Weekend Adventures

This being my first weekend without early arrivals and a crippling time change, I went back into central Amman to do a bit of exploring.

Amman, though much cleaner and more organized than Cairo, is far less fun to wander around. I'm further from the downtown, so any trip in requires paying for a cab. Amman is a much newer city - it didnt become important until the 20th century - so there's very little historic architecture aside from the few ancient ruins. In Cairo, there was always a chance that I'd wander into an old market, or a 1,000 year old mosque, or the towers of the ancient city walls. I wont find any of this in Amman.

I started at the Souq Jara, which is a weekly open-air crafts market near first circle. It was clean and well-organized: nothing like Khan al-Khalili. I found a cool stand that was selling old Arab coins. I browsed extensively and ended up buying some from Mandatory Palestine and Syria, and also from Lebanon and Hashemite Iraq. The stand also had packs of old Arab-Iranian postage stamps, which I bought, along with some old Saddam dinars from Iraq (I bought the latter as a curiosity, and not out of any respect for the former leader, just so we're clear).

Afterwards, I did head into Downtown - the Balad - and spent a couple hours wandering. The atmosphere is markedly different from the western half of the city. It was crowded and hectic on Friday, and I ran into the fruit and vegetable market as well as a huge street market selling shoes, clothes, jeans, and used furniture. I felt lots of energy, crowds, and hustle and bustle - all of which is absent from the area where I live. It was interesting to see, but there really wasn't anything "cool" - no old sights, or mosques, or monuments, or anything that would bring me back a second time.

I ended my walk by the Roman Theater downtown, which may be a venue for the Harvard Glee Club's tour to the Middle East in a few years. In total, I spent four hours and about fifteen dinars. I also finally saw the truth of my roommate's warning that "there's just nothing there" in Amman's downtown.

Having milked Amman for most of its touristic value, I'm putting together my to-do list for the rest of the summer:

• Day Trip to Salt, the administrative center of the region during Ottoman times. Supposedly, this city has all the old architecture that Amman lacks
• Bus trip to Wadi Rum, a beautiful desert area in the south of the country
• Rent a car and visit the crusader castles of Karak and Shobak, via the King's Highway
• Weekend at Petra, one of the new Seven Wonders of the World. People are already making plans for trips down, so I may just join up and make some new friends. 

So, hopefully the most exciting excursions are still ahead of me. The thrills of downtown Amman certainly set a low bar...