Saturday, January 26, 2013

Generosity in Amman

The people here tend to be incredibly friendly. We were sitting on a bench and a man offered us some of his food. Another man in a white van offered us a ride down a steep hill. I ordered a hot dog and another man apologized for the quality of his English (which was enough to ensure I got exactly what I wanted on the hot dog). I was like, I don't speak any Arabic and I'm in an Arabic country. I'm the one who should be apologizing.

We realized today that my kindle and iphone think Amman time is an hour earlier than it actually is. That explains why the azan blares into our hotel room an hour earlier than I expected. Stores closed an hour earlier than we expected. The hotel breakfast ended an hour earlier than advertised. I'm glad we decided not to go to Petra (too much effort and too expensive) because we would have been an hour late for the bus.

We walked a ton today in the downtown area. I can't stress enough how hilly Amman is. You walk more going up than going forward sometimes. Yesterday, a Palestinian guy wanted to take a picture with me at the Roman Theater because I'm an American.

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