18 May 2012

Today is Friday, and this morning we definitely knew. Everything was closed. Jenna and I walked all the way down the hill went down both main side streets and down the main road and there were absolutely no restaurants/stores open. It was really funny to see. Everything downhill is usually so lively. It really feels like a big city. But it was almost entirely abandoned. We did end up being alright. After making our way back up the hill without luck, we ended up scavenging through the apartment before the group left.

We went to the Royal Automobile Museum first. Apparently late King Hussein was a crazy car enthusiast. His cars are crazy. There are so many cars in that museum and they are all so expensive. As most of you know, I really don’t know anything about cars, but after talking to Joel, I learned quite a bit. There was one car (I think it was a Porsche?) that apparently is one of seven. Another that is worth three million dollars. I swear if you sold all of those cars, we could feed the world ten times over. Or at least have a really nice feast for all of the Jordanians.

After that we went to a mosque. It was the King Hussein Mosque, at it is the biggest mosque in Jordan. It was really pretty. As women, though, our half of the group couldn’t go into the main area, and instead went up to the top to the women’s prayer space (not an official name). We were only there for a minute before we had to come back down and we didn’t have the chance to look into the main prayer space because there were several rows of women praying. The guys stayed for quite a while, though. They could stay. Instead, we just kind of chilled outside. I went exploring with someone for a little bit, but ended up coming back to the main group. There was this group of little kids that were running around playing. It was really cute. There was this little boy making hilarious sounds. I think he was pretending to be an airplane. Then I saw a woman in a burqa holding hands with a man, which was really interesting.

We went to the park next to the mosque for a little while before leaving. It wasn’t quite what I envisioned, but it was still really cool. There were so many people there. Again, little kids were playing around the whole park. There were kites. It was really nice.

Then there was the Turkish bath. Maisel mentioned adding that to the itinerary this morning, but I thought that he was joking. So we ended up essentially having a spa day (night), which is something that I’ve never had anything like before. It was really nice.

That’s mostly all. Today has been a pretty relaxed day. Early morning tomorrow, though, and it’s already late, so bye everyone!