The Citadel

S, Little Lady, and I braved the near 100 degree heat and finally made it to the Citadel. We signed up for a tour with a group from the Embassy because we were unsure how to get there and had a hard time finding directions. We really need to get a GPS that has maps of the Middle East. So we get there, meet up with our tour guide and begin the adventure that is the Citadel. Now I will do my best to tell you about it. The Citadel is located on top of a Jabal (Hill) surrounded by Wadis (valleys) that then have more Jabals on the other side. This location has been has been highly sought after throughout the centuries as it is an easily defensible position with an amazing view of the wadi. So the Citadel has a long long history. It began as early as the Neolithic period (new stone age) and became more of a strong hold in the bronze age 1800 BC. Though the ruins that are visible today are from is the Roman and early Islamic periods. In the Bible it is said that King David even captured the city in 10th century BC. (WOW that is a long history) 

Here is a map of the Citadel so you can see how this is all laid out as we go along. Our tour begins in the lower Citadel at the entrance ( A great place to start right?)

View from the entrance of the Citadel.

When you walk into the park for lack of a better word you are greeted by these pilars that have a bit of the timeline and history labeled on them. As stated before they go back to the neolithic period and continue on. One of the earliest recorded statues was discovered in Amman during some road construction and it dated back to this time period.

This is the statue and it is currently on display in the museum


So from the entrance you walk up a long walk through the lower Citadel. As you walk you come to a site that is a gravesite with unknown occupants but they are from a fairly recent time frame. The main thing you see and can see from a great distance is the Temple of Hercules or the Great Temple of Amman.

  The temple was built in the reign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180 CE), and is currently under restoration.

Many of the different inhabitants of this area have been resourceful in their building habits. Parts of the columns and temple have been relocated and used in building other parts of the Citadel during different periods of history.










If it wasn't cool enough to see the temple ruins, there is even a bit of the statue that is thought to be Hercules left on the site. It is his fingers and elbow. The statue is thought to be approx 40 ft high when it was complete. You can even make out the fingernails and knuckles.






Here I am getting ahead of myself. Once you stare in awe at the remains of the temple from the front, you continue walking up the path towards the rear of the temple and you pass by the evidence of habitation during the Bronze age. It is a small cave that has been unearthed during one of the digs at the site.

I must say that it is an impressive cave. It has a wall blocking the opening of the cave to create a smaller entrance and even a bit of stairs stepping down into it.





Now we just jumped from the temple which was 161-166 AD to 1800 BC with the cave and if you continue up the path you are greeted by the newer (compared to everything else here) museum. So this place gets a bit confusing with what century you are currently viewing. Located in the museum are artifacts of the history of Amman and Jordan. The Dead Sea Scrolls used to be housed here but they have recently been relocated to a different museum that is soon to open. There are fossils, mosaics, statutes, bones, tombs, and even jewelry and pottery from all different ages located in the museum. Here are a few pictures of artifacts.

 A small child's skeleton. It is laying on the broken pieces of pottery that it was found in. Children were often buried in pottery and placed under the living room floor in an effort to keep the family together

 I believe this is another burial chest. It may have contained remains or it could have been filled with items that were thought to go on with the dead to the after life.

Here are some tombs that were uncovered. The white parts are pieces that were missing when it was discovered and so they made replacements.







Ok so I apparently only uploaded items that were dealing with death. But there were lots of other things like plates and statues and things. You will just have to come to Jordan to see what you missed.

When you finish in the museum you come down the stairs and view the rear of the temple. Everywhere you look you will find ruins of something. Here is a creepy face that has somehow managed to survive the test of time.

Once you have finished looking at the various statues around the temple you walk behind the musuem and you find a door way that once lead to something amazing I am sure.

Though you cannot see it from this angle the door is actually still attached.

Maybe S will come back through here and edit what I cannot remember about things.






We continue on and look over some amazing overlooks and then on to the Mosque. There are only some pilars left of the mosque now and a small section of one wall has been restored.

The section of wall

After you view the remains of the mosque you can then head to the palace. The dome has been restored with wood and here is one of the places to see pieces of the temple that have been reused throughout history. The main part of the palace that is standing today is the court. This is the area where the governor or king would have met with people wishing to speak with him. This was one place with an amazing breeze and we could have stayed in the cool breeze for the rest of the day.

