Very good friends left after a bit more of a week they spent with us. Farewell is always hard but even more if you know that you cannot just call and meet but it will take month before you see them again. But the time was great with them. Especially the dinners we had... ;-) we always bought all different local things (Hummus, Tabuleh, olives, cheese, bread and, and, and...) It was just delicious! Of course that was always only the entry and after a short break we usually had a main dish which was usually BBQ. But we did not only have dinner...we also travelled Jordan and went to see many places, some of them I had not seen yet. One was the city of Karak which has a famous castle. We went there and after we visited the castle and had lunch, we drove west towards the Dead Sea. You drive down from some 1000m down to -400m within something around half an hour... Our ears poped quite a few times ;-) Of course the temparature gets higher every meter you drive down and close to the Dead Sea we had something in the mid 30is. Interesting enough it started to rain, bit it was more a dripping. The real thunderstorm passed the Dead Sea and hit... yes, exactly: Amman. But not all the city of Amman. Believe it or not, mainly the area where we live! In the days after the thunderstorm I spoke to colleagues in Amman about the flods and the endless water that had pored down and they looked at me saying:" What? When did that happen? I was home and haven't seen any rain. Are you sure it rained?" Lucky enough we took some pictures ;-) (see previous blog)
Anther story abut my daily life here... I lost the battery of my cell phone but I still had my cell phone (don't ask why and how...) Anyway, I go to the shop and the shop is splitted in two areas. Left sale area, right customer care. I wanted to have quickly checked my cell before I bought a new battery as it fell down and I was not sure if it was still working properly. So I go to the sale area and ask:" Can you please put in a battery, check if it works and then I buy the battery if it works? You know I need a new battery." "No, we sell only, you need to go to the customer care." OK, I go there, pull a number althoug there was hardly anybody waiting and after 30 seconds I was called. The guy behind the desk takes my cell, puts in a battery, turns it on and says:"All good, look, it works." Thanks a lot! Bye!" Back again to the sales section to buy a battery. "Hi, I'm back again. (to the same prson as before as there were only to girls working behind the desk...) My cell works. Now I would like to buy the battery." The answer:.... wait a second...I still can't believe it ;-) She goes:"Sorry, we do not sell batteries." AAAAAHHHHH! Why the heck didn't she tell me before? She couldn't understand why I was upset... I told her to check if there was any other shop that would sell a battery and she said: "Sorry, no battery." "What, do you mean there is no battery in all Amman? So I am the only one who needs a new battery?!" She called twice and told me again that they had no battery and I had to wait two weeks (Insha Allah of course) to get a new one. I couldn't believe it and left the shop (a big shop of one of the most successful cell phone producer...). Two things: it does not change anything if you get upset as they will not pull a new battery out of a hat and b) you can solve such isses only with connections. So I had to pull my strings and get in touch with my man who always takes care of me and indeed he started to make some phone calls here and there and after three days he managed to get me a new, original battery. Lesson learned: don't loose the battery of your cell phone and make sure that all your contacts are on the SIM card and not in the phone memory ;-)
Driving is a challange as I already wrote many times. In the meantime I managed too to get my first ticket for speeding. I am really not a reckless driver but here it seems to be some kind of "national sport" of the cops to hide everywhere and shoot people with their laser radar guns. I got busted in a near desert area coming back from the north. Was driving some 10 km too fast. The speed limits are rather low in Jordan, usually 80 to 110 km/h max. Anyway, it is not good to drive too fast and hopefully this was my last ticket...
Why we went north was as we got an invitation by German Group in Amman. Is basically a group where German speaking people meet. In other words, Swiss, Germans, Austrians, Beglians. Of course some other people joined us who were not German speaking but the languages here are not relevant as everybody speaks English and another language (usually). Anyway, the invitation was to go and visit one of the two big wineries in Jordan. Yes, you read correctly. we have vineyards which even produces good wine. