The Last Week of Summer

This has been Samuel’s last week of summer vacation.  He starts school on Monday.  I’m going to be honest.  The week has not been that interesting.  We are definitely going out like a lamb and not a lion.

We are stuck in the “it’s the last week of summer, we are in a brand new country, living in a city which happens to not really be a walking friendly city where parks are hard to come by and riding one’s bike means putting your life into the hands of Jordanian drivers, which I don’t recommend.”

Granted we could very much be having this exact same week in Reston, VA – minus the “brand new country, city, putting you life in danger” part – but you get my drift.  If you haven’t already seen the link I shared on Facebook from Jen Hatmaker’s blog about the end of summer with her 5, FIVE! kids, take a look. 

Jen Hatmaker "Worst-end-of-summer-mom-ever-a-sequel"

I find her really funny and refreshingly honest.  Not to mention she makes me feel like I’m not failing as a mom because I am fresh out of ideas and tired of looking at Pinterest in the hopes that someone created a board about “Things to do within the first 3 weeks of moving to Amman.”  If you find such a thing let me know.

Anyway…enough about nothing and on to our most exciting week! Not really, but I happened to feel compelled to write so you get to be lucky enough to read it!

The work and school week starts on Sunday here, so that is where we shall begin.

Sunday

Let me first say that my goal this week was to not go to the Embassy everyday, specifically the Embassy pool.  You might be asking why, why not go, meet people and hang out poolside?  Well the answer is this, while all of that is a nice idea, I didn’t want to become dependent on always being at the Embassy.  Being there is “America” which is quite lovely, but I have two years here and I need, as well as the kids, need to figure out how to live in Amman without our fallback all the time.  And trust me there is plenty of “America/Western world” in this city that it isn’t that hard.

The other reason I didn’t want to be at the pool everyday is that in case you haven’t noticed we, the Elliotts, are white.  As in white, glistening WHITE!  And the sun shines here every.single.day. BRIGHTLY.  People, we are living near the equator for heaven sakes, so quite frankly we can’t be at the pool everyday unless the pool water is replaced with sunscreen.  Seriously, I have never looked at Samuel and said, “Wow, buddy you are tan.”  But this summer I can actually say that.  And yes I have had new friends here look at me as though I was crazy, because the fact is, Samuel is still white, but honestly he is tan in our book!

Okay back to Sunday – day one of the week

It’s the beginning of the week, so of course we needed to go to the grocery store, because honestly, what else is there to do but go to the grocery store.  I had already decided that we were going to avoid the pool and so I thought we should check out one of the mega malls this small city has in it.  Many of them have grocery stores in the bottom of them so I knew we could hit that up while we were there.  But first I was determined to go to the local butcher shop that I heard about from several people – Meat Masters.

Samuel was super excited because he has been begging me since we got here to buy some lamb (the meat of choice in these parts) chops for dinner.  Needless to say Meat Masters didn’t disappoint!  And I probably spent more money than I should have, but we won’t discuss that and we will be eating well.  Yes we got lamb chops. The butcher chopped them up right there for us and we had them for dinner Sunday evening.  And yes they were delicious.  I like to believe that this is extremely evident by the fact that the pickiest eater in this house, Miss M, ate three whole chops, THREE!  (Have I mentioned that she is now also eating cheese again.  Go figure!  And no it isn’t even special Jordanian cheese.  It’s Laughing Cow – the soft triangle kind that we get in the U.S.  She’s also decided that she likes hot sauce, but that is purely because her brother is into it right now and that is another blog for another time.  We are still working on fruits and vegetables.)

With the success of Meat Masters I was feeling rather good about myself so after lunch we trekked off down the road to the Taj Mall.  It actually is kind of like the Taj Mahal of Malls.  Every designer name you can think of has a store in this mall.  The three of us had a nice time just walking the floors in a circle.

I found it funny that the most fun we had was in the H&M.  Yup, cheap clothing and accessories and we had a blast.  They have great character t-shirts, so the three of us had a great time looking at all of them and deciding who in our life would like what shirt best.  Kyhl and Jonas were mentioned numerous times.  Below was the best t-shirt we found.  It was unfortunate that it didn’t come in bigger sizes.  I was tempted to buy several of them.

Aren't you just singing away in your head right now? "Hey sexy lady...whomp, whomp, whomp gangnam style!" (or however it goes)

We checked out every floor, culminating in the top floor – the food court.  Well, of course we needed a snack.  The kids picked slushies from Lebnani Snack, orange flavor – kicks butt over 7-11 slurpees anyday.  Sorry they just do.  I just tried to not think about sugar content.  I mean it’s still counts as a fruit, right?