The entrance to the court

                   The recently replaced roof.

One of the alcoves in the court. Each has carving in the door and smaller alcoves around them. About here is where I tuned out for a bit. I sat in the entrance way with Little Lady, enjoyed the breeze and wished we were able to bring water with us. However since we traveled during Ramadan we were unable to drink water unless we were on the bus. (we chose to respect the custom of fasting and not drink in public). Sorry maybe after future trips I will learn what I missed about the court.

Once you exit through the back of the court you are in the ruins of the palace. I have no idea how many rooms there are to this palace but the place is massive. What we can see now is only one floor, the basement if you will. It is thought that it had possibly 3 stories or more to it.

One doorway looking into a room

An above view of palace ruins looking at the back of the court.







After we walked through and around the palace we walked to the cistern. Strangely it is thought to be an open topped cistern. They had a gutter system that would collect rain water (which is very precious here) and guide it to the cistern where it would be stored. I guess they were not very concerned with evaporation.

After you have viewed the cistern you continue on the path back towards the temple. When you get close to the temple again you come to the ruin of a Byzantine basilica which is thought to be from 6 or 7 AD.

 This view of the basilica is from the back. You can see toward the top of the picture the columns that would have lined the aisle way of the basilica and the arch is part of a reconstructed wall of the apse.





We walk along past the Temple of Hercules one last time

where we view the temple from the front. We walk on and get a view of the Roman Amphitheater which will be next on the tour and then we leave the Citadel for the day. It was a very educational tour. Even if I did zone out for a bit here and there. It was hot and tiring but we are glad we went. Little Lady would tell you about her experience but she slept during a lot of it and she is in bed now. So I am not certain that this trip left much of an impression on her.

If this left you wanting more information here are some sites you can check out and that I referenced in reviewing some of my dates of objects.

http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/tourism1.html
http://www.visit360.net/en/africa-middle-east/jordan/amman/amman-citadel-360/101-amman-citadel-360
 http://www.art-and-archaeology.com/jordan/amman/citadel.html

A new car and Ramadan

YAY!!! We bought a car. It is going to be S's car once the one we shipped arrives. Fingers crossed that our other car arrives in mid August as expected. We bought a 2002 Land Rover FreeLander. It is silver and has minimal body damage (something not easily achieved here). It also has working AC which is a must as far as we are concerned. Today is Friday (which is Saturday here) so we decided to go out for a drive. It is my turn to drive and it has been 2 months since I last got to drive a car. We get Little Lady in her carseat and off we go. it is great! there is no one out. I get to drive around and not have to deal with anyone. This is the most empty the roads have been. Well we head out but we discover that nothing is open. Ramadan began last night and so the majority of the population is fasting from dawn til dusk. This also means that nothing is open until the afternoon and there is no food options available until after sunset. We drive for a bit and try a few new routes. We do not get lost!!!! YAY!!!!!! We have to celebrate this milestone. We go home. Little Lady is awake, the kitchen is still a mess so we order McDonalds. It is open and they deliver. We have our lunch/ dinner and then we get back to the unpacking. I think this will be the story of our lives for a little while. Although tomorrow we have signed up for the Citadal Roman Amphitheater tour. SO no unpacking tomorrow just a day of sight seeing. Can't wait!

Unpacking

Well I should say that we are unpacked in terms of the movers took all the boxes away and we are now unpiling everything. There are piles everywhere.

Our office

Goals of the day included washing the bedding so we can have clean not musty sheets and blankets. Something about your belonging being at sea for months makes them smell a little funky. Finishing up the baby's room. Well as far as it can go until we get paint and the pictures hung. Put some order to our bedroom and clean out the bathroom so we can actually use it (Don't worry we have 4 others so we can still do bathroomy things. lol)

The main master bedroom

 Organizing the kitchen should be on the list but every time I walk in there I become so overwhelmed I cannot function and immediately retreat to another room.

