Eid Break! 7/5-7/6 After a 3.5 hour bus ride full of laughter, chatting, listening to Arabic music and looking out the window at the beautiful scenery and camels grazing on the side of the highway, we arrived at the city of Petra. We had time to explore the city of Petra (which directly neighbors the Nabatean stone city that we would be exploring tomorrow), watch the sunset from the roof of the hotel, eat a delicious dinner and after it was time to head to bed, I pulled a chair onto the balcony and stargazed and read until sleep finally overcame me. The next morning, we woke up bright and early, ate a delicious breakfast and excitedly walked over to the ancient city of Petra for a visit we had been eagerly awaiting for weeks. While most people just think of the iconic facade of the Treasury (which is not actually a treasury, but we will get to that later) when they think of Petra, there is actually so much more to the city. Petra, also dubbed The Rose City, was established around 312 BC by the Nabateans, who became incredibly wealthy by capitalizing on their strategic position on trade routes. They were known for their aqueducts and smart water managements systems and Petra was home to a thriving civilization until it was abandoned in 512 AD following an earthquake. During this time it was also ruled by the Roman and Byzantine Empires so it was interesting to see all of these influences come together. Petra was home to more than 20,000 people at its peak, however since most of the residences were made out of mud and other materials that were destroyed by rain and time, most of what we saw were actually tombs. Despite its name, The Treasury is not actually a treasury. In fact, historians are unsure of its actual use given its lack of rooms inside which means it couldn't have been a residence or treasury and the fact that there were tombs beneath it so the area behind the famous facade was not a tomb as well.
Overall, Petra went way above and beyond my expectations and was well worth trekking 10 miles in almost 100 degree weather!
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Wadi Rum truly holds a special place in my heart. Thinking of the Valley of the Moon brings up indescribable emotions that were felt while riding through the desert in the back of pickup trucks, lying in the sand and being able to see the Milky Way and more stars than I have ever seen in my life, scrambling up rock formations, watching the sun set from atop a mountain, eating bedouin barbecue, sitting around a campfire, sipping tea and chatting and doing cartwheels in the sand. The sheer beauty and enormity of this place are one-of-a-kind.
It is such a foreign landscape. So much so that it was actually the place that they filmed the movie, The Martian. The lack of civilization or light pollution gives it a unique serenity that is hard to find. My iPhone pictures truly can't do this place justice, but I hope you can get a glimpse of what Wadi Rum is like. Today we headed to school, had a quiz, did a role play on restaurant etiquette and watched a video on Eid, which is fast-approaching. We have the next 3 days off of school for Eid vacation however there is still not an official date because it is based on the moon and the date can only be estimated beforehand. After school, we headed to ACOR (American Center for Oriental Research) for a lecture on Petra and Wadi Rum by an archaeologist who was heading up a program on sustainable excavation and preservation. I was really looking forward to this talk because we had another incredible talk by the photographer Bashar Tabbah a couple of weeks ago in which he showed us some of his amazing pictures of Jordan and the accompanying histories. He took some truly stunning photos that furthered my understanding of how truly beautiful the entire country of Jordan is. I would suggest checking him out at his website. Here are some of my favorites of his photos- Through this lecture today, I learned a lot about the Nabateans, who built Petra, and developed a deeper understanding of Jordanian history which was great because I always like to have an understanding of the history when visiting a place. After the lecture, we headed home and prepared for the July 4th festivities tonight. I volunteered to cut the watermelon but did not realize what I was getting into until I was brought a 14kg (30lb) watermelon, serrated knife and tiny cutting board. It took me more than an hour but worked out well in the end and thanks to everybody pitching in, we ended up with a beautiful banquet full of everyones favorite American foods on the roof. It was beautifully set up with lights and everything and was truly an idyllic evening. We ended the night strong with an amazing chocolate cake and crazy sparkler candles. So, given my jam-packed schedule that I will talk about in more detail in this blog post, I haven't had as much time as I had hoped to update my blog on the various random activities we do. Here they are-
While I usually fast everyday at home during Ramadan, I decided to not fast while on this trip because it is hard to focus in school and you're not required to fast while traveling. However, today I decided that I wanted to give it a go and see how it felt fasting in a place where everyone around you was fasting as well and the culture was shifted to accommodate the majority who would not be eating or drinking anything from dawn to dusk.
