Winter is coming in Amman! Part I

Saturday November 8, 2014, currently in my living room in Shmaisani
It is insane that my fall semester is a mere 7 weeks from being over! It has progressed so quickly that I haven’t been able to keep up with blogging. Here in Amman, I am actually pretty busy with school, interning at INJAZ Al-Arab, and going on trips out-of-town most weekends.

Me at the top of Harisa tower in Lebanon. What a view!

Also, things you would not have to deal with in America are time-suckers here. Getting taxis - while always being a hassle - has gotten even worse as the weather descends to a brisk cold with scattered rains that cause major traffic jams. I had to wait for almost an hour in the cold the other day to get a taxi! Wahhhhh. Waiting for my slow internet to load things is the other thing that majorly wastes my time. I literally can’t do my homework on many days because the connection is too slow to download pdfs I have to read, etc. It’s miserable. And while I am complaining about random things, I just want thank all the Jordanians who rip off my friends and I for making us realize that we will always be treated by foreigners here, no matter how long we stay. This particularly depressing realization came to a bunch of us today after being way overcharged for the bus ride to Jerash. The driver requested 5JD from all of us Americans and only charged other riders 35 kurush. We reported it to the tourist police, but honestly it’s not even the money that I was angry about as much as the principle of it!

Me and L. on our way to see Jeita Grotto!

So on a happier note, I have been up to a lot of awesome things in the past 5 weeks that I haven’t posted about! I will not be able to write about everything now, but I will try to get completely up-to-date on everything with my next post. Here are my updates and events in order of weekends that they happened:

1. Aquaba (most Aqaba photos are courtesy of my lovely friend H.)

My friends and I Jett-bused to Aqaba for a chill weekend trip to the beach(: Our first night there was spent playing Cards Against Humanity, which my friend literally had printed from a print shop in Amman. Another friend of mine has “CN UNO” which is actually UNO but the cards have CN UNO printed on them instead. LOL. If anything, it makes for a great Amman story….

Me and M. with our favorite thing: food!!

On a boat yo! L., L., me and H.

The “burkini”. We can’t even compare

In Aqaba, we spent our first day on a boat chilling in the sunshine and snorkeling. We were soooo sun-soaked after and couldn’t even function until we got afternoon naps in! We visited the Tala Bay resort after to say hello to friends who were staying there. Tala Bay felt surreal for me because it is literally a fake, beautiful and very expensive town entirely of resorts. I am glad I stayed in a hostel! Also, getting to Tala Bay was quite the adventure! We stuffed 6 of us in a cab over - I had to sit on my friend’s lap and stuck my head out the window like a doggy! (:

H. and I have matching sunhats now!(:

Our final day in Aqaba was spent chilling and shopping, which I wanted to do there since it is duty free! Speaking of duty-free, there was plenty of alcohol purchases all around in Aqaba because alcohol is just so expensive here in Amman.

Staring in awe at the 10JD lambs, skinned and hung in the windows of several shops. I couldn’t stand the smell of raw meat. Ughhh.

1. Eid Al-Adha in Beirut, Lebanon, and Cairo, Egypt The following weekend was the start of our break for Eid Al-Adha. Eid Al-Adha is a Muslim holiday to complete the Hajj, which is the obligation of Muslims to visit the city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia at least once in their life. I made very ambitious plans with my friend S. to visit both Beirut and Cairo during Eid, for which we had a week off + the two weekends before and after (originally I had planned to visit only Beirut). We arranged our plans to meet with other CIEE friends who were traveling to these cities, and I also contacted my residents from the dorms this summer because I have some friends who attend American University in Beirut and I have a few friends at American University in Cairo.

The beautiful blue of the Mediterranean. I was in awe.

This was such an incredible trip overall. I would basically need a whole blog post to write about everything so I’ll just do some highlights of my time there.

Lebanon:

Well first, I was so excited to see my former-residents from this summer (I was a resident assistant in the Berkeley dorms) in Beirut!

Former residents of Cunningham (Unit 2) 8th floor, V. and S. I still can’t believe that I got to see them and several other friends from AUB that I met this summer at Berkeley!