The kitchen

OOOhhh so all this chaos inspired me to call a nanny/housekeeper. Little Lady is not letting us get too much done. S or I have to be in the room and playing with her or she is screaming and really it is not helping. So I called E and she sounds nice. She speaks English pretty well and has come highly recommended. Not for her cooking abilities though. oh well I am not too concerned with that. She comes on Sunday to see how things are and see if we all get along. Fingers crossed this works out. I probably should have mentioned the 2 cats but I forgot and it seems silly to call her back to tell her we have them. Hopefully she wont mind. SO back to the cleaning un piling that we are doing. We do manage to get the bedding washed, dried, and put back on the bed. We decided to order some delivery for dinner as the kitchen is not really in any condition to be used. We have dinner, get the baby to bed and then sit down to watch some TV because we are exhausted. Tomorrow S has to go back to work and so the organizing continues if Little Lady will allow it.

So I look at all these pictures of the mess and it doesn't seem as bad. Somehow the picture does not convey the chaos that was around us. Just imagine every surface of your house covered in something and not necessarily something that goes in that room. Now you kinda have an idea what we felt and saw.

It is finally here!

So today started off like any other day. I had a plan to clean, but procrastinated. Playing with Little Lady seemed like a much better idea. That was until 12:30pm. The phone rings...I answer..it's S. Here is what the conversation went like:
S " I talked to shipping and guess what"
F "It's coming Saturday" While in my head I am cursing the fact we don't get to go on the trip but at the same time happy our stuff is coming

S "at 3o'clock"
F " on Saturday? wow that is during Ramadan I didn't think they would be working"
S " No. today"
F " wait what?"
S" our stuff is coming at 3pm"
F " So you're coming home right?"
S " yeah but I thought I would call you first"
F " Ok so I better get busy. See you soon."

Yeah so I was kinda dumb. I really did not get what S was saying We went into panic mode. I was really happy I spent the whole day yesterday cleaning the floor instead of putting the stuff away. Whoops! Little Lady sensed our excitement and refused to nap. S came home and him and I ran around the house gathering all that was loaned to us and getting it all boxed up to return. I clean up the kitchen, finish washing the dishes from last night and the movers are here!!! 3pm!

Dining room is ready for our boxes

They take S out and have him present for the opening of the truck and crates. Items get brought in and checked off. I try to direct them to the right room but it is evident very quickly that the Spanish speaking people who packed them had no idea what they were packing (everything was labeled basket lol) and translating the Spanish labeling into Arabic is not working. lol Soo it is kinda a mess. The boxes are placed in rooms and the guys start unloading them. It is very overwhelming. Our Boab tries to help with all the translating. Little Lady gets lots of smiles from the guys. I get tired of holding her so we put her on the clean porch in her jumper. She happily jumps until she gets hungry and tired. I feed her and then she finally gives in to the nap (oh great her crib is not built yet and the old one is hidden in the spare furniture room) I slide into the spare room and wiggle the crib enough to get her in it. I shut the door and hope she gets some sleep. She does (30 minutes) and is a happy camper when she wakes up. The guys finish up around 6pm.I start on Little Lady's room. She has to have a room to sleep in.

Little Lady's Room ready to be organized

Then S and I order some delivery and sit back and just look at the mess we have

This is our dining room table

What will be our living room

Eventually we head to the bedroom to clean off the bed so we can go to sleep on our mattress that we have been missing.

Our bed.

We get the clothes thrown in the closet, make the bed and go to sleep. It has been a long day. I bet you can guess what we will be doing for a while.

Downy has found a new place to sleep

Some translations from the packers:
Cat house= litter box
Baby car = stroller
Baby animal stuff = Giant stuffed giraffe
baby toilets= diapers and wipes (yes this one is hilarious to me)

I cannot think of any of the others but as we think of them we will include them.

