Pictures!

Hi, everyone. Tonight we did some more walking around and we wanted to share some pictures with you so you can see how Aqaba looks. It is beautiful here, but very hot and loud. There are a million car horns honking, birds chriping/screeching, and camels making their signature sort of groaning mixed with a blow horn noise (if you want an example, ask us to demonstrate when we get back--it is unlike any animal noise I have ever heard before). Tonight we are hoping to finally try some of the fish, which is supposed to be very good here due to Aqaba's proximity to the Red Sea. We're also having our first beers tonight in about 1 week, so it is a relatively good night.

Tomorrow morning, we are renting a car and Jimmy is driving us to the Dead Sea.

We put some of our pictures up on Picassa, so you can see a few before we get back. Here is the link...

Aqaba, day 1

As we suspected, it is very hot here today. Last night after we arrived, we went down and ate pizza and gelato at a small cafe near the main road in the city. It was funny to eat pizza in the Middle East, but we are getting a little tired of falafel and shawerma for every meal, so we needed a break. It was good pizza, they cooked it in a big brick oven and it had local olives and artichokes on it. There were men with camels walking on the street, and that was pretty funny. Then, we went up on the roof of our hotel near the pool and we could see the mountains at night. We took a picture (below), but it really doesn't do it justice. It is very beautiful. Later today or tomorrow I will try to post some pictures of the mountains and Sea during the day.

In a little while, we're going to walk down by the beach and go buy some Dead Sea salt, which is supposedly cheaper to buy here than at the Dead Sea itself. Tomorrow we are going to the Movenpick at the Dead Sea, which is supposedly a very nice hotel. We're looking forward to swimming after a week of all this hot weather!!

Aqaba, day/night 1

We never made it to Petra. We missed the morning bus, so we decided to come to Aqaba, which is only about 1 hour from Petra, so we thought we would go there once we got to Aqaba. It is very hot here, but the Red Sea is beautiful. We got in around 7:30 pm local time, and the sun was just setting. Driving through the mountains and desert was surprisingly beautiful. We saw Bedouins camping and lots of donkeys, sheep, and goats. We even saw a couple people riding bikes! Once we got to Aqaba, we found a hotel and now we are going to get some dinner and ice cream.

I was surprised that it was about 15 degrees hotter here than it was in Amman, it is nighttime and it is probably about 95 degrees with no sun. I am NOT looking forward to tomorrow's heat. Also, everyone is wearing the veil here, so we will probably not get to go swimming unless we can find our way onto an American beach or an American hotel pool. I don't think there is a pool in our hotel, but there is a very cool rooftop deck that you can see the Red Sea from.

So far, so good on the sunburn--we've been wearing SPF 85 (!!!) and haven't gotten burned. On the bus, they wouldn't let us bring water, so that was a treat travelling for 5 1/2 hours across the desert in an only sem-air conditionned bus from probably 1985, but we're keeping a positive attitude and looking forward to walking around on the beach.

Thank you guys for reading and leaving us comments, it really means a lot to us because we are so homesick and miss everyone!!!

Amman, Night 2

Tonight was our first night "out" in Amman. We went to a restaurant called Wild Jordan and it overlooked the entire city of Amman. Amman is made up of several mountains ("Jebel"), seven in all I think. This restaurant was on Jebel Amman, which is supposedly one of the nicest and most modern. It was a great restaurant and the food was very good. Jimmy ate a steak sandwich and cheesecake, and I had a chicken stuffed with cheese and mint leaves with tomato sauce on top. It was beautiful looking out over the buildings and the Citadel, which is made up of old Byzantine ruins. Also, there were several weddings throughout Amman, and many people have fireworks at their weddings here, so we got to see lots of fireworks. The moon rose just as we were finishing dinner and it was a giant, beautiful, red orb in the Eastern part of the sky.

Afterward, we went to a tourist-ey bar also on Jebel Amman called Trattoria something. It was supposedly Italian, but I don't think so. We learned that if you order a drink with liquor (for example, vodka with lemonade), you have to indicate with your thumb and forefinger how much vodka you want.

It was a fun night and a good final night to spend in Amman. In the morning we're getting on the Jett bus to go to Petra for two days.

Amman...

Well, here we are in Amman. I forgot my camera cord at home, so have not been able to post pictures yet. I bought a new camera at the Paris airport, so hopefully there will be pictures tomorrow. This was our first day in Amman, and it was interesting. Last night was a disaster after we landed, got our visas stamped, and made it out of the airport. It was interesting because they seemed to be hassling everyone in the visa line, but they just stamped ours without asking any questions. We took a bus into Amman from the airport and then a taxi to our hotel. We thought the taxi driver was being nice asking for only 1 JD ... we ended up giving him 6, only to find out 1 was the normal rate. Taxis are very cheap here.

Our hotel last night was pretty bad, so we called Rafah and she took us to a better hotel in a nicer part of Amman, which is where we are now. We went "hotel shopping" around to 4-5 different places until we found the best room and the best rate. We actually have a nice room even by American standards. The funniest part of the room is the bidet (??). Jimmy is loving it.

Today we walked around one of the downtown areas and saw the Roman Theater. We ate lunch at a small restaurant (falafel, homous, veggies, and pita bread) and it was only 1 JD!!!!! That is probably about $1.40 US. Unbelievable. This was the first time we haven't been ripped off so far, and it was a real mood booster. It's very hot here, but I don't think it is any hotter than Chicago has been the last few days. I think the only difference is that there is virtually no breeze and no clouds in the sky so the sun just beats down on you. Also, it's packed here...so crowded and people drive like nutcases.

Tomorrow we are going to Petra, possibly by bus but probably we will rent a car.

Here We Go!

In just over 24 hours, we'll be winging our way on over to the M.E...

I've already received the obligatory "Don't do anything stupid" call from my mom, dad, Aunt Cath, and my sisters. We're having hot dogs, tamales, pizza and beers as our last "American" food for two weeks. The suitcases are filling up, and we're ready for some adventure!