Look Guys... Amman!

I made it!

I made it, and I made it out into the city.
My first adventure was a short cab ride with two new friends to purchase calling cards for our new Jordanian cell phones (old Nokia bricks, very fancy). An employee at the hotel bartered with our cab driver a bit before we got it... I'm assuming he was haggling our price for us because the driver asked for a very reasonable amount once we arrived. That is one thing that will take adjusting... transportation. First, the roads are so crazy that my program forbids me to drive. So the majority of the time I will be taking taxis. But as soon as some drivers see an american, they assume we have no idea what a cab ride should cost (usually between 1 and 4 Jordanian Dinar) and try to rip us off. One kid in my program paid 10 JD for a cab ride last night... silly American. So I'm glad we didn't get ripped off at all. We paid just over 1 JD for our ride.
But just venturing out into the city is intimidating, and will certainly take some getting used to. Cars seem to drive wherever they want, often in the middle of the road if they can't decide on a lane. Pedestrians walk across the street and hope the car will stop for them, and taxi drivers will do anything they have to do to pick you up. So the streets are hectic, but exciting.
Anywhoo, our first real adventure was today, our program took us out on an official city tour. We were taken to our university (WAY more massive than my school, University of Denver). They have about 40,000 students on this campus, where my home university is only about 5,000. So they showed us the 'main gate' that we will be using. We also took a walk through downtown Amman, which was an incredible place. It is obviously a huge hub of activity for both locals and tourists. The buildings are all built incredibly close together, and are all lined with shops of all sorts. Some were obviously geared towards tourists, with odd bootlegs of American items, like movies and music. But others seemed genuinely authentic in regards to their jewelry, clothing, etc. It is definitely worth more exploring at a later date.
While downtown we got to eat lunch at this fantastic restaurant on the third floor of a narrow old building. The meal was delicious, full of hummus, baba ganoush, shwarma, fresh fruit, and salads. I could certainly get used to eating like this.

Roman Theater, and my cheesy smile

After lunch we made our way to some historic sites of Jordan, the Roman theater and Roman citadel mountain. Way back in the day Rome had a great deal of power and influence in the area that is now Jordan, and many of their creations are still in Jordan today. One being the Roman theater. This theater is a gorgeous old ampitheater that is still used for performances today. There is one spot, center stage, where you can stand, and even if you whisper you can hear it echo back at you, but no one else can hear the echo... pretty neat.

We also saw the citadel. This is on top of a mountain where many ruins still are, like columns, a mosque, a church, and statues. This was a remarkable sight to see, simply because of how much Roman influence can still be found in Amman. The city is very religious, and also very honoring of history.

Roman Citadel

Roman Citadel

After a very long day in the city, I am looking forward to one last night in the hotel. Tomorrow afternoon I will be off with my host family! Internet will be sketchy there, but I'll figure it out as I go.