A day in the life of F

Well today...you started way too early and ended kinda late. Little Lady decided that 7 am seemed like a great time to be awake. Yeah not so much to this Momma. Well the cute noises that come from an awake but not screaming peanut lure me out of bed. I head to the bathroom, then to the baby's room. "Man I wish this door wasn't so loud" well that is what was going through my head as I enter her room. I then get to the crib at which point I remind myself  that today is the day to clean because tomorrow is the big day! Our furniture will arrive and our Little Lady will no longer be sleeping in a bed with teeth marks from it's last occupant. Ok I guess it could have been 6 occupants ago I don't know but I do know she has no teeth so they are not from her. Well she is laying on her back kicking her feet singing to her lovey and ducky bink and just enjoying the morning. I pick her up and get an immediate huge hug then the pat pat on my back. I have realized that every time I pick her up I tend to pat her back and now she returns the favor every morning. Well time for a diaper change. My nose has not started working yet so I cannot tell what I am in for yet. Looks like I am in a for a wet diaper. If it was more than a wet diaper we would have had the discussion about saving those things for Daddy. It never works but I try. Well diaper changed and she is out of the sleep sack. So we head to the living room. She gets her medicine and then plays on the floor. I make some toast and peanut butter for me and head back in to sit and read while she plays quietly to herself. Now I am fairly certain that most mornings I sorta fall asleep at this time for at least a few minutes. Eventually it is time for milk. 6oz of soy milk in which after coaxing her to drink it she only drinks about 4 oz. We are in a phase of hating our bottle and only liking to drink water except at bed time. S comes out and is ready for work he gives quick hugs and kisses and then he is gone for the day. 9am I turn on Sesame Street, I have not decided if I am a good Mommy or not letting my 7 month old watch TV but at least it is Sesame Street and she loves Elmo and Abby Cadaby. They are her favorite. Today though is not the day to watch SS. It is nap time already and she is in a grouchy mood. So off to bed we go. I try to get her into her bed. This involves laying her on my shoulder, then on her side, then switching binks, making sure she has a lovey, snuggling, bouncing and some pleading. Man this kid hates naps. Ok down she goes. Now 30 minutes what to do what to do. Well I know.  I think I will go and start some laundry. Her carseat and stroller need a bath after the sweet potato fiasco on Saturday. I get everything apart and in the wash. I have time to pee and get dressed and the Little Lady is awake again. In I go to get her and I get my hugs and pat pats. I change her diaper again and get her dressed for the day it is now about 10am. Too early for her lunch so we play on the floor for a while. I sit and stare at the mess that is my dining room table. The table is covered in all the things I need to pack up today for tomorrow and I am trying to contemplate the job and where to start. I decide that while she is playing I will work on the inventory. I begin checking things and Little lady begins crying. I walk over talk to her, play with her a minute, sit her back up and then continue on to my task at hand. She crys again. Well forget the inventory it must be play time. We play until 11 and then it is time for some lunch. I do remember changing the laundry over somewhere in there and starting another load too. Little Lady eats some cereal and a fruit and takes a drink of water. She starts falling asleep at the table. Well it has been two hours. So back to her room to start the nap time routine. She eventually falls asleep and I head out to the living room to check facebook. (Yes I know I should be working but the computer was calling me) I post a thing about working and then the phone rings. I go and answer it and it is S calling to tell me that the company we need to clear our possessions is on strike and has been for 4 days. We cannot get our stuff until the strike is over. Well that popped my bubble. I head back to the computer post my never mind comment and then Little Lady is awake. It is about 12:30 at this time.  At this point I decide to bleach/wash/disinfect our tile floor. Little Lady had a major diaper rash the other day and so she spent 2 days nakey on our floor playing. So it really needs a thorough cleaning. I fill a huge tote with bleach water in the scary bathroom ( it is the maids bath but it looks like a prison bathroom and I wont let anyone use it) and then put the floor pieces in it. Then I rinse them and place them in a different tote. I take them out on our balcony to dry but the balcony is dirty. I remember what S said about the floor drain and decide to dump the tote of water on the floor and sweep the water to the drain. I drag this tote through the house and dump it. Only I did not think about the water coming back into the house or about making sure the drain was open... Well now I have another mess to clean up. So I open the drain and after years of basement clean up from the water leaks I have lots of experience to draw on in sweeping the water. Little Lady is in her jumper playing in the door so she can see me. She does not seem to understand that Mommy is not "playing" in ankle deep water and desperately wants me to let her outside. It feels like it has been hours ( oh now would be a good time to explain that the broom we have been loaned until ours arrives has been sawed off and is only 3 ft tall) of being hunched over sweeping water, when in fact it has probably been 30 minutes. It was a lot of water. Next I put out the 36 pieces of floor puzzle to dry plus the edges and middles.

