Ancient to modern, falafel to baklava

More ruins! Last Saturday... Friday? It's hard to recall at this point. Saturday. I'm almost certain it was Saturday. Yes, definitely. Okay. Tayyib. (Similar to okay.) Now that we've got that straight, last Saturday I went to some Roman ruins in the city center. Maps and tourist guides call them "the Citadel" and "the Roman amphitheater," but of course, no Jordanians understand those words. Why? I have no idea. It sent us on a small adventure later - but I'll begin before that.

Kelly and Lauren and I made plans to spend our Saturday:

1. Eating falafel and hummusy goodness.

2. Eating sugar-soaked sweetsy goodness.

3. Running around ruins and taking photos.

Which meant we made plans to go to:

1. Hashem.

2. Habibah.

3. The Citadel and the Roman amphitheater. (I still don't know the Arabic words.)

We met up at Hashem for lunch - see the Jerash post for my salivating review. Not knowing exactly how far away we were from the ruins, and not knowing how to get there anyway, we got a taxi. The driver, as already mentioned, had no idea where we wanted to. So he just started driving. Great plan. Stopped in traffic on a winding two-lane street, he rolled down the window and called out to a random pedestrian nearby, asking if the man spoke English. Oh. This was going to be fun. The man did, and gave the driver directions to... something. We're not sure. We arrived at said something, and noted that we were in a valley and not, as the word "citadel" might lead you to think, on a big hill. Hmm. Two options: 1. continue speaking in broken second-semester Arabic with the cab driver and likely becoming further confused, or 2. get out of the cab and find our own way around. The second, obviously. Unfortunately, the cab driver took us for hapless American tourists (what else could we be?) and tried to charge us 2 JDs for our cab ride. The meter said 350 fils. Overcharging by a factor of six? Ugh. We gave him a few coins and walked out, wondering where we were. Answer: somewhere. Although the entrance gate really didn't look like much, it turns out that the cab driver had managed to successfully get us to the Roman amphitheater. Hooray! After getting tickets, we headed in. There was a little museum off to the side, and we explored that pre-ruins.

An elaborate sheep costume... disco?

Caption: A crane facing a plant.

Label: Gadget.

She's super excited about that water on her head.

Please note that if you try this with the camel that's in the closet outside the Batcave, you're likely to punch a hole in its shoulder.

Not that there's a hole there or anything. Just saying.

After leaving the museum, we went out to the amphitheater itself. It was big. Real big.

Don't look down.

A view from the top. If you look and see the tall columns on top of the hill in the background, well, that's where we're headed next.

From the amphitheater, we spied out a long, skinny staircase on the opposite hill that looked like it might maybe lead us up to the Citadel. Hopefully. Back at the gate, talking to the guys who sold us the tickets, we found that we were correct. The directions were something like this: go out the gate, turn right, go down the road a little bit, cross it, go up the long staircase toward the picture of King Abdullah, turn right, head up another staircase, turn left, and follow the road up to the ruins. Spot-on correct. Way easier, cheaper, and more interesting than taking a silly taxi.

A view from the hillside opposite the amphitheater, on our way up to the Citadel. Note the empty lot in front - we think they're planning on expanding.

In a church! Or at least that's what the plaque said it was.

Please tell me that someone else starts humming "Arabian Nights" when they see this silhouette. I was standing inside the Umayyad Palace when I took this picture.

World's second- or third-largest flagpole. We were probably about one and a half kilometers or so away from it at this point. Yeah.

This is it. Amman.

Side note, the green area in the middle of the photo is the royal palace grounds.

Rocks!

What we saw from on top of the amphitheater.

The Citadel itself was really interesting - for the ruins, sure, but for me, the best part was the view. Walking around the ruins, you could get a fully panoramic view of the whole city surrounding you. Beautiful.

There were the ruins of the ancient amphitheater to the south; East Amman, the old city with tiny houses and tinier streets, to the east; Raghadan Palace, home to the Hashemite royal family, to the north; and skyscrapers growing up and raising the skyline to the west.

Ancient history to the modern future, in 360 degrees.

And so after climbing back down the hill from the Citadel, we wandered over to Habibah, the delectable and delightful dessert place that I had been told about so many times. We didn't go to the main location - not sure exactly where that is - but to a smaller one around the corner from Hashem. Let me just say this: I apologize to anybody who ate my attempts at baklava for the Arabic project last fall, and I'll make it up to you by learning to make baklava as wonderfully as Habibah does.

We purchased our sugary delights, went back to Lauren and Kelly's apartment to devour them, and all was good. After those, and some spearmint tea (so good), I went back home to work on the week's reading. Speaking of which... I've got to go put the study in study abroad.