The Middle East has a different work week than the Western world. In most middle eastern countries, the work week is Sunday through Thursday, with Friday being dedicated to worship and family. This is parallel to Sunday in the West. This means that most businesses are closed or have limited hours on Sunday.
This particular Friday, was incredibly cold and insanely Windy. We new the weather forecast included high winds approaching 30 mph, but we really weren't ready for all the noise over night from the gale force winds. Our hotel, is on the second floor, and sits high upon Jabal Amman, (one of the many hills within Amman, with a large drop off across the street. Therefore, it is fairly unprotected from the elements. Most of the night the wind was violently howling and whipping against the side of our bedroom, rattling the screen door to our porch, as well as the sliding door itself. This made sleep very difficult. We slept in a bit later than expected, but then we got ourselves up and ready, heading out to grab breakfast before today's activity at Beit Sitti.
Right down the street from our hotel was a small coffee shop with a wide array of lattes and other coffee drinks. They had a food menu, unfortunately most of it was not available until later in the day aside from some pistachio cake. As we were sitting there enjoying our coffee and cake, Aimee found a book that piqued her interest. It was entirely in Arabic, however it had a picture of a cat on the cover, so of course she loved it. Later, (using my Transalate app) we realized it was entitled "The Beach."
After breakfast, we walked about 20 minutes to Beit Sitti. While the location was not far from our hotel, the fascinating thing about Amman which you can't tell from maps or GPS, is that it is extremely hilly, with massive staircases between streets, and none of the streets are flat. Unfortunately it was still raining and quite windy. Getting to our Destination required descending a massive staircase on Jabal Amman, but then climbing steeply inclined streets and additional staircases up Jabal al Lweibdeh. In the rain and wind. Distance wise the walk was not that far. Climbing the many staircases however was incredibly exhausting, especially while breathing the 40 degree air in, and dealing with windburned faces. (While we did have a car, parking can be very challenging in the cramped narrow streets, navigation can be a challenge, and of course you miss a lot of the city while driving, so we decided to walk.)
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| Stairs Everywhere!!! |
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| Various Elevations Make for Stunning Views |
Eventually, at about 7 minutes before our appointment, we arrived. Beit Sitti translated means "Grandma's House." A family in Amman decided to open up their house to help people learn how to cook local dishes, all in the warm environment of a local family's house. We arrived and our "grandma" (who was not a grandma at all, and was hired by the owner family to help with some of the classes, not that that was of any concern) was waiting for us. She welcomed us in, took our wet clothes and even brought me slippers to wear since my shoes were wet (and I didn't feel it appropriate to wear them in the building anyway). She introduced herself to us as Umm Hamad (I believe this generally compares to Mrs. Hamad). She was an Egyptian mother of 3, who spoke very little English, but was nonetheless very good at communicating. It appeared there was a slight confusion that she was expecting us at 10:00am, and we didn't arrive until 11:00. (I double checked our reservation confirmation, and did confirm, that we were scheduled at 11:00, none the less I felt bad for the misunderstanding.
Over the next couple hours, she worked with us and led us step by step to make homemade falafel, fool, batata, bread, hummus, and a spicy tomato and hot peppers side. Umm Hamad was very patient, but at one point while watching me vs. Aimee told, more than asked me "you don't cook very much". We laughed, and I said that is true. "She cooks, I clean." At several points during the class, Umm Hamad would have us put the tops of our hands out, and she would sprinkle spices on them for us to try before she put them into the mixtures.
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| Grinding Falafel Mix |
Once all the food was done, we had a massive spread which she laid out on the table for Aimee and I to enjoy.
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| Compliments to Umm Hamad |
Originally after our cooking class, we had intended to walk to the ancient Amman Citadel, which included ruins from over 2000 years ago. We could see the Citadel from many areas along our walk, and it was clearly at a very high elevation, and given the wind and rain we knew it would be freezing.
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| and More Stairs |
We had developed a list of in door alternatives in the same area that would be dryer and warmer, and decided to head that way. The wind had let up a little bit, and there were bits of sun peaking through clouds, though there was still sporadically very heavy winds. As we got to the first site, the Duke's Diwan, it appeared to be closed. At this point though, the sky had cleared up nicely, and the sun had warmed things up a bit, though the wind was still biting. So we decided to continue to head over towards the Citadel, and see if the weather would hold out to go see it. There are several related ancient sites in and around the old castle itself, all of which sits right in the middle of the city, and we looked at several of them starting with the Nymphaeum, and then the Roman Theater.