 Once I have found enough space for all of them I head back inside to dry my feet and relax only to remember the water that sloshed into the house. Well I slip and slide across the floor to the laundry room and come back with a towel. I put my feet on it and do some shuffle exercises to dry / clean the tile floor. This brings back my days of exercise at Elite Fitness Concepts with the awesome Sara and her paper plates. At this point it is around 2:30 or 3 who knows. All I know is the baby is getting cranky and I just want her Daddy to come home and it is no where near 6pm like it feels. I head to the kitchen and prepare a bottle. I pick up Little Lady and we snuggle in for a bottle and a nap. She protests the bottle because she doesn't want to fall asleep. Well at least that is what I think she is fussing about but who really knows. Either way she fusses I keep attempting to give it to her. It is a battle of wills and mine is wavering. She gives first and drinks 4 oz then crashes for her last nap of the day. I place her in the crib and head to the kitchen to figure out what is for dinner. I think it is going to be some spaghetti. I get the meat out to thaw and then go and sit in the living room. I surf the internet for a few and then 30 minutes is up and it is play time again. We head out to the deck, give grandma a call talk for a while then head back inside when S gets home. It is 7:30 so bath time. I fill the tub and get the baby in, wash her and then let her splash away for 30 minutes. At 8pm I get her out dry her off and head to her room to do her nightly massage. Daddy brings in the milk gives her some goodnight kisses and her and I snuggle on the bed while I give her her bottle. She downs all 6oz and snuggles with me while I read her a good night story. She falls asleep. I put her in her crib do the wake to sleep technique from the book "Happiest Baby Guide to Great Sleep" or well something like that and head out. It is now 9pm. I start the spaghetti then head to the living room, sit down, and start watching the Tudors with S and about 30 minutes from the time I walked out of her room she is awake. I head in there and give her her binky. It is a no go. I pick her up, burp her, she lets out the loudest burp and actually startles herself. I get her back to sleep and lay her down. do the wake to sleep routine then tip toe out. Curse the loud door as it makes it's awful noise wait outside to see if she stays asleep. She does. S has finished the spaghetti so we eat while watching the Tudors. 10pm I head to the shower, as soon as I start the water she starts screaming. I wait fingers crossed that S can get her to stop. No go. I head out and cuddle her, shush her, get her to settle. Place her in the crib and off to the shower I go. Around 11 we head to bed. 11:30 we stop reading and turn of the light and sure enough she is up again. Off I go. I flip her over so she is on her back again, put the binky back in and then leave. I get snuggled in, say a quick prayer for a restful night and drift off to sleep. This time she makes it until 8 the next morning!! Lucky Mommy.

Well I am sure this was boring to read but it is what a day is like for me and LL as we are stuck in the house all day until we get our car. Hopefully soon! We have been looking into buying another one so we shall see. So majorly disappointed our stuff will not be arriving but S and I did sign up for a tour of Citadel this coming Saturday so it is something to look forward to. Now just wait and our stuff will arrive on Saturday.

Goodbye...

Well today S, Little Lady and I went grocery shopping in the morning and then we went to the Embassy to swim in the afternoon. Grocery shopping was it's usual events. Actually we went to cozmo and it was a bit hectic but that is nothing new. The new thing being that they just installed a number machine so you have to go up to get a number before you can buy anything from the butcher department. Well S fought for his place at the counter like usual and went to call up his order and the guy next to him was like "what's you number?" and S had no idea what he was talking about. The guy pointed to the machine so even though S got to the counter before that other guy he had to go and get a number and then start waiting all over again. Now it has been a few weeks since we last shopped at Cozmo but there was not a sign indicating the change or anything. Oh well. I guess it is for the better because now it will not be such a hodge podge of craziness. After we were done shopping we went home unloaded the car and then got ready for the pool. Little Lady and I had lunch by the pool while S went to work for a little while. Eventually S came down and was able to swim with us too. We did have a mission while we were at the pool and that was to say goodbye to one of our friends. Little Lady had to say bye to A and I to C. We said goodbye to the rest of the family as well. Little Lady and I already miss our new friends. They are off on vacation to America and then moving to Kenya for a few years. We are super excited for the experiences that they are going to have and who knows maybe we will be able to visit them in the future but we are sad to see them go. They have been the most helpful to us and got us out of the house during the week. We saw many new things with them and it was nice for Little Lady to have a friend that she enjoyed. A was already walking and you could tell that Little Lady was jealous of it and wanted to try it too. Well it is the first of many farewells that we will have to say, ok actually it is the 2nd farewell we have had to say but while K1 was most helpful to S, C and A were the most helpful to Little Lady and I and we are sad to see them leave. This is a great experience we are having but it is going to be hard to keep saying hello and goodbye to everyone.