It was so nice to hang out and catch up!! I miss these ladies already! They took us around town, checking out the AUB campus, walking on the Corniche and discovering all the cool shops on Hamra Street.

S. and I on our first night, walking on Gemmayze. This graffiti was the first sign that our trip would be perfect.

Beirut is very unique and beautiful because of the blend of Europe and the Middle East here. In fact, Beirut is called the Paris of the Middle East. Compared to Amman, Beirut was so clean, there was less honking traffic, and I literally got cat-called about 1/10th of the amount of times than in Amman! I loved that Beirut has a great mix of Middle Eastern and other cuisine restaurants - I finally got to eat some delicious Mexican and Chinese flavors! The nightlife here is quite different than what I am used to. Bars are open way late, and there are more bars than I have ever seen in one area, especially on the tourist-friendly Gemmayze Street.

Sunset in Beirut. The random sign that says Tokyo was my favorite! It made this photo more interesting for me over the other photos of the gorgeous sunset.

I was recommended to bike along the Corniche, so my friends and I rented bikes at “Beirut by Bike”. Unfortunately the Corniche was sooooo crowded with people in town to celebrate Eid that biking turned out to be more like a game of dodge the person. Even scarier was trying to dodge young children while you are on a bike because they are extremely unpredictable!

Me and S. before our ride on the Corniche! L. took the photo and also rode(:

Within Beirut, we checked out the Mohammad al-Amin Mosque and the Lebanese National Museum. The blend of colors and calligraphy at this mosque was stunning.

The Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque more than amazed me. Getting to see something so incredible and magnificent in person makes everything in my life seem less important.

G., H. and I all covered up in the mosque!

We also got out of town to visit Jeita Grotto, the Lady of Lebanon and Byblos, which were all very worthwhile trips! Jeita Grotto has one of the most incredible stalactite-stalagmite caves I have ever seen! Actually the two caves are the only ones I have ever seen, but I was in awe the entire time because of the shocking natural beauty. Unfortunately, photography is not allowed at Jeita Grotto, so I have no photos of it. Jeita has both an upper grotto which is dry, and a lower grotto which is filled with water and requires a boat to go through.

In front of a statue at Jeita Grotto.

Afterward, we went to the Telefrique cable cars which lead up to the Lady of Lebanon/Harisa tower. Harisa is the female equivalent to Rio’s Christ the Redeemer. She is considered a holy site for Christians, so there is also a tiny chapel at the base of her tower and a significantly larger church next to her that has most of one side made of glass in order to see the magnificent statue.

The Telefrique cable cars lead up to the Lady of Lebanon (Harisa) tower.

My friends and I mostly just had fun taking photos up there, but there were many having religious experiences with prayers and tears. The view of the Mediterranean waterline lined with the city lights in the night was almost magical.

The Lady of Lebabon (Harisa) herself!

The boys at the top of the Harisa base. I take full credit for how good they both look! Also that view from the top of the tower is so great.

We spent a day at Jbeil, which is a beautiful town right on the Mediterranean Sea, that also contains the ancient city of Byblos. It was a great day of history and the beach!(; S. even made a point to buy champagne and orange juice for mimosas, which made for the perfect afternoon of sun and sand.

You can see from this photo that the sand is completely pebbly - not really sand! Also, look at this gorgeous sunset(: Now I know why basically anywhere on the Med makes for a popular tourism spot!

A gorgeous view of Byblos and the Mediterranean

Me and the boys at Jbeil. We were a great travel crew!

Unfortunately, I was suffering through major food poisoning the whole day (and two more days after that!) as a result of a delicious fruit bowl I had eaten for breakfast. Ughhhhh.

The fruit bowl that gave me food poisoning for 3 days. I was literally raving about how good it was though!!!

Egypt:

Beirut was more than marvelous, but S. and I were off to Egypt after a few days! A note on traveling within the Middle East: we had our bags and passports checked probably a total of 4 times before we actually got on the plane! I wish we had gotten to the airport earlier because we got on the plane to Cairo just 15 minutes before take-off as a result of these checking procedures! (Also because Middle East Airlines had overbooked our flight and almost didn’t let us on the plane!! That was more than stressful!!!!)

