Friday at the Citadel

Yesterday, Thursday, we visited the University again where Beth met with her language partner and her friend to begin some one-on-one English tutoring as part of the TESOL requirements. While they were busily involved I went for a rambling walk off to the northeast of the campus along a road we have neglected until now. I passed a couple more universities and the Jordanian Geographical Society headquarters and Royal Scientific Society. All of them were under military guard as are all the major hotels these days, nothing special, just SOP in Jordan. Along the way I took a quick video of a building under construction which aroused the curiosity of a man waiting along side the road. He was wondering why I would take a picture of an unfinished building. I explained that everywhere we turn in Amman there are new marble-faced cement buildings going up. We cannot properly give a true understanding of Amman without showing the construction. We talked a little more and he shared that he is an Iraqi from Baghdad and has been in Amman for one year teaching at the Arab University. This conversation was in English. My Arabic would not have understood so much. On the way back from the university it was way past lunch time but we still decided to skip the $4.50 hamburgers at Burger King next to the main gate. Instead, we found a little falafel and humus shop downtown where for 75 cents we were able to get a very nice lunch which we then took and ate at the Roman Ampitheater as we watched the birds and a few tourists.

Today, Friday, I left the flatabout 7:30 in the morning to walk up to the Citadel. It was time to see what kind of shots we might get and to find out if the entry fee was affordable for us non-Jordanians. The gate did not open until 10 am, but the light was good for shooting outside the wall. I was able to capture the many wildflowers, birds and a few goats. I returned home for a late breakfast of pita bread with tahini and honey. A bit later Beth and I walked back through the center of the city and back to the Citadel ruins to spend some time inside. Being as it was Friday morning which is the primary day for going to the mosque we expected the downtown area to be mostly closed, but not so. It was very busy and crowded, so much so that pedestrians overflowed into the street turning a sometimes three lane street into one lane. We walked up some fancy, but neglected marble stairs to the base of the citadel wall. We spent an enjoyable couple hours walking around inside taking video of the everything in sight on and off the hill. Hopefully, we will be able to put some of this into a an interesting program for MCTV or PCA public access stations when we get back to Portland. In the meantime you can see these awesome ruins and views of the city if you look at some of the Amman and Jordan links we have included in the sidebar on the right of this article. This evening we attended a church service for many of the Egyptian workers near our home. This is always an enjoyable time and gives us a couple hours of fast moving Arabic.