Amman!

Tuesday was Jordan's Independence Day, so school was cancelled and a few of us decided to take a bus to Amman, the capitol. The city is huge, and really crowded. It's built into mountains so the roads are kind of scary, but make the city look really cool. Mom, if you thought the cab drivers in New York were insane, don't ever come here you might die. Amman is a really interesting city though. In some areas it's crowded and dirty, then on the far west side is the palace and really nice areas, and downtown is a mix of that plus ancient Roman history. We went to Citadel Hill, (Jabal al-Qal'a), home to the temple of Hercules. The Umayyad palace/mosque there is beautiful, and there are remnants of statues and buildings across the hill. Amman is situated on seven hills, resembling Rome, and behind Citadel Hill is a huge amphitheater used by the Romans. It was thought to be built between 138 and 161 AD by the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius, and can fit 6,000 spectators. We climbed to the top–so scary! The steps were extremely steep and slippery from hundreds of years of use. I almost couldn't come back down, and Brianna and Jaimie and I had to sit on each step and scoot down like little kids we were so afraid of falling. We went to a restaurant for lunch that had all you can eat for 1 dinar...the tables were outside under an awning and they just kept bringing bowls of hummus, beans, vegetables, falafal and pita bread. Hummus in the U.S. is never going to satisfy me after this. We tried to visit a historical Byzantine church, now an art museum, but it was closed. An employee of the museum happened to be doing maintenance though, and let us in anyway, then brought us fresh squeezed lemonade, (which is why, as Brianna says, "you should only travel with pretty people)". The rest of the day was spent shopping, (Robert and Rick I got you presents!), and taking the bus home. We met some people on the bus who taught us much needed Arabic words in exchange for English sayings.
The day wouldn't be complete though, without a dramatic, language barrier incident, and that's where buying a hair dryer comes in. Brianna and I made a trip to the mall with Jay, (he came along only for food), because the heat is making my hair do crazy things and the dryer I brought doesn't work with my converter. It was a disastrous first week without it. We finally found hair dryers in a grocery store, (grocery stores here sell everything), but there was only the display, none on the shelf. I tried to ask, but was unsuccessful, and soon a group of women with babies were trying to help me and give me a stereo. "Phillips! Phillips is what you want!" NO, I want this Sizzler hair dryer do you not see the lion mane on my head? Next thing we knew there were three employees trying to figure out what I wanted, and after much difficulty they gave me the hair dryer on the shelf. We headed to the cash register, but one employee insisted we follow him to one side of the store, where he proceeded to plug in the dryer and wave it around to demonstrate its drying abilities. We couldn't stop laughing, and then neither could he, and soon the entire store had gathered around us. The ironic part is, as we waited in line at the register, we saw an entire crate of the exact same hair dryer waiting to be stocked.
Anyway, I'm getting used to things being insanely cheap. We usually eat for less than 1 dinar, and anything over 5 seems ridiculously overpriced. I'm going to come back stingy and cheap....Jamsheed you might have to force me to spend money in NYC, the most expensive, opposite place we could go after this.