Jordan Day 1 - Amman - Rest Day

I must commend Emirates on excellent flights from Melbourne to Dubai with a short transit and then on to Amman where I arrived in reasonably good shape as did my luggage, although Al took ages to come through Oversized Baggage.

My friend Elham, an alumni of The Arava Institute who has crewed for many years, came to the hotel around 2.15pm to show me “her Amman”. First stop was for lunch at Hashem Restaurant which has been around for almost a century and is famous for its falafel, hummous and fuul. No cutlery and no napkin. My kind of eating washed down with sweet tea and mint.

 

 

Lunch done, we headed to the Roman Amphitheater and then to The Citadel where Elham worked her charm with the Tourist Police to gain us entry where others were being turned away. “Jewish visitor from Australia” did the trick together with a telephone reference from one of her connected friends

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The traffic was very congested as it was the day before the holy festival of Eid Al Adha. It took ages to get a taxi back to town but we managed to hail one to take us  into the old city for kunafa at Habiba. Delicious.

 

No visit to Amman is complete without visiting Rainbow Street which is filled with pavement cafes and American style burger joints. It also provided the first examples of street art. We got there by private car of an Al Jazeera film editor and a reporter after Elham again worked her magic. She certainly has a way with people and is extremely friendly.

 

 

After managing to stay awake all day, I went to bed and was awoken by a phone call at 10pm from our tour leader who announced that they had arrived and would like to meet. I suggested next morning would suit me but did meet my room-mate Doug who was very considerate and quiet.

View from hotel room discovered next morning..