Jordan!

Since it's now been about a month since I got here (!!!!!) I figured I might as well finally post about some everyday life things.

I was lucky enough to be here at the same time as my friend Pat! It was great seeing her, hanging out with the teachers she works with and going to church together. The new church building is AMAZING. It is SUPER nice even if the building is still technically under construction. 

One of my favorite things about being back in Jordan is re-experiencing lots of my old favorite foods. Drew and I only discovered Ma'mool near the end of our trip last time and so to make sure I enjoyed it to the fullest, I bought a whole kilo of the stuff and brought it home to share with my roommates. I may have gone a bit overboard on that one. 

Nom. I did share most of them and still have some in the freezer. 

I also remembered the various types of boxed milk. I remembered that my favorite kind was Baladna (especially the chocolate part) and one of those with a vanilla pudding makes for a great breakfast or snack. I know, I'm six years old again. But it tastes so good!!!

I also had the great opportunity to partake of Mizo. It's the Middle Eastern version of Maaza which I LOVED in India. They sell it in cans now which is actually quite a bit cheaper than in the bottles. So yay Maaza!

I've definitely been really good about drinking liquids here. Even though my Georgetown water bottle shattered my second week here (*sob* It was my FAVORITE-but you can't win against stone floors :( ), I was able to make it to Safeway and get another one. Luckily, our landlord got us one of those electric water coolers so we don't have to pump our water out of the massive jug. It's fancy! (And much easier) Bonus, it already comes out cool. Hey, it's the little things in life right?

It's also been nice to remember just how much I LOVE Middle Eastern foods and the lifestyle. We really do have our portions messed up in the United States. Drew and I semi-regularly polish off at least 2 large pizza slices and sometimes even 4 in one sitting. Here, I was craving pizza so I went to pizza hut, and I was completely full with 2 medium slices which in all honesty are still smaller than a US small's slices. I got 3 full meals off of that one medium pizza. 

Anywho, one day I took my roommates to the Al Sufara Bakery near seventh circle. It's nice to visit at least once. Before we went, we stopped at a little restaurant down the street. It was SUPER tasty and the whole meal cost 3 JD ($5) for all 3 of us. And we got all of this:

It was seriously tasty

Up until about last week, I've been mostly hanging out with my roommates. They're both doing internships through the University of Utah. My internship fell through (hence why I was here so early...not doing anything). I don't mind for the most part, as it's given me a chance to learn where I live, relearn the bus system, and get used to speaking and hearing Arabic every day. 

One of the best things I've learned is that I can get down to Wasd al Balad for only 1/2 a dinar if I take one of the larger buses with the numbers on it. Since I'm rather north of the city right now, that would easily be a 3-4 JD ride. So that alone saves me quite a bit of money. 

Downtown (i.e. Wasd al Balad)

So of course, my roommates and I had to go to the traditional downtown place: Hashem's Restaurant. It's the exact same type of food as the place we had near Al Sufara. But tastier. Then we walked around and I showed them where to buy soccer jerseys and we found a nice souvenir shop that wasn't expensive. 

The Nymphaeum 

Another rather fun thing going on right now is the world cup. This is now my THIRD world cup in a row where I haven't seen it in English. The one in 2006, I watched it in Spanish since Cam had (semi)recently returned from his mission and had telemundo on the entire cup. The second world cup, the one in 2010, I was in Jerusalem at the time. We all pitched in to get a special box to watch the games. Of course though, because we were getting it from an Israeli broadcaster, the telecast was in Hebrew. Some of my favorite memories from that summer are of the group watching the games and even having the security guards watching and cheering with us. And now THIS year, I'm watching it while here in Jordan...in Arabic!

This was the opening game. I went with my roomies to Rainbow Street to watch the game. 

L-R Allison, Me, Ashley

While I'm really grateful that I live near Sweileh (and therefore know where I am within the city), Amman is the city of hills. I finally stopped to document the hill that I have to walk up and down to get to and from my apartment. Of course we live almost at the very top. 