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| The Nymphaeum |
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| Path to Roman Theater |
These massive stone buildings were quite impressive if not just for their age. As we approached the Roman Theater, we were asked if we had tickets, to which we said we had a Jordan Pass, and they let us in. Immediately an older man introduced himself as Mohammed and assumed the role as our guide. As he explained what he would show us, I asked him how much this would be. (In many countries it can improve a tour such as this dramatically by having a local guide. It is always good to confirm price up front. At best this prevents awkward surprises afterwards, at worst this can prevent the unscrupulous "guide" to gouge you with an unfair price at the end.) Mohammed quoted $25. This did strike me as a bit on the high side, but I did not argue and told him I would pay the fee.
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| From the Top of the Roman Theater (Citadel in the Distance) |
Mohammed had quite a bit of personality. After giving us his name, he stated "that's what they name all of us here, Mohammed, Mohammed, Mohammed. He touted his near professional caliber of photo taking skills, and talked a mile a minute (but in very good English). The tour, while covering many of the intricate details of the Roman Theater, ended after only about 20-25 minutes. (Confirming the fee was very hefty for what it was.) Nonethe less, we paid him and went back to look at things closely on our own with the context of what he taught us. (he remained in the area and continued to answered many of our questions.) Attached to the Roman Theater, there were a couple mini-museums which also contained quite a bit of interesting antiquities and perspectives into the bedouin life in recent history.
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| Museum of Popular Traditions |
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| Folklore Museum |
Upon leaving the Roman Theater and other nearby sites we decided since the weather was still holding out to try climbing the steps up to the Citadel itself. From where we stood it looked incredibly intimidating, due to how high the top of the mountain was that was just across the street. We figured we could always start and turn back. The trek consisted of several incredibly long staircases, alternating with some zig-zagging very steep streets.
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| Resting on one of many Stairways to the Top |
When we got to the very top and made the last turn, we were greeted with a wind gust to the face that was as subtle as an unexpected snowball to the nose. The wind was unbelievable. We showed our Jordan pass and entered. It was clear we could not spend a lot of time up here. The first main site was Hercules temple.
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| Hercules Temple |
After taking a very quick picture of this, we headed into the museum and spent a bit of time thawing out and looking at the antiquities there, some of which were around 10,000 years old. We then decided to take a very quick look at the Ummayyad Palace, which sat behind the museum surrounded by a quite a few more ruins. We did an extremely quick run through of this, and then decided to get ourselves back down off the mountain to a warmer climate, and back towards our hotel. Fortunately, down was much easier than up.
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| 6,000-10,000 year old artifacts |
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| Its COLD |
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| Inside Ummayyad Palace |
On the way down, there was one stretch of road that was fairly empty, and many of the businesses closed, seeing as it was friday. We walked past a Jordanian man that looked to be about in his 70s that was getting into his car. As we walked past him he looked up at us, and said "Hello. Welcome to Jordan. I hope you enjoy your time here." In a city of 4 million, comparable to Chicago or New York, it struck me, that I don't think anyone in our cities would simply greet a foreigner with a smile and such a warm greeting for no other reason than to be friendly as they simply walked by. This underscored one of the reasons I wanted to come here, as the local culture has a reputation for this sort of extroverted hospitality.
After a long scenic walk, we arrived back on al-Rainbow Street, and decided to stop for some coffee before freshening up for our upscale dinner we had planned. There was a small shop called Atwaar Coffee, which had music themed decorations nearby, and Aimee grabbed a latte and I grabbed turkish coffee and we enjoyed it much as it warmed us back up.
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| "Atwaar Coffee" |
Following this, we got ourselves cleaned up, and called an Uber to take us to Alibi, a restaurant I had scoped out with upscale dishes, and fancy looking cocktails. Unfortunately, Alibi had no tables available and on their recommendation, we ended up at "District" next door. The food and drink were good.
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| District |
This was followed by another Uber ride to Maestro Bar which has live music on Fridays. Our Uber driver was incredible friendly, and told us how he loves to speak English to his riders to practice and talked about how proud he is of his country, but gets embarrassed sometimes due local drivers honking and driving aggressively. He said "everyone in Jordan is nice, except when they are driving". The band at Maestro did fairly kitchy lounge versions of Elvis, Sinatra, and similar songs on a bass, an oud, keyboard, and vocals. The place was full, so we had to sit on the terrace and watch/listen through a camera feed on the TV. Nonetheless, we listened and Aimee enjoyed a Jordanian wine, and I had a local Carakale beer, as well as a small desert, and then decided to Uber back to the hotel.
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| Carakale at Maestro Bar |
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