On the way out we checked out the grocery store, Spinney’s.  It wasn’t bad.  Actually clean and nice, still no Wegmans, but really who can top Wegmans, but maybe Wegmans themselves.

Side Note: the wonderful Jill Vinson sent me this link about an article recently written about Wegmans and why it is the best grocery store on the planet.  I couldn’t agree more.

Buzzfeed.com "Why-wegmans-is-the-greatest-supermarket-ever!"

Monday

By Monday I had decided if we could just make it one more day, we would do the pool (the savior of activities) on Tuesday afternoon.  Not to mention the pool is closed Monday afternoons for cleaning.

Luckily we got mail and packages on Sunday when Bill came home from work, so the kids and I had two new games to play.

We had a lazy morning and played some Spot-It in which Samuel schooled Mariel and me.  And then I beat him in Sequence and yes I secretly relished that win!

After lunch and some internet research, I decided we would check out what I thought was an inexpensive indoor playground place, which would give my extremely active kids some much needed run time.

Of course, this meant going to yet another Mall, this time Mecca Mall.  (Yes, we have now been to three of the I don’t know how many malls in Amman.)

We found the place pretty easily – both the mall and the actual “playground”.  Yes, I am bragging slightly about the Amman navigation skills I am acquiring.

Anyway, we walked into this place, Jungle Bungle, and I quickly realized this is not what I had envisioned when I was thinking “indoor playground.”  There was an indoor climbing structure that actually looked pretty good, but then there were also all the arcade games in which you need an “arcade card” with money on it in order to play.  So what I thought was going to be a 4JD/kid outing for 2 hours of running around turned out to be a 20JD outing for 45 minutes of running around in the climbing structure thing (yes, that is a very technical term) and a bunch on arcade games. (How many versions of “whack-a-mole” can there be?)

I was feeling a bit guilty about all of this, but then I realized my kids didn’t really care.  They were happy to be out of the apartment (and so was I) and they had a good time.  So all in all it ended up being 20JD well spent.  Oh and Bill called me while we were there to tell me that our UAB (unaccompanied air baggage aka THE air shipment) was being delivered at 4pm. YEAH!  Life was looking up – real pillows, sheets, towels, TOYS, blankets – oh my!

It arrived by 5:15pm on Monday.  I didn’t care.  The first things I found were Mariel’s American Girl Doll and Samuel’s soccer blanket and a baking sheet.  All very helpful things.  The boxes are still packed as we are moving into our permanent residence this coming Sunday, so the fun will continue!

Tuesday

The goal of the day – try to make it until 1pm before going to the pool – aka not the highest sun of the day.  We did pretty well.  We didn’t arrive poolside until 2pm.  It pays to be a person who runs late sometimes.

We spent the morning doing who knows what and made it to the grocery store (I know, I know, but I needed more lamb for a potential dinner guest) and the fruit stand.  The best deal in town.  I bought apples, peaches, nectarines (Samuel has been loving them), potatoes, tomatoes, an eggplant, some peppers, couple of onions all for the low, low price of 8.25JD (a little less then $12).  I’m pretty sure I can’t do that well, even at the Wegmans. (ha!)

As I mentioned we made it to the pool by around 2pm.  Some friends met us later and the kids had a great time swimming, playing on the playground, and eating every snack I brought with me – shocker, not.

Fun in the pool riding on a noodle

Wednesday

Today was to be our adventure to the Jordanian Children’s Museum, which I have heard is really quite good.  Unfortunately, Samuel got sick this morning.  (Awesome.  Three weeks into a new country and we have already puked – WELCOME TO JORDAN!)  He seemed fine right after he was all done, but I decided to play it safe and not traipse around a museum I have never been to, let alone know where the bathrooms are in case a repeat event was in our future.

So it has been a movie/DS/Leappad/doll/craft/painting/beading kind of day.

We did take an hour or so and venture outside.  I was hoping to go and pay off our bill at Mariel’s school.  Unfortunately we got there too late – 2:30pm.  They are still on summer hours and I had forgotten that they leave around 2pm.  So on our way home we stopped by the DVD shop – yeah, that’s right, cheap pirated movies for 1.50JD.  People, let’s remember this is the LAST week of summer before school, drastic times call for drastic measures!

