course is "hell yes" but instead of blurting that out I take a moment to reflect. Who is this mystery cabana boy? Is it appropriate to get a coffee from someone I am pretty sure I have never seen before? Is it American coffee or Nescafe? In the end I say "yes please, white coffee." I can tell this doesn't mean much to him so in my ...

... Tony up because he just lives a short walk away and he’s a cool dude. Tony grew up in Chicago but he is half Russian and half Jordanian with Russian being his first language. Now he lives in Jordan helping to take care of his grandparents. He’s a cool dude. Anyway, we wandered the Cultural Street in Shmesani between skater boys and hundreds of nargilehs before grabbing some coffee at El Farouki and then retiring for the evening.

Friday ...

... difference, but what do I know. Back to the Valley. Driving, driving, driving. The was a beautiful drive full of goats and date palms. You can see Syria and the West Bank from the Valley and we drove through a few Jordanian check points that didn't seem interested in us. The building that the JVA runs was pretty neat. It is one of the few old style adobe buildings around, complete with doors just my height, walls thicker than a donkey's rear, and peaked roofs that ...

... alternative? You guessed it, Tony Roma’s! It is really funny to me but she was treating us all and this is what she wanted so I gladly order a loaded baked potato with pan-seared sesame encrusted salmon (food really does taste better when you’re fasting). PS Baked potato with yogurt instead of sour cream equals surprisingly delectable. Not to be outdone, Casey treated us all to ice cream at a trendy well-known ice cream parlor. Ramadan plus Thursday ...

... 8217;ll say they’ve fixed the problem when they really haven’t. Another frustration is some people’s concept of time and responsibility, which I absolutely cannot stand no matter what country I’m in.



Besides frustrations though, one topic has really been interesting me since I got here, and that is relationships between Christians and Muslims and sexual relationships between men and women in general. I had learned about ...

... white wedding dresses. Tourists aren't taking them home. Maybe shoppers come in from some of the more liberal regions of Amman, but I'm not sure. The Sheiks, and by that I mean the men dressed in Gulf attire, seemed to be going to town, a lot of them were carrying shopping bags...but with what? They wear their white robes every day and their women are completely covered...maybe the answer is they were buying what's underneath...who knows. It just didn't appear that ...

... sites made out of little stones. After the mosaics we went to mount Nebo. Were Moses looked out of all of the Promised Land and was told he could not go in to it. We looked out over Israel and some of Jordon it was beautiful. We get to Amman and our hotel is called Century Park. Very touristy I know! A couple interesting things about the Century park is that the reason we were staying there is because the UN took over our old ...

... declined! To describe the experience of the Dead Sea in words is almost impossible. Certainly it is beyond my skills as a writer to do it justice. Walking into the water, you immediately feel resistance to even your feet landing on the sea bed as you descend into the water. I enjoyed little flashbacks to dreams of walking on the moon, and other similar implausible experiences which gravity should not allow. As you lower your bottom and then back into the water, your equilibrium ...

... at a much better Internet cafe. I went exploring Amman and went to visit the roman theater and citadel which was quite nice and provided good views of the city. After this I was feeling pretty knacked and headed back to the hostel to sleep for a while which did me alot of good as I was really not with it and a bit frustrated with everything. Luckily there is a TV in my room so I will be able to watch a few films in the ...