We have explored some different areas of Jordan – some on purpose and some on accident. One weekend we decided to rent a car and get into the country. On Friday we went to Iraq al’Amir, which is just outside Amman. We found little fossils in the caves, checked out the ruins of the nearby palace (Qasr al’Abed), climbed the stairs to the old dovecote, and found an ancient Roman aqueduct! The next day we thought we’d take a short drive to the Azraq Wetland Reserve. We assumed that our guide book would have clear directions in it and that we’d be there in a little over an hour. It did not, and we were not. In fact, we ended up near the Syrian border (about 18 miles), where we were pulled over by the police. They didn't speak English, so through hand gestures and showing him the map in the book he gave us some directions on how to get to Azraq. Well, his directions only brought us closer to the border, so we decided to turn around and figure out where we missed our turn. Driving to Azraq really brought things into perspective for me. We drove past a refugee camp and we came within 150 miles of Iraq and 35 miles of Saudi Arabia. It’s amazing that Jordan is so close to these countries that are in turmoil, but it is calm here in Jordan. Yes, there are some tensions here, but overall this is the safest place to be in the Middle East. After all of our detours, we made it to Azraq about 40 minutes before it closed for the day. That was a bit disappointing, because it would have been lovely to just sit and enjoy the greenery and watch all the birds. As we drove back to Amman, we drove past some of the desert castles, which at some time in the future we will go back to. The drive took longer than we thought it would and we ended up returning our rental car an hour and a half late.
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Thursday night I was able to Skype with my family as they were just starting their Thanksgiving meal. We had to work on Thursday, so we made Friday our Thanksgiving day. It was just the four of us, but it was lovely. We had so much food left over that I was able to make two Thanksgiving leftover potpies and one batch of turkey enchiladas! These are Darren’s favorite ways to have Thanksgiving leftovers.
Darren and I have been working on making our apartment feel homey. We have hung up some tapestries (which our cat loves to play with), printed some pictures on boards and hung them on the wall, got a painting, and found some nice throw pillows. Our living room now feels like a room that is lived in!
We were having trouble with our oven, so the school replaced it with a new one! I try to bake a treat to bring in on Thursdays (Thursday is the last working day of the week). With baking 2 or more times a week, having an oven that sometimes malfunctions was a problem. I am so happy to have a new one that works great.
Our kitten has fallen/jumped off of our balcony twice now. The first time Flick fell off, we didn't know where he had gone. We searched the apartment, the stairs and then went outside to look. Chelsea spotted him in the garden below our balcony. So I ran down to Mohammad and tried to tell him what happened with a mix of English, Arabic and body language. Finally, he understood and got the key to open the gate. The second time it happened it was kind of my fault. Flick was on the other side of the railing on the balcony and it made me nervous so I tried to bribe him to come away from the edge with some tuna. He got so excited and turned around so fast that his butt slipped off the side and I watched my cat fall to the ground. Luckily he was okay both times. The Arabic proverb for cats is that they have 7 lives. We feel Flick is down to 5 lives now. He is a sweet cat in some ways: he likes to be close to his people, he just doesn't want you to touch him…which is a problem when I want to hold him. He has a crazy spell daily, where he runs around the apartment attacking his toys, jumping up on the furniture, running around like a mad man and then attacking our toes. After these spells of lunacy, he tends to calm down and go to sleep next to us.
We just finished up a Hobbit marathon topped off with seeing the third Hobbit at Taj Mall Theater. Even going to the movies is a bit of a process here. I tried to call a cab to pick us up but the first one wasn't in Amman and the second one got stuck in traffic. So, we had to start walking and find a cab along the way. Thankfully it only took us about 5 minutes to find a taxi. We made it 5 minutes before the previews started. Chelsea got all dressed up in her elf garb just to be disappointed that the theater didn't have the official movie poster to pose by. She made do with the posters they had.
On December 26th we will be traveling to Greece! We’ll keep you posted…
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