I Heart Jordan.

What an awesome first day in Jordan! Considering this was a place we only came to because we had a layover here so figured we might as well spend a couple days poking around, I am SO glad it worked out to do so. For some reason, I don't think I would have ever thought to come to Jordan but now am so glad I did. It's a really fascinating country with so much amazing culture and history (and, let's be honest, the sunny skies and warm temps also help).

Our hostel is pretty nicely located near the major ancient ruins that can still be found in Amman. So this morning we set out on foot to check them out. We started out at the ancient Citadel, which has structures still standing from the 2nd century and houses artifacts that date back to 3,500 BC. Um, that is 5,500 years old! To be standing in the middle of something so truly ancient and to imagine all of the life, the people, the cultures and the civilizations that have walked on those same spots is really almost incomprehensible. Also interesting how quickly the Hagia Sophia, which last week seemed SO old at 1,500 years, now seems like a baby in comparison.

There are still pillars standing from the Temple of Hercules, as well as remnants from a Byzantine church, a mosque, a cistern and a palace that was the cultural center of the town at that time. I was really surprised that they let you walk in and among them and to climb on them if you wish. It is also set on the highest hill in Amman so it was a great place to start out to get an overall view of the layout of the city.

I saw some cute little boys playing among the ruins and asked if I could take their picture. They were more than happy to pose and kept asking me to take more and more pictures. They tried to talk to me in Arabic and when they realized I didn't understand a word (sadly), they threw out the few English words they knew. When I showed them the pictures, they said "It's beautiful". And when I thanked them, they said "You are very welcome". It might just be my favorite picture of the day.

Also, randomly, while I was sitting among the ruins soaking up the sun and gazing out at the city below, a group of Arabic men started playing bagpipe music. Huh. Turns out that bagpipe music is equally bad, no matter what country it's being played in.

After that we walked down to a Roman theater which was built in the 2nd century. It never would have occurred to me to come to Jordan to see Roman ruins, but there they were, nonetheless. They still use it today to house plays and concerts in the summer. We climbed to the top of it and sat for quite a while, just marveling.

The rest of the late afternoon involved meandering through the city, going to the fruit souk (market) and sampling some local goodies: pastries for Sarah (a whole box of them for the equivalent of $1.50 USD) and freshly pressed sugar cane juice for me. It was pretty cool to watch the guy pushing the sugar cane into the machine, so I just had to try it. It was both my first and last sugar cane juice. But, hey, at least I tried it.

Throughout the day, we hardly saw any sit-down types of restaurants so figured we'd end up doing street food for dinner (street food is super cheap here; I paid 1/2 a Jordanian dinar, or approximately 70 cents USD, for lunch today). But right before getting back to our hostel, I spotted an incredibly charming rooftop restaurant amidst all the chaos of our area and we decided to go check it out, figuring it would be way out of our price range. Wrong. Main course dishes were like $4US. So we decided to "splurge" on our first day here and went all out eating typical middle Eastern food: fresh, homemade hummus, wraps full of spicy meats and spices, freshly made mango juice, coffees and, for 'dessert', we tried the apple-mint flavored shisha (hookah) pipe. The whole event took about 3 hours. And all for a grand total of 18JD ($24USD). A. Ma. Zing.

Gotta say, Jordan has been the best layover I've ever had!