We picked our movies and since there is a coffee shop next door, Cups and Kilos, I decided I needed to cave into my craving for a Dunkin Donuts coconut iced coffee and see what these people could do for me.  Oh and they did it alright.  They added about twice the amount of coconut syrup as DD, but I didn’t care.  It was delicious and we just won’t think about the calories for now.  Samuel decided he wanted and needed a smoothie – which was also available on the menu, so he walked out with a strawberry and Mariel chose mango (which I will say was delicious!).

Yummy Mango!

Strawberry for this guy!

And that is our week so far.  I warned you, it is nothing exciting but we did learn a few things.  I know how to get to two more malls, fruit smoothies and slushies rock here in Jordan, the fruit stand is lovely, Meat Masters and I will become close close friends, and the sun shines in Amman even when your 8 year old throws up all over the bathroom floor.

Tomorrow is Thursday – the end of the week.  We are slated to go to the New Family Registration at Samuel’s new school.  Since he was only 2 when we moved to Brussels, we never learned the International School thing, so this is new and unchartered territory for us.  I am hoping for a love connection of some sort for both him and me.  I’ll let you know.

It’s also dinner night at the Embassy. They run, at least for the summer, Thursday night theme nights for the community to come together, eat some dinner and hang out.  Being newcomers it has been a nice way to meet some new people and get a chance to chat with others that you have met along the way.  Tomorrow is “Backyard BBQ” – aka burgers and hotdogs – see, America at our fingertips.

This was Bill from last Thursday (which was Tex-Mex night).

We hope that you are all enjoying your last week(s) of summer.  Feel free to send us notes and let us know how you are doing.  We love to hear from friends and family.  Nothing quite compares to a little piece of home.

Love to all,

J in Jordan

A P.S. In Pictures

PopPop and Gammer sent us a box full of things we had left behind (okay it was stuff that just wasn't making it into our luggage) but they also included some other fun things, like Kosher salt for me (don't ask, you can't get it here), Calico Critters for Mariel and a Lego for Samuel.  He was thrilled!

 So the next time you feel stuck in traffic just remember this - you aren't stuck because sheep are in the middle of the road - unless you live in Iowa, maybe that happens in Iowa.

Yup, just passing the sheep on the left.

Historic Amman

Today we decided to venture out to the downtown area of the city.  There are lots of shops and restaurants, many of which were closed for the Eid holiday, but the historic ruins were open so we decided to check them out.

Greater Amman is really a very young city, as it historically was just a small settlement.  While it has some history to it, many Ammanis tend to think of themselves as originating someplace else before coming to settle here.  The most monumental attractions here in Amman are the Roman Theatre and the Umayyad Palace.

Amman went through many name changes through its history.  During the Bronze Age (1800 BC) the hill now called Jabal Al Qal’a was fortified for the first time. According to Genesis, the area was inhabited by giants before the arrival of the Ammonites in 13^th century BC, who were named as descendants (along with the Moabites) of the drunken seduction of Lot by his two daughters.  By 1200 BC, the citadel on Jabal Al Qal’a had been renamed Rabbath Ammon.  Around 1000 BC there was some misunderstanding with King David (he sent some messengers with condolences for the death of the Ammonite King, but the Ammonites believed them to be spies and disgraced them and sent them back).  Needless to say King David was pretty insulted and sent his entire army to Rabbath Ammon.  Without going into even more detail, let’s just say that the fighting went back and forth for a bit and culminated in King David eventually traveling to Rabbath and throwing the surviving Ammonites into slavery.  Feuds between neighbors simmered for centuries and lucrative trade routes went right through Ammon.  Jeremiah warned in the 6^th century BC that war would be heard against Rabbath Ammon and that the city would become a desolate heap.  After Alexander the Great conquered the region in 332 BC, his successor Ptolemy II Philadelphus rebuilt the city and named it Philadelphia, the “city of brotherly love.”  And here is where I end my history lesson for you because I have gotten to my point.

Bill and I were destined to live here.  I mean how many times have I said that I would love to move back to Philadelphia?  Little did I know that request was going to take me half way around the world and in the middle of the desert, but I guess I shouldn’t complain, I’m back living in Philadelphia.

  

As for the history – well the Romans entered the picture and it was a small outpost until 1921 when Emir Abdullah chose Amman to be the capital of the Emirate of Transjordan.

So there’s the history.  I have to say the sites are really quite amazing and beautiful.

The Roman Theatre is steep and of course as soon as we went inside it Samuel was up the steps to the top as fast as he could.  The theatre, as you may have guessed, served as the centerpiece of Philadelphia.  It was built during the reign of Marcus Aurelius and could seat about 6,000 people.