Cairo was a whirlwind experience!! The city is a major mash-up of traffic and people and shopping. I feel like I could totally live here for a while, except for the fact that I stood out as a foreigner way too much! Everyone was asking me to take photos with them, and I even got cat-called by women and children! What?! It was a weird experience to say the least.

S. and I stayed in an apartment in the Zamalek area through AirBnb. It turned out to be a great choice over a hotel because we also got to hang out with the apartment owner and friends and their cute doggy!(:

We had lunch at the gorgeous Sequoia restaurant on the first day to send-off our friend K. who was leaving Cairo the next day. It was so peaceful and relaxing right on the Nile.

Our friend K. who left Cairo the day after we got there. We celebrated Eid with lunch at the gorgeous restaurant Sequoia, right on the Nile!

Our lunch at Sequoia: baba ghanoush (for me), liver and kubba patties. We also got warq enb/dolma. Everything here was so beautifully presented!

After our lunch, me, K. and S. got this nice shot next to the Nile.

We saw the pyramids and the Egyptian National Museum which you are not allowed take photos in. This is great because there was so many incredible items in there that I would have spent all day taking photographs! Also, the museum has King Tut’s outer casing!!! I can’t believe I got to see that in person!!

My favorite photo of a pyramid. I just loved how the colors popped out from the desert-y background.

I went to the Khan al-Khalili souks and mosques with my lovely friend R. that I met over summer in Berkeley! It was awesome but so crowded and we thought we would get run over by motorbikes zooming through the streets! R. took a photo of me in front of one of the mosques, but we had to retake it because the first one accidentally got a bit of a police man in it so he made us delete it.

S. and I went to the Citadel the next day, which contains 2 mosques, the military museum, the police museum, and ancient prison cells! The military museum was extensive and extremely biased! It was kind of fun, except I get tired of history after thinking about the differences in stories from the Western vs. Middle Eastern perspectives. Arab military might is often played up, and a lot of times Israel is not even mentioned in the major conflicts that involved Palestine.

Me outside the Citadel mosque.

The lights at the Citadel mosque. The circles, darkness, and stained glass colors made me feel so at peace.

I loved the mosque. S. and I just lied down on the ground and stared at the intricacy of the ceiling and lights. It was wonderful. Outside, there were bushes that had “Allah” carved into them in Arabic (الله).

We ate lunch at Al-Azhar park, which you have to pay to get into! The park is worth the ticket price though. It is spacious with loads of green grass, a restaurant, a fountain, a playground, and lovely views of the whole city. There were many families because we had gone right after Friday prayers, and we were the only white people I saw in the whole park! After walking around for awhile, we lied down on the grass, only to get yelled at by the patrols who said that we were only allowed to sit on the grass, not sleep on it. However, this was all in Arabic so I only fully understood what was happening after we just up and left the grassy area. LOL.

The horizon at Al-Azhar Park shows the silhouette of several mosques based on where you are standing.

I find it funny that when I say I can speak a little Arabic (أحكي عرابي شوي), many Arab people will launch into a long and fast speech of which I can only catch a few words! To be honest, I probably wouldn’t understand most of it anyway because of my limited vocabulary, but at least when people speak slowly I can understand the general meaning or sentiment. Additionally, from what I heard, the Egyptian dialect seems close to the Iraqi dialect that I grew up hearing from my parents.

We went home the next day…. It was nice to be back in Amman because it feels more like a home base now, if not actually home. After traveling to both Aqaba and Eid, I also feel a lot closer to my friends here in Amman. Traveling with my friends, we have experienced both good and bad. I learned a lot about them, and I am always learning about myself. I believe the friends I have made during my time abroad will be lifelong friends because there is literally nothing like this experience that we chose to go through together. <3

I will end my post here because it is getting too long. I’ll update with the rest of my life soon/later this week hopefully!

With love and peace,
Shimmy