View from the bottom of the street

But at least I'm going to have great legs after this summer huh?

View from outside my apartment building looking down the street. 

At least right now when I get to my apartment, this is greeting me. 

I miss Drew, Kirby and Sir Richard terribly, but I am learning LOADS and really enjoying my arabic classes. (A first for a while...) I'm doing well, I'm safe and having as much fun as I can without my favorite boys. Besides, Kirby has been a busy little stinker while I've been gone. :P He's an emotional eater. 

A Trip to the Dead Sea

So a week after arriving(and having recovered from jetlag), I went with my roommate on a trip with Pat and her friends to the Dead Sea! I've never been a HUGE fan of the Dead Sea (it burns...) but there's a pool next to the public beach where you can actually swim/sunbathe. So we went down to Madaba to meet them up. 

The Dawar(traffic circle) where we got off the bus. Pat had told me to look for the coffe pots. Sure enough. 

Pat has been working in Madaba for the past year teaching English. She actually lived behind the church of the Madaba map. That was kinda neat to find where she lived and meet her fellow teachers/suitemates. They're a fun group of people with a mix from different countries and Arabic experiences. 

After assembling a group of 9 people and grabbing 2 taxis, we headed to the Amman public* beach. 

*public meaning you still had to pay 10 JD to get in

So we go down and swam for about 30-45 minutes. Surprisingly it stops burning after about 20 minutes. :P

Since it was Allison's first time, we had to take a picture. 

And the traditional mud:

It was an absolutely beautiful day:

But then we were tired of the salt and went up to the pool. it was pretty nice. 

Allison loved the sun. 

We decided to stay for the sunset and it was gorgeous. 

It was a super fun day, and even though I reapplied my sunscreen multiple times, I got SO burned. I bought my sunscreen here in Jordan and even though it was SPF 100, this happened:

I want to say that this photo has been retouched...but it hasn't. I looked like a lobster. I was in SO much pain. Thankfully I'm done being a leper and peeling and I've mostly tanned. 

It was nice to spend time with Pat and her fellow teaching friends in Madaba and they're a great group. Allison and I had a great time and we really appreciated the cheap way to experience the Dead Sea!

London

So I had a 13 hour layover in London on my way to Jordan, and it started at 9 am. So I pretty much knew from the very beginning of my trip that I would try to make it out to the city. Well, I did and it was so worth it! Our flight got in a little bit late (grumble grumble) but not too bad. Luckily I got through security rather fast and was on my way to buy my London Pass when I noticed something that stopped me in my tracks. 

There was the usual number of people who were holding up signs for various individuals. Well, there was a woman there who was holding up a sign for Martin Freeman! 

Yes, that Martin Freeman

I was so surprised that I actually stopped in my tracks to re-read her sign. However, she gave me a death glare so I decided not to waste my precious time for a geeky chance at an autograph. However, it would have been awesome. Alas, apparently he isn't the biggest fan of fans doing that so I guess it's better that I didn't wait. *sigh* Another time maybe. 

So after refocusing on my goal, I went and got my pass, got my day train ticket and hopped on the train to London. I had decided early on that I wanted to go to the Tower of London first as it was the furthest away from the airport. It was a good choice as it was almost exactly an hour from when I stepped onto the train to when I got off at the station for the Tower. 

I am SO glad that I bought the London Pass. It was well worth the price. When I got to the Tower there was a HUGE line for tickets and another huge line for those with paper passes. I was able to walk right up and show them the pass, have them scan it and wave me through. No kidding, I waited like 10 minutes to get in. 

Yay I got in!

A view of the whole complex

I also lucked out to be getting there right as the Yeoman tour started. I'm really glad that I decided to join the group as I got a nice refresher on the history of the location as well as a trip into the church on the grounds. It took a little over an hour, but I thought it was worth it for the history and the sights. 