I beat you all to the top!

Once we were done there we popped into the car and drove up the hill to see Jabal Al Qal’a (Citadel Hill).  The view of the city is really beautiful.  It holds the remains of Umayyad Palace and the Temple of Hercules.  Of course it was a beautiful day and while we were on the hill the call to prayer started.  I have to say it was actually quite peaceful and serene, only to be interrupted by Mariel, who at this point had decided that she was hot and thirsty.  She is not made for the sun.  We may have a long two years ahead of us.  We also had a view of the world’s tallest flagpole.  Samuel loves that little piece of trivia and it may have been a bigger highlight for him than the fact that some of the pieces of history we were looking at were over thousands of years old.

 The view from the Roman Theatre up to the Citadel

 The view from the top of the Citadel

 The world's tallest flag pole.

Lunchtime had come and gone and the calls for water from both kids were becoming more frequent so we decided to call it a day and find some food.  We ended up at what is claimed in my guidebook, The Rough Guide to Jordan, as the best pizza in the city, Pizza Reef.  All I can say is that mine was delicious!  It was a great way to end the day.

Love to all,

J in Jordan

P.S. In case you were wondering, yes we were loaned a GPS from a co-worker and it’s pretty much the only way we were able to get to where we wanted to go today.  I told Bill when we got home today that this morning I was feeling like I kind of knew the layout of the city, only to realize that I really don’t have a clue! Tomorrow is another day and we’ll keep exploring.

I just thought this was funny.  Definition of a dirty car.

Driving in Amman

I have big news! Huge! Awesome news…wait for it…Today I drove.  I know, not what you were really expecting but this is kind of a big deal.  One of my biggest concerns about moving here was the driving.  It is a driving city, meaning that in order to get pretty much anything done you need to drive to it.  People had told me that it was completely doable, but that driving is a bit crazy.  When we arrived and were being driven to our apartment, I was paying attention to the other drivers and the roads and I thought, “Okay I can do this. This isn’t too bad.”  Then I remembered that we had arrived near the end of Ramadan and many people were on vacation, businesses were closed – you get the picture – the driving I was seeing wasn’t actually all that real.

We had our first real taste of true Amman traffic on Wednesday when Bill got back from work and we decided to go to the grocery store before the start of Eid (the celebration of the end of Ramadan).  And yes before you ask, we actually needed some groceries in order to make it through the 4-day holiday weekend, where who knows what would be open and when.  Needless to say it took us an hour and a half to get to the store, which normally should take 15 minutes.  It was a rookie mistake, kind of like trying to buy a turkey the day before Thanksgiving, or going to the grocery store before an impeding mega-snowstorm.  I was thankful I wasn’t driving.

But today I did drive.  It’s a Friday – which is their Sunday equivalent here and extra bonus – a holiday, so the roads were pretty much empty and it was smooth sailing for me!  I also knew exactly where I was going as we had been to our destination previously, but still the point is – I drove.  Without having to turn around and with no damage to any vehicles or people.  I call that a huge success.

Just in case you are wondering this is what we are currently driving.  It’s from Bill’s office and is temporary, but still a nice car.

And because she is just too cute when she puts on these headphones, here is one of Mariel talking to her grandparents in PA.  It’s the 2013 way of doing things.

Love to all,

J in Jordan

The Long Trip…Welcome to Amman!

So I really hate to write anything that could discourage would-be visitors, but I must confess that the trip to Jordan is long.  As much as I wanted to fly direct I have to admit I was glad to get off the plane for a bit in Vienna.  However, the Vienna airport isn’t really all that exciting.  The kids did a great job.  They have always been good travelers.  There wasn’t much sleeping going on, but I don’t blame them.  It just isn’t easy.

We finally, arrived in Amman on Tuesday, July 30^th around 2 pm.  It was a beautiful sunny day in Amman and the weather has been just as great ever since.  I hear we won’t really see rain until possibly October.  I’ll let you know.

As you may have heard, the rumors are true.  Amman is warm, even hot in direct sunlight but not a scrap of humidity.  Coming from Washington D.C. this is a lovely summer gift.  And I have yet to see a mosquito!

We have spent our first week taking care of administrative things with the Embassy, figuring out how to drive through the winding streets of our current neighborhood (yup in temp housing again, hopefully not for long), getting a mobile internet connection and remembering how many pounds are in a kilo (2.2 pounds in 1 kilo, just in case you were wondering).  We have been fairly successful with all of these things, well not the admin with the Embassy so much.  It’s only been open 2 days out of the 6 we have been here.

