Museums and Family Night

Last night, as we were headed back from Petra, we stopped off at the airport to pick up Uncle Azhar! He flew in from Saudi Arabia, where he works, so he could spend three days with us. We were all very excited, especially me since I didn’t see him when he visited America in October. He took Zaynee to Dubai about three weeks ago, so she had gotten to see him recently too.

It was cold, raining, and miserable in Amman when we got to the airport, and when we left it. We were so exhausted that only Dad and Uncle Azhar went out to eat dinner that night (at somewhere called Chile House of all places. Uncle Azhar loves American food, even though this was apparently gross.). Zaynee came back to the hotel right before they did and we got some well-earned rest after our eventful day at Petra.

The next morning, Zaynee left early for school and we slept in until about 9:30am. Zaynee had written down where Ghamid was to take us today, so we went to the car at 10am to see where our first destination was. It was breakfast, thank goodness. The place she had recommended, Abu Jabbara, was a traditional Jordanian eatery. So traditional that they had no English menus! Uncle Azhar, despite living in the Middle East for more than 10 years, has picked up absolutely no Arabic. Therefore, he pointed to the falafel and hummus on the menu and asked for “aqua” to drink. They managed to understand our miming and we ate lots of hummus, pita, and falafel for breakfast. It’s interesting that they have absolutely no sugar in their morning meal. I suppose you can get your sugar from a sweet black mint tea that most people drink, but it’s definitely not the same as a doughnut!

The meal for five of us came to 9 JD…we were pleasantly surprised, since we left a lot of hummus and two lone falafels. The next stop was meant to be the Jordan Museum that we had missed a few days ago. But Ghamid deciphered Zaynee’s itinerary wrong and we ended up at the Royal Automobile Museum instead. It wasn’t a problem, because we had wanted to go there. It was the perfect day for museums: the rain hadn’t let up and now the whole place was foggy as a cloud descended onto us.

Inside, the museum, I made a friend with the ticket guy who kept asking about the GRE and how he could get his PhD from America. His English was quite good…I think he just wanted to practice. The museum itself was incredibly cool. I’m not really a car person, but these were amazing! There were so many old cars that basically detailed a short history of Jordan, because they were all used at some point for significant historical events. There were Cadillacs, Lincolns, Rolls Royce, Hummers, Porsche, Ferrari’s and more. There was even an aqua-car, which was used by King Hussein in Acaba and could go from land to the water!

Once we had finished exploring the old-fashioned cars, we finally made it to the Jordan Museum. It was basically a recap of all my Anthropology classes, including an exhibit on Petra. I really enjoyed learning about anthropology concepts from the Jordanian part of the world. The Dead Sea Scroll exhibit was especially relevant, after learning about them extensively in high school and now visiting the Dead Sea myself!

Mom very interested in the Petra exhibit

Zaynee had budgeted us to go to a mosque, the Hussein mosque, but the schedule got all messed up and since its Thursday, and basically the start of the weekend in Jordan, the traffic was very heavy. We didn’t want to be late to go to her University, so at 2pm we decided to miss the mosque and drive over to her. Ghamid said it would take an hour and we needed to be there at 3pm. It took 25 minutes and we were stuck waiting in the car with him until Zaynee was ready (by 3pm luckily!).

She showed us her University campus, which was basically a parking lot with some beige buildings around it. Lots of Jordanian students at Princess Sumaya University for Technology (PSUT) were just hanging around in the parking lot. Apparently that’s the thing to do! We went into her cafeteria, which was honestly quite dire, and had pumpkin and pecan pie to celebrate Thanksgiving with the rest of the American CIEE students. It was nice to see Eitan, Nick, Emily, and Katherine again, as well as some of Zaynee’s professors, before we headed home during rush hour traffic.

Traffic was so backed up, as is the Jordan way. Additionally, some streets were filled with water from the rain because there is no drainage system here. Zaynee explained that Jordan doesn’t actually get much rain, not enough to have a functioning drainage system. So getting to the Kindi took over an hour (though we did stop to buy some baklava). Once we finally arrived, we dressed up for the Thursday night dinner with Zaynee’s host family’s extended family.

We went over to Suhair’s father’s place (the grandfather), who lives in a beautifully decorated apartment below Suhair’s family. There were so many aunts and uncles and the cutest little children. They have this big family tradition every two weeks and it’s the highlight of Zaynee’s week! We had a great time chatting with them, playing with the kids, and of course eating the delicious Jordanian food prepared for us. After eating, the men and women “naturally” split on either side of the living room while the children played. We discussed random things while the men spoke of politics and business, among other topics. As one relative, Suhair’s sister-in-law Rana, described them perfectly: “Every week we have Al Jazeera; this week, we have BBC—we just changed the channel!” It was hilarious!

Extended family night!

Muhammed, one of the cutest 3-year olds around!

Mint tea

The evening ended many hours later, after dessert, mint tea, and hookah for the adults. Mom, Dad, and Azhar left with Ghamid for the Kindi while Zaynee, Hanaa, and I got ready to go out with Sabri and Alaa. They were taking us out to see Jordanian nightlife. I wasn’t too excited for it; I didn’t think it was going to be super special based on Zaynee’s comments, but I was happy to go out anyway. The Arabs take a long time to get moving and then there is never a cemented plan of action, so we sat in Sabri’s car for a while, then ended up at his house in Abdoun and met his family, drank some mint tea, and finally made it out on the town. Hanaa, being underage, hadn’t ever been to a bar or club, so Zaynee hit three birds with one stone and took us to Books@Cafe, which was a gay bar and club for Hanaa to experience. Alaa and Sabri were very uncomfortable with the idea, but did it for us. We sat together in the café area and had milkshakes and fries—very American. We just sat and chatted before leaving the smoky bar, but it was fun. Driving around with the boys was quite an experience and we were out very late, but it was definitely worth it. It was nice getting to know them better, and having Sabri practice his limited English with us.