The "Beefeater"

The Traitor's Gate, originally called the Water Gate

The White Tower

One of the resident 7 ravens

Guard outside the museum for the crown jewels 

After going on the tour, I decided that I didn't want to wait in the hour+ line just to see the crown jewels (which you can't even take pictures of anyways!) so I went over to the White Tower to look at the museum there. 

King Henry VIII's armor 

A beautiful carved German Saddle

Queen Elizabeth's original face mask over her coffin

Lovely view from inside the Tower

Loved the faces on the arch

One last view

Tower Bridge

After finishing up at the Tower, I took a few pictures of the Tower Bridge (not to be confused with London Bridge) then headed up the street to go back to the tube station. I was lucky since after passing all of the super expensive touristy restaurants, I saw a Tesco. I know it's a grocery store and they had a 3 pound lunch special. It was a good cheap lunch that could keep me going. From there I made it to the tube station and headed over to Parliament Square. 

The London Eye

Big Ben and Parliament

Another Shot

Oliver Cromwell in front of Parliament

Very patriotic

So after walking around Parliament, I then came upon Westminster Abbey! It's so beautiful and I LOVED it on my trip last time. It was so beautiful and I was so sad that you can only take pictures in very few places. However, other lucky souls have had invitations to take pics, so most of the inside pics are from here or here. Once again I was thankful for my London Pass. It once again saved me at least an hours worth of waiting in line. That was time definitely well spent exploring the abbey. 

Tomb of the unknown soldier with the poppies around it

Sir Isaac Newton's Tomb

The coronation chair

Mary Queen of Scot's Tomb

The Ladies' Chapel 

So gorgeous

Poet's Corner

View of Chaucer's grave (the one the woman's standing in front of)

Shakespeare's memorial

Handel (top right)

Cloisters

We were allowed to take pictures in this section

Beautiful Chapel

As I was exiting to leave, the organist started playing. I spent my time doing the audio tour and listening to every single thing on the list. It was so fascinating. I was honestly looking for an excuse to stay anyways and then they started playing. Oh my goodness. They were practicing for the concert that night, and were playing some of Handel's pieces. I can't tell you how incredible it was to stand there in the near empty abbey listening to the gorgeous music reverberate around the space. I stood transfixed for about 20 minutes until they started shooing people out so that they could then let in people for the concert. 

I couldn't stay, but man, when I return, that's something that I definitely want to do. 

Of course the weather cleared up a bit before I left

From there, I decided that I would do a quick view of Buckingham Palace before heading over to Kensington Palace. Well, two things stopped that. One, I forgot how FAR it is from Westminster to the Palace, and two, the metro stop closest to Buckingham Palace to get to Kensington Palace was closed so I wouldn't have made it over in time anyways. :( boo. I was saddened by that. So I just ended up spending some time (a lot of time) walking and enjoying Buckingham. 

Statue of Queen Victoria

After resting for a bit, I looked at a map and realized that the Wellington Arch was close by. Given that Wellington is my mom's maiden name, I HAD to stop and take a picture. It was another long walk, but worth it to see the beautiful grounds and the monument. 

It was around 6:30 at this point and I knew that I'd need to leave by 8:00 to get back in time for my flight. So I decided that I'd maybe stop by one more place and get something to eat. I decided to head to Trafalgar Square. I remember that the area was great to hang out and see, and it had some good food options. 

So I went and got the traditional british fare:

Fish & Chips (and a milkshake because why not?)

After taking a breather and enjoying my dinner (and the free wi-fi to let my family know I was fine and having fun), I walked around the square some more. 

The National Gallery (would have gone if I had more time :( )

However, it was getting closer to 8 and so I headed back to the tube station to return to the airport. It was a wonderful trip and a nice refresher on some of my favorite places in London. Now I just need to return for an extended stay with my wonderful hubby and it will be perfect!

Soon I was on my flight, and on my way back to Jordan!