A Love Letter to Amman

I have one week left here and it simultaneously feels like I've lived here my whole life and no time at all.

Amman,
I love you. Can you love a place like it is a person? But more blindly and forgiving? Because each person in that place is this tiny facet of the grand adventure, and the pieces of them that you take with you are brief enough to forgive or excuse or to adore without question?
Can you understand that I love your hills and the vast expanses of your city for all the good and bad because it feels like this city never lies? Like it offers up every part of itself for the good and bad and perfect and broken that it is without denial or excuse or asking forgiveness? Maybe I choose not to see what is not beautiful about this place anymore, but if that is so it is because it has loved me back with sweet ferocity.
This place taught me sunsets. Ones that gently take you by the arm and rob you of words and set you on your feet again in the quiet dusk.

This place has taught me about darkness and silence...

and the glorious, overwhelming, intoxicating cacophony of life...

If I were a better poet I would write you simple, darling, brave lines of verse, Amman...
but I'm just me, with too many words and too many feelings and too many things to say with too few words and narrow photos that could never encompass the way you break my heart just by existing each day.
Amman didn't want me but it fell in love with me, and I belong to it wholly and without reservation except in what holds me through memory and birthright to the rolling green of Kentucky. Here is to the home I never thought I'd find, and the corner of the world that made room for me, and swallowed me whole, skin and bones and beauty and faults. Here is to Amman!

Ahibuk,
Alix

Day-to-day and spare time

So I write a lot on here about the cool weekend trips I do, but I feel like I haven't done any justice to the absolutely amazing things I do here on a daily basis! So here's a quick run-down of my life Sunday through Thursday:
We wake up at 7 and get ready, eat some pita and hummus or Nutella at the apartment or stop by Gloria Jeans/Indoor Cafe/El Turko/Aaka for muffins, coffee, tea, labneh, or falafel. We walk down to the tunnel to cross over to the university. The gates are guarded all day, so you have to scan your ID to get in. While there were still a lot of students in classes it was very intimidating to walk through campus to the Language Center, but most of them are gone now.

Campus!

Our apartment building!

Campus

My Jordanian student ID...very handy for tourist attractions

We have class for four hours in the Language Center (9 a.m. until 12:40 with a 20 minute break at 10:40). Afterwards my roommate and I hightail it back to the apartment, do our homework, and take a nap! It's one of my favorite times of the day. I usually take this time to blog, do some personal writing, catch up on the news, and read as well.

I swear I actually do homework

Little Nadia!

She loves me <3

Around 5 we figure out what the evening plans are and get ready! Then we either go study (usually at Al Baal or the Doors, where the people who like hookah can get some and where we can do homework and quiz each other and eat all at the same time!) or go out to dinner and then out, usually at one of our favorite restaurants like Abu Jabaara (and Habeeba afterwards--the best desert in Amman!)

Falafel, hummus, veggies, pita, tea, and I believe some ful

Ladies night at one of our favorite places with excellent decor and outdoor atmosphere

The rightly infamous Habeeba kanafe! So delicious and only 1.5 JD!

 After dinner we like to go to Rainbow Street and hang out at the cafes and bars with some of our local friends!

 

 I don't have photo cred for all of these, but how could I not include all of these photos? Here's to these nights.

Petra

This weekend I got to see one of the wonders of the world. The incomparable Petra!

It was 95 degrees in the city of Petra, and we arrived at noon—the very beginning of the temperature peak. The sun bears down hot and close in the desert, and try as you may to slake your thirst, you could drown in that heat and still be unsatisfied. The way was long and our bodies were tired from the early rise and five hour drive. We paid 1JD to get in with our Jordanian IDs (normal costs are up to 150JD—beware tourists!) and were warned by our guides not to buy food or drink or anything past the gates. Trekking through the smooth, rolling stones was awesome. I want you to really think about the word awesome because I mean it in the awe-inspiring, take-your-breath-away, move-you-to-tears kind of awesome and not in the way that haircuts and hamburgers are awesome.

 

So then we got to that really really famous Wonder of the World part...and that was awesome
...

These nice gentlemen told us we could take pictures with them for free...then asked us afterwards for 5JD tips...smooth.

 While we were standing in this clearing trying to catch our breath a couple of Bedouins asked us if we wanted to ride camels down to the monastery, and I said "Take me to your leader." Not really, but kind of.

So that dream came true. I don't know that I can do justice to the experience with description. Everything in Jordan is beautiful in the way that stone here is this  chaotic and yet patterned thing that is both utilitarian and natural and astounding and simple. And Petra is this magnificent testament to those pillars of beauty that all of Jordan is aesthetically defined by. The stones are bold and yet they hold secrets that are ancient and subtle and obvious at times and the Bedouins who live there will appear  beside you out of no where, with their thick, dark eyeliner and their alluring offers to tea and rides and jewelry. But beware. They'll take you for an arm and a leg.

After the camel ride we did some hiking around, and it was wonderful but I can't tell you much about it because I got severely dehydrated and overheated. After a while I VERY sadly turned back and made my way back down. On the way back we got a free donkey ride, we're offered a very very very tiny puppy, and were given postcards and jewelry by fascinated children. It was a gorgeous and awesome experience, and I would love to do a night tour so that I wouldn't get overheated!


Recommendation to any women visiting Petra: websites will tell you that you can dress Western here (shorts, tank tops, etc.) DO NOT. Do not under any circumstances. Just don't. Dress conservatively and if anyone offers you tea do not accept, it is a proposition.

Enjoy the rest of the photos!