Good luck to A, C, I, L, A, and A on their many new adventures!!

today was the day but now it is not

Well today is the day we have been waiting for our stuff is coming...oh wait...nevermind that it is not coming today. It arrived in country on the 30th of June and it is sitting at the port in Aqaba because our shippers mislabeled it. It was placed in a container with someone's vehicle and was labeled with their name instead of the embassy so basically it has been waiting for someone to claim it. Well I should be putting things away and getting ready for our things but i think i will continue to procrastinate on that one and see how this turns out. On the positive side I finally have a cell phone. Strange thing buying a phone here. You have to go and buy the sim card for the phone at the phone company but then you go and buy the phone at another store mainly Smart Buy which is similar to Best Buy back home. Then you have to put the card in the phone and call a special number to set it up. Well somehow S and I did not understand the directions correctly and we somehow made it so the phone could send texts and could receive calls but was unable to call out. So we waited and then went back into the store and had to get it fixed. The lady said we did not dial the correct number to set up the account. Anyway it is fixed and now it works. I ended up picking out the Nokia Asha 200. Choices in a price range that I wanted to spend were a bit limited. I really wanted the new Samsung Galaxy...or Y or something but it was not available yet. Oh Well anyways enough I am off to find something to do.

4th of July part 2!

So after Sweifieh and a bit of a rest we headed to the embassy. We got there early to ensure that we would get a parking space. We went through security and we were in. We were greeted by 3 bouncy houses. They were not inflated at the time that was for after the speech. We were also greeted by Uncle Sam! He was walking around and talking to everyone. He posed for lots of pictures. Which is a bit odd because normally you cannot take a camera into the embassy. So we did not bring one but now we know for next year. We milled around with everyone and waited. At 4:45 the Marines presented the colors. The anthem was sung (the US and Jordanian) and the ambassador gave a speech welcoming us all to the celebration and thanking everyone from being here instead of home on this holiday and it was concluded with Uncle Sam leading the kids parade around the embassy grounds. The kids had brought their bikes all decorated and everyone seemed to be very excited. S and I took Little Lady around the corner and we were in what could be described as a school carnival. There were booths with temporary tattoos, face paint, bowling, corn hole, ducky matching, and the adults highlight of the night the dunk tank. There were a number of bosses signed up that you could dunk. S did not feel like making an enemy of his boss but it was impressive the arm on some of the kids. Some of these kids took all 3 balls and dunked the adult with each one and they were throwing impressively hard and fast.  There was also a stage set up for people to sing and some that participated were ok and others you really wished never would have tried. If you were hungry you could get shawarma along with burgers and hot dogs. Drinks included fountain drinks and if you went to the marine house you could get beer. Then there was ice cream which is a bit hard to come by. It was London Dairy for those that are interested in that. lol We spent a lot of time talking with friends and watching the kids play games. As the night progressed we anxiously awaited the 8:30 pm fireworks. We sat at the snack bar near the pool and hoped we had a good spot. A new friend of ours M who is here while his family is still in California was assigned the job of sitting on the roof to put out any fires that may arise. I bet he had a great view. As it turns out so did we. We were a bit nervous as this was Little Ladys first time experiencing fireworks. Of course the show started and we had to pretty much lay on the table as they burst over our heads. Sparks came down on the playground just on the other side of the pool from us ( it was an amazing view). Little Lady was confused by the noise but I laid her back and pointed up and she was in awe. She sat there with her mouth open wide staring at the sky. The display only last for 5 minutes but it was a nice piece of home and made us feel a little closer to those we love and miss who would be enjoying similar fireworks soon. Little Lady continues to amaze us and those around us. Everyone was watching her to see if she would cry and she was just fascinated by the fireworks and once they were over she continued to stare into the sky waiting for more. She took one short nap in the entire 4 hours and was the happiest baby ever the whole night. Even when it cooled off unexpectedly and all I had was jeans to put her in. We received many compliments on her behavior and hope that those continue as she gets older. Now once we left the embassy for the night and she had to get in her carseat to go home all bets on the good baby were off. We had a 15+ minute drive with a screaming baby in the car the entire time. At one point people in the car next to us (we had the windows rolled up) were staring at us because they could hear these blood curdling screams coming from our car. S and I were trying so hard not to laugh at this point because there was nothing we could do to calm her and it was funny the looks we were getting. Which once we were laughing the looks continued even more so but it was worth it. lol We came home and she went right to bed for the whole night. It was a great 4th of July which is my favorite holiday by the way.

