First, I should let you all know that I've spent 2 utterly frustrating hours today trying to post photos from this computer at the internet cafe, but it just doesn't seem to be working. I'll continue to struggle with the problem and hopefully get it going eventually. Before you ask, I did try emailing a few as well, and it doesn't seem to have worked. Hopefully I'll get it sorted out sooner or later.
Meandered around town today with Steven, my neighbor across the street. I'm now generally familiar with the top of the Great Big Hill(tm) upon which I live, and slightly less familiar with the valley between this Great Big Hill(tm) and the next one over. This valley contains Amman's "downtown," the Balad, which resembles a large, dingy, teeming outdoor mall several blocks wide and maybe a KM long(not the way I'd have thought of downtown, but that's what the locals insist upon calling it). Anyway, anything I can't buy in little shops near where I live (and that's quite a bit, actually) I can buy down there. Today, that included a cell phone and an adaptor so i can plug my laptop in to the very different wall sockets here. So, I'm back to being more or less wired, which is nice. Lemme tell ya, though, a walking tour of a city built on Great Big Hills (tm) is no joke for a pudgy fella like myself; my legs were, by the end of the day, definitely ready for a break.
Had a pleasant meal with Steven, who is 35 with a wife and 3 kids. Apparently what I ate was the Jordanian national dish. It's called mensaf, and basically it's a pile of rice with a hunk of meat on top (in this case lamb, but chicken or beef are also fine) over which you then dribble a layer of a tart sort of yogurt sauce. I passed on the sauce, but the rest of it was pretty good. Lamb is nice, it's too bad we don't eat much of it in the states.
I continue to struggle with jet lag (it's currently not quite 3 AM and here I am blogging). Hopefully that will straighten itself out before too long. Church is tomorrow at 10, and then after lunch I'll be meeting with my future roommate.
Amusing sight of the day: We passed a teenage boy whose t-shirt proclaimed in what might have been iron-on letters "MY BODY IS A GUN!" Not quite sure what he meant by that.
Amusin sight of yesterday that I forgot to post: I ate at a Chinese restaurant yesterday called the Shang Hai, in one of Amman's wealthier districts, which is imaginatively called "West Amman." The waiters there wore nametags without names, but with 3-digit numbers instead. One of them, inevitably, was waiter 007. I was sorely tempted to ask for a picture with him, but decided I didn't know the etiquette well enough. Dinner was good, by the way, about what I'd have expected from a similar Chinese place back home.
