February 1, 2011

After spending time in the hotel for orientation we took a tour of the city in a bus. Our first stop was the Roman amphitheatre. Our guide gave a tour of the site and informed us of the history of the theatre and described how it is still used today. After the theatre we walked to “Wild Jordan” for a lecture from the Program Director as well as some coffee and pastries. We departed and I was exposed to my first Jordanian winter rain. To say it rained is an understatement. It poured and Amman does not have any drainage sewers so the water just cascades down the streets. In fact, the streets have a groove in the center of them to allow the water to flow down the hills. After we made our way to the bus, we proceeded to a restaurant named “Jafra” for lunch.

Lunch was incredibly delicious. Our lunch consisted of hummus, baba ghanouj, and plates of chicken and lamb. I also had my first cup (or glass actually) of Arabic mint tea and there may not be a better tasting tea in my opinion. After lunch we were served a Jordanian dessert of some sort of which the name I cannot recall. It tasted good but unfortunately I was stuffed at that point.

After lunch, we hopped back on the bus and headed to the Citadel. The Citadel is an old ruin on top of a hill that was used by various empires (Roman, Byzantine, and early Islamic) to govern the city. We toured the site with our guide. Some locations of note were the Temple of Hercules, the Byzantine Basilica, the Umayyad Palace, and the Giant Cistern. While in the Umayyad Palace, the 3pm call to prayer started and the sound came from all sides, through the four open entrances and reverberated up into the renovated dome. My words can do it no justice. It was truly incredible. At that point, it was back to the bus for a ring tour of the city during which I was unfortunately reminded how I should never ride in the back of a bus, especially in traffic and on bumpy streets. Luckily we made it back to the hotel without incident.