July 4th Part 1- Sweifieh

SOOO it is the 4th of July and we are not in America. What to do, what to do? Go shopping of course!! S had the day off and since none of the locals did we decided to try going to Sweifieh (Swi-fee-ahh). Now Sweifieh is a market area. People also live in the apartments in Sweifieh but mainly you think about the shops here. This is were there are grocery stores- Cozmo, Safeway- there are electronics stores- Smart Buy,- toy stores, and then the market. there is also a walking street called Wakalat street meaning pedestrian street which contains stores that Americans are comfortable with Gap, American Eagle, ETC. So, S, Little Lady and I head out to Sweifieh. We know it is between 6th and 7th circle just go south. So we drive to 6th head south, find the sign and turn. Easy right! Yep!!! That was the easy part. Next comes navigating the one ways, the cars parked the wrong way on the one ways, the donkeys, pedestrians, and eventually some off roading into a parking lot. Well since they don't have parking lots we found a lot of dirt with other cars in it and called it a parking lot. OK we made it! Mind you this took us at least 30 minutes adn there were a bit of white knuckle moments and a lot of silence so S could concentrate. At one point S wanted to use the SUV to push a small car out of the way. Mind you this small car was parked perpendicular to the sidewalk and all other cars with it's nose on the sidewalk and butt in the street making it nearly impossible to pass, so completely deserved to be pushed. We get out of the car, get Little Lady strapped into her carrier and off we go. First challenge crossing the street. We wait until the street is packed with cars then cross in between them I think this is the safest way to go. Now to walk on the sidewalk...or not... you never know because one minute there is a sidewalk and the next there isn't one or you come to a 6 ft drop off. We climb the steps on this particular sidewalk each of which is a different height. S has to hold my arm at times to help me up or down as my balance is off with Little Lady which is kinda frowned upon as it would be considered a PDA but we limit the contact to necessary moments and move on. We did go on a tour here a few weeks ago so you would think we would have somewhat of an idea what we were doing and we knew what store we were looking for (the home good store called Nour Home) to replace the glasses I broke that they loaned us until ours arrived. So we climb to the top of the jabal and look we actually found the Bakery!!! We know this place. You would think we planned it! The only reason it took us a minute to recognize it was the building we were standing in front of was the one on fire last time we were here. Now the challenge, cross the street again. This time it involves a lot of honking (not by us, although next time we might try honking back), a few onion shakes* also not by us, and a lot of angry people us included. Some delivery van decided that the middle of the street was as good a place as any to unload the truck. So we zig zag the traffic and make it safely to the other side. Chickens would never make it here. We walk by the bakery which smells delicious, continue past the fresh fruit stands smelling even better, past the pharmacy (this doesn't smell) to the corner. At the corner is the best shawarma stand we have found so far and shawarma is my new favorite food. Our mouths start watering and yet we press on. We know that the store we are looking for is just around the block. We FOUND IT!!!! First try! We go in and shop.This place is like a maze. You think it is small and then you find a flight of stairs and then another and another and eventually you have no idea how far underground you are but you are in the middle of a tightly packed (no laws here about spacing or handicap accessibility) version of bed bath and beyond. We find the glasses and are concerned that it is 5.50 JD for one. Yikes! Glad I didn't break more. So we ask the guy to get us 2 and he lets us know they come in a set of six. Ok much better we get 6 glasses for 5.50. 2 for the kit and 4 new for us. We happily leave the store and decided to cut through a  building we can see daylight on the other side of and just so happen to come out at the "parking lot"!!! At this point we cannot believe our luck. So we put the glasses in the car and then start the journey over again to see what else we can find. A lot more street crossing, stair climbing, wandering and we find the library or what Americans call the library because it looks like one but it is really Istakal Book Shop. Now the name is a bit misleading, well either name is. They have a very small selection of books. When in fact this place should be called, Michaels, Toys R US, Hallmark, Office Depot combined! We found school supplies, paints, scrapbook stuff, cards, stationary, cake decorating supplies, and toys. Lots and lots of toys. Now this toy store is a blast from the past. They have original TMNT action figures in the packaging. Some US Some Arabic. Baby strollers that are from the 80's. Literally I think my niece and nephew had one of these ones. Party supplies that seemed to be fairly recent. Little Lady was very excited for the Abby Cadaby and Mickey Mouse pinatas. Halloween costumes and face paint. It was crazy and to kinda make it spooky the lights only worked on one end of the store. So we shopped kind of in the dark. OOOOO I almost forgot they were actually selling Aladdin roller skates! yep I don't even need to say anything else do I? lol  Amazingly enough we did leave the store with nothing as it was kind of expensive but we know where to go when we want to revisit the 80's toys. At this point we decided to go back to the shawarma place, if we could find it. Don't worry we did but once again having to cross many streets and all that goes with it. We ordered 1 and 1 in other words one of each but the guy did not understand that and we walked to the car. Drove home. Little Lady had a nap and S and I enjoyed our shawarma. We relaxed for about an hour and then it was on to part 2!

