I like that rock!

After a week of not so stressful exams I am reminiscing on those five wonderful days away from the humdrum life of Amman. As someone once said; all literature is sad, even when it's about good things, because it is written after the good has ended. This is not entirely true in this case, because the year abroad isn't over, but I will never forget this trip to Petra, Wadi Rum and Aqaba.

 A week off of school. What to do? Originally the plan was to get a personal driver person to take us to the south of Jordan, but it fell through and looked like it was going to be too expensive anyway. Instead we just got a bus on Friday morning and went off to Petra with no set plan and only one night in a hotel booked. The JETT coaches, as well as some other buses, are the only public transport around Jordan. They seriously need to install some public transport here, I'm thinking a tram or a tube line or something in Amman and a fast speed train instead of the scarcely used steam train the goes from the north to the south of Jordan. All this said the coach was actually fine and it took me to Petra in a mere three and a half hours.

Arriving at Petra we walked to a taxi rank, "a taxi rank in Jordan!" I hear you say. In reality it was a line of men who were asking for a ridiculous amount to go not very far. We as streetwise Ammani residents refused to pay such prices and called the hotel instead who agreed to come and pick us up for free. Little did we know that the taxi driver would then complain to the police that the hotel was taking away their business. We therefore accompanied the hotel manager to the traffic police station in order to explain that we were not willing to pay the unreasonable prices that had been asked for. As guests at the hotel it was part of his hospitality to help his guests and therefore we could not understand why the police were saying that it was wrong for him to pick us up.

When we arrived at the hotel finally the brilliant hospitality continued. The owner of the hotel was so nice and I would thoroughly recommend the Cleopetra to everyone, that's if you can look past the horribly punny name that as far as I could tell made no sense as Cleopatra never went to Petra. As we had not eaten breakfast and it was getting on for midday the lovely owner gave us some bread and cheese and things for free which was really lovely and the start of a beautiful relationship!

Petra. Where to begin? I suppose the most important thing to say is that usually the entry price is roughly £50 for the day. As residents in the country we got tickets for £1! This is no joke. Our student cards gained us entry for 1JD which is amazing. So for the entirety of the day we couldn't help but randomly shout "One Dinar" in jubilation and to rub it in the faces of all the tourist who had had to pay 50.

Petra is fantastic! We were walking for roughly 7 hours pretty much straight, clambering over rocks, climbing up mountains and looking in very old tombs. The ancient city is very impressive the buildings that are carved into the rose coloured rock are one of the seven man-made wonders of the world and quite rightly. You start of the day walking through the Siq which is a really long canyon that opens up onto the Treasury, possibly the most famous view in Jordan. Down the length of the canyon are sort of ditches along the sides which back in the day used to carry piped water. Piped water! The bedouin who lived here years and years ago were amazingly advanced. i cannot fathom how they managed to do all of what they did with the materials they had and I can't believe they managed to keep it secret for so long!

Of course there are still Bedouin living there, which we discovered when we got lost and ended up walking to some cave houses that are currently being used. They were a bit more advanced than the ancient ones, but impressive still the same. At the end of the day we made the effort to climb the hundreds of steps to the Monastery which is one of the farthest points from the entrance and man is it worth it. You can't go to Petra without making the effort to walk up there, because it is twice the size of the treasury and it is beautiful. We spoke to a man who owned donkeys, I forget his name now, who told us that he walks up to the monastery at least once a day and he often does it at night as a sort of purifying experience and I can imagine that no matter how many times you see it, it would never get boring.

This being said after a while a sort of holiday phrase set in. "I like that rock, that is a niiiiiice rock." As I'm sure you know, and if you don't then you should be ashamed, this is a reference to Shrek when donkey exclaims that he likes a boulder at Shrek's swap. Well there were a lot of rocks. This isn't just in Petra this is the whole of Jordan. It's basically filled with rocks and sand and well all there is to comment on are the rocks. I don't want to seem sad, but I definitely have preferred rocks now ...

The Siq

Jasmine and Lottie pretending to be statues.

The treasury

Bedouin policeman

Jack Sparrow on a donkey

Jasmine at the Garden tomb.

The monastery (my favourite rock)

To be continued ...

The Dead Sea and Madaba

It has now been several weeks since I went on my weekend trip to the Dead Sea and Madaba. They are both in what Elias calls the wider area of Amman. Truth be told they are not far from Amman at all, it takes less than an hour to get to the Dead Sea and Madaba is about half way in between the two. So basically it takes me about the same time to get to the Dead Sea as it takes some one to get from one side of London to the other on the tube. That being said it only takes four hours to dive from Amman to Aqaba which is pretty much the length of the country, so the time it takes you to drive from one side of London to the other is about half the length of Jordan. That just shows how very very small this country. I mean I was always under the impression that the UK was small, but I think it is clear that Jordan is much smaller!