I’m sure many of you have heard about the Embassy closures in the Middle East.  It certainly isn’t the warm welcome I was hoping for but things are very calm and stable here in Amman so all is well for now.

As I mentioned we are currently in a temporary apartment.  It’s a very nice place but I have to admit even though it isn’t that far from the Embassy (by car) our permanent residence will be right across the street and has much more of a neighborhood feel around it.  Call me crazy, but it’s all about feel sometimes when you do this.

Currently the permanent place is fairly gutted.  It is supposedly a redo of the kitchen by the landlord, but it looks like more of a disaster then that right now.  Bill and the kids and I went by the place on Friday (which is their “Sunday”) so no one was working on the place.  It was wide open so Bill decided to go right on in.  Now what you don’t know is that around every corner in just about all the neighborhoods of West Amman there is a Jordanian security guard (a gendarmerie).  The Jordanians take the security off all their citizens very seriously and especially the diplomats living in their country.  Thus the reason the guards are around.  Anyway…the guard was sort of walking the street so Bill took the opportunity to walk right on in to the apartment and the kids and I went quickly after.  I was too worried about being caught to really look around at the place, but I think it looked nice.  Who really knows.  The place was a mess.  Stuff everywhere! Samuel was thrilled by the whole event.  When asked about Jordan it is now one of the first things he mentions – “We were almost caught by a guard!”

And so begins the journey here in Amman.  We have managed to check out three grocery stores.  I know what you are all thinking – “Jessica and her grocery stores!”  But food is important!  Anyway there are no Wegmans here in Amman but I think I have found on that I like…Cozmo.  Unfortunately it seems to be the slightly more expensive grocery store (shocker) but when you find British pork sausages in a country that doesn’t eat pork – you pick that store!

Speaking of food…we have gotten to try some fantastic Yemeni honey.  I know, I know…how can Yemen have anything good to speak of, but having been there for a year, it was the only good thing Bill could say about the place – “the honey is amazing, ”  And I have to admit we bought the cheap stuff (trust me it’s still pricey) and it is really really good.  Especially good when paired with some traditional Labneh yogurt and raisins.

Amazing how in 6 days we have so much to tell you, but I digress and really most of you just want me to get to the pictures.  So here are some for you.

At Dulles airport...waiting to board.

Ready for Take-off

The TV/Living Room

The Kitchen

The Patio

Front of our Building

Down the Street

How may I help you?

Just checking out a park

Amman

Love to all,

J in Jordan

Saying Goodbye

It’s never easy and it never will be.  It’s different this time.  Two kids, not one.  Everyone is older and maybe “wiser” and we weren’t going to Europe.

Some may say our journey started over a year ago when Bill went to Sana’a, Yemen for a year.  But that was a different journey and a different story.

I like to think that this journey started when Bill returned home at the end of March.  We had known for sometime that we would be moving to Jordan and now was the time to start really preparing for that reality.

We finally were able to tell the kids.  Needless to say Samuel wasn’t overly excited about the idea of leaving his home, school, friends and family behind.  Who could blame him really.

Mariel on the other hand was super excited about the whole thing.  Well, once she learned that all her stuffed animals and dolls could make the move as well.

I don’t know how I felt about the whole thing.  I was excited and nervous all at the same time.  The thought of moving is daunting, but moving to some place unknown does have some added excitement that sounded like a great idea.

We decided to sell our home in Reston, VA.  We were very lucky that it didn't take long at all - two days - and the new owners are a very nice young couple that I think will fit right in to the Brookshire neighborhood.

This all happened at the beginning of June and we thought we had a lot of time.  We all know how time just seems to flit away, so before we knew it our annual week at the beach with our family was over, I was packing suitcases and shipping the kids off to the grandparents in PA and the movers arrival was imminent!

And then the goodbyes really started happening.  It was tough.  The kids and I had roots.  Bill did too, but ours were a bit thicker seeing that our Reston friends had helped us get through a year on being on our own without Bill.  I am hopeful that we will quickly make new friends in this new home of ours.  I am sure it will happen.  But for those of you who are back in our other "home," please know that we miss you all terribly and think of you all the time.

It's only been a week since we left the gold ol' U.S. of A, but we are beginning to figure things out.  Heck, we even know how to get to our "home." It's a temporary home for now, but it's still home.

Love to all,

J in Jordan