* The onion- Take your hand with palm facing up now put all your fingers and thumb together and it looks like an onion! Congrats you just learned to say hold on or 1 minute in Arabic hand gesture. Now if you shake that onion (which is what the drivers were doing) you are now giving the Arabic (Jordanian, Middle Eastern) version of the middle finger. Congrats you just learned how to make people angry, People do not like being given the shaking onion. lol

PS: I said nose and butt describing the car just to bug my brother. He prefers when you use the real terms when talking cars!

Arabic lesson of the day: yella (once again spelling is probably wrong) is come on, let's go, hurry up that sort of thing.

J Imagine

Little Lady went on her first scheduled playdate. We went to an awesome place called J Imagine with A and her mom and siblings. Now this place will be even more awesome once she is getting around better. They have a baby/ toddler room, an imagination dress up room that comes complete with different sections set up as houses, doctors office, firetruck, play garden and others, also an art room and water/ sand table room. Little Lady, A and  Baby I all played in the baby room at first. They have play mats, wooden toys, rocking horses, stacking toys, blocks, and the list could continue for days I think. Eventually A (who is walking), and Baby I (who is crawling) figured out there is another room. They took off and so did their moms leaving Little Lady and I to play on our own. Eventually curiousity got the better of me and I had to go and find out where everyone else went. Little Lady and I ventured out into the big kids area and we found that A and Baby I's siblings had been transformed into Princesses and knights. A had found a baby to carry around that was bigger than her and Baby I was just chewing on a rubber duck. Well this made me wonder where the duck had come from. Little Lady and I had to find out. So we went to the sand and water table room. Now in your head you are probably picturing this little water table right? No! This is a whole room. It has probably a 10 by 5 ft sand table with buckets and rakes and things. This I figured was a bit over our 6 month old heads so we went straight for the water. Now the water table is probably 20 feet by 4 feet. It has some parts that stick out like waves, it has hills for a waterfall, and fountains. There were all kinds of ducks floating in there. They had some that were different colors and some that had hats and things. Well I will let Little Lady tell you about it.

Little Lady: This room smells like a pool, and there is water like a pool, and duckies like my bathtub but as hard as I tried Mommy would not let me get in. I kept trying to tell her she was doing it wrong. Holding me over the water so I could put my hands in is not how this is done but darn this baby speak she did not understand me. She just let me put my hands in. Then she held me near this thing she called a fountain. It had water spilling out of it. I put my hand in and took it out. Then I put it back in and decided to try putting it in and out really fast. This results in water going everywhere! Yay!! Now I decided to keep doing that until I was wet and Mommy was wet and of course the room was wet. Unfortunately Mommy decided I was getting too wet and she took me away from the water and back to the baby room. The toys in the baby room are nice but not as much fun as splashing in the water.

So after we returned to the baby room for a few minutes we decided to feed the gang. There were 3 adults, 3 babies 1 and under, and 4 kids 6  to 3. It was a bit crazy but Little Lady mooched peppers from Ms C. they are her new favorite food to gnaw on and Mommy ran defense against the nice older kids trying to share their popcorn with the little ones. We played for a little bit longer and then decided it was time for everyone to head home. We did set up another playdate for Tuesday in which we will all be going swimming. But if you are ever in Amman and need something to do with the younger crowd I highly recommend J Imagine. All the kids had a great time and it was fairly cheap for them to play there. They also have summer camps there for the 3 and up crowd.