We went as a group as a sort of Birthday celebration for Ruth's birthday. The drive from Amman to Aqaba is all downhill, which is to be expected considering the Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth being 400m below sea level. This is the reason why the dead sea is sooo salty, because it is a basin where the River Jordan collects and then has no where else to go so the water evaporates leaving behind it very salty water. We went to Amman beach which you pay 16JD for the day to use the pools and the beach.

When we arrived we went straight to the sea to experience that floating feeling that everyone talks about. It was very strange and when we went up to the pools afterwards I felt like I was a rock. The pools were glorious and we sat by them pretty much all day watching crazy Jordanians diving into the pool in all manner of ways. I lost count at the number of belly flops that occurred. To round off the experience we got mudded up in the famous Dead Sea sludge that is supposed to make your skin as soft as a babies bottom. I can't say that my skin was softer, but it was an experience especially the applying of the mud. The guy who was rubbing me all over, whilst doing my inner thigh managed to hit my gooch numerous times.

After we had had enough of the Dead Sea we split into two, some went back to Amman and the rest of us continued to Madaba. In true risky Jordanian style we crammed six of us into a taxi to make the price cheaper, but in no time at all we were there and for only 3JD each.

Madaba is famous for its mosaics. So the next day we walked all around the town looking in the many many churches and remains of churches looking at bits of mosaics. It is amazing to think that those mosaics have been there since the early centuries. They are very impressive and I definitely want to go back to buy a mosaic souvenir. My host mum's family live there so we will definitely be going back at some point.

This Mosaic map is the oldest map of the Holy Land in existence. It's not extremely accurate or to scale, but you can see all the necessary bits are present. It would have been amazing to the see this church floors in their original glory,  because all that is left is fragment of the original thing.

Over all the weekend was thoroughly enjoyable and it's nice to know how close it all is to my new home.

Next time on this blog : I will be talking about my holiday in Eid break to Petra, Wadi Rum and Aqaba.

FOOD!

Hello tout le monde. I am terribly sorry for being so lax with my blog, but it wasn't my fault I promise. A lot has happened which I have wanted to write about, but I didn't get pictures of all of it so I wanted to wait until the people who did take pictures put them on Facebook, which they still have not. However, the meal I just had was so lovely that I just had to tell all.

The food here comes in masses. Mama Zein cooks a massive meal most mornings which we sit down and eat at about 2 in the afternoon and then after that I've been told to eat what I like, when I like which usually means me eating more of the same meal at dinner, because there is usually enough to keep us going for days on end.

The Jordanians / Arabs in general I think are really eager to feed you. It is there way of being welcoming. So several times a day I get food thrust at me with the accompanying 'eat!' Today I got up to get some kitchen roll, because I was making a tad of a mess and Elias says 'eat' and quite unintentionally I whipped round; 'I am eating!' I didn't mean to be so blunt, but sometimes you just can't fit any more down your gullet.

I have found myself eating some great things and some things which I have to force down my throat. They have this pudding which is basically cinnamon gloop with nuts. I'm not a massive fan of nuts and gloop, I'm afraid, isn't the texture of any appetising food. Yet I take it and eat when ever it is given to me, because it is just impolite not to and I no Mama Zein makes them herself and I don;t have the heart to say I don't like it.

However when the food is good, the food is really really good! One of the best meals I've had is a dish called mansaf which is made with rice and laban, which is a yoghurt/oil thing, and meat or chicken. It goes in a big dish in the middle and everyone grabs at it with their hands using a bit of bread as a vehicle. Today we had a fantastic dish that was basically stuffed tomatoes and peppers with an amazing sauce made from the insides of the tomatoes and chilli and other things. Never have a tasted more flavourful tomatoes! I seriously need to learn how to make these things.

Other meals have included stuffed corgettes, stuffed aubergine (yes there are a lot of stuffed vegetables) maglobi, which means upside down and is rice and meat (yes most meals include rice and meat as the made bit). Also one day Mama Zein cooked us what tasted like kofta and chips. It was amazing, enough said.

Over all I am loving the food and when I come back to England I am determined to be able to make it all so I can feed you all of these wonderful dishes.

Oh an of course I have tried the McDonalds and the KFC just to make sure it is the same as in the UK.