Fortunately, we have an incredibly kind and funny driver, Saeed, who not only gets us everywhere we need to go, but has exposed us to lots of Jordanian pop music. We often have jam sessions on the way to school and I have heard so many different Arab singers so I thought that I would share some of the most popular- This next song is incredibly popular!!! The music starts 30 seconds into this next video. It is a weird music video (but nothing is inappropriate) but I couldn't find any other version. It turns out arabicization is an actual word according to dictionary.com and is basically the Arabic counterpart of anglicization. Arabicizing is the process of taking something, English company names in this case, and turning it into Arabic. Overall, everything has been super accurate, except for a couple of funny examples that I have included below- Bakery=Backry
Today, we went out again with my friend's family friend and today, we went over to dinner at their house. We took a tour of their beautiful garden with countless herb and fruit trees and then headed inside to have one of the best meals that I have had so far in Jordan. It is called Musakhan, an incredibly delicious Palestinian dish of baked chicken and onions with sumac and an assortment of other spices and served over tabboon bread and you eat it with your hands. It is even sometimes considered the national dish of Palestine. After dinner, we sat on the porch and sipped mint tea and had some really nice conversations. We then went and visited the King Abdullah Mosque, the biggest mosque in Amman which has a capacity of 3,000. We then headed to The Boulevard, this huge new complex/mall with a huge outside walking area between these many shops with lots of lights and fountains. It was so nice walking around and then we stopped to get dessert. We had Aish al Suraya, a traditional Middle Eastern dessert and also a Nutella cookie with vanilla ice cream. We walked around and admired the beautiful modern architecture and the new storefronts and then headed home. Another really beautiful day.
Today, two of my friends on the trip and I headed out to spend time with one of my friends's Jordanian family friend who had really kindly invited us to spend the morning with her in downtown. We headed for brunch at Shams-al-Balad, one of the best and most well known restaurants in Amman and it was fortunately open even during Ramadan. It was so cute and reminded me of something I might find in San Francisco; there were lots of mason jars and everything was seasonal and farm-to-table. It was interesting because when we pulled up, I thought it was closed because the windows were covered with brown paper, but it turned out that the windows were just covered because if restaurants want to be able to serve food during Ramadan, you can't be able to see anyone eating from the outside. We ordered many different Jordanian breakfast items and enjoyed the really fresh and tasty meal. We then headed down to the Balad, or the Downtown Amman Area by walking down this beautiful stairway covered in colorful umbrellas! We walked through the downtown area for a while and saw a really cool book stand and shops selling traditional dresses. We then headed to Wild Jordan, a restaurant/viewpoint/artisan goods store/wilderness trip planning center. First and foremost though, it had incredibly beautiful views of Amman. We then took a scenic drive back and passed the US Embassy, which was way bigger than expected. It was ginormous and there was so much security and even a couple of SWAT cars outside. You weren't allowed to take any pictures or even park within a 2 block radius of the embassy! Anyway, we headed back and headed to Madaba in the afternoon, which will be the subject of another post.
معسلامة!! صفية After an already eventful morning exploring downtown Amman, we headed to Madaba, a town famous for its Byzantine and Ummayad mosaics, to get a more historic perspective of Jordan. Madaba is a historically Christian city that technically is included in the Amman metropolitan area but is a 45 min drive away from downtown Amman. It was crazy seeing camels grazing on the side of the highway as we drove. We arrived and immediately headed to see the famous mosaics that Madaba is known for. There were many pagan mosaics and then as time progressed, they added more Christian mosaics. Amman is one of the longest inhabited cities in the world and has been ruled by the Romans, Greeks, Byzantines, Ottomans and more. Because of this. Nearly all of Jordan has several layers of history and Madaba is a prime example of this. We visited an abandoned church that had been a home, church and public gathering place at different points in time. Enjoy some pictures of the beautiful mosaics- And here are some pictures from the abandoned church- It was crazy seeing how much more vivid the colors were once the guide sprayed them with a light layer of water and you can see the contrast in the first picture. And this is the really famous Tree of Life- We then visited the Institute of Mosaic Art and Restoration, a high school that specializes in mosaics, and then went and saw a demonstration on how mosaics are made which was incredibly interesting. Then we headed to a church which is famous for a huge mosaic map of the Levant that covers most of the floor and is surprisingly accurate and demarcates multiple sites which had previously gone undiscovered but were found because of the map. Then we headed to the Church of Saint John the Baptist and climbed the bell tower to an amazing panoramic view and then went beneath the church in all these cave rooms with even more mosaics. We then had some free time to explore and two friends and I wandered into a spice shop with drawers full of spices covering the walls and had a great conversation for 20 minutes (in Arabic, of course :)) with the shop owner for, who was incredibly nice and showed us and let us smell and taste all the different spices. Then, my friend bought this string instrument with a boy and we were then stopped by some local boys who showed us how to play it properly and managed to coax a pleasant sound out of the instrument that seemed to screech anytime any of us tried to play it. Sometimes the most spontaneous conversations and interactions can be the most enriching. We then headed to Mt. Nebo (جبل نيبو), the mountain which is said to be where Moses was when he first saw the Holy Land and had views of Israel/Palestine. The topic of Israel and Palestine here is incredibly complicated and deserves its own post, because its been really interesting hearing different Jordanians' perspectives and attitudes on the situations (even just through observing casual comments or mentions). Anyway, Mt. Nebo was very different from what I expected because it was such a rugged beauty, however, the sunset was truly one-of-a-kind. After the sunset, we headed to dinner, had delicious kebabs on an outdoor terrace, headed back to Amman and then had an Arabic movie night and sipped cardamom tea and laughed and chatted. All in all, a really nice day! :) |
We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us. !أهلا و ساهلاHi! I'm Sophia, a high schooler from the San Francisco Bay Area. I received a scholarship through the State Dept. to study Arabic in Jordan in the summer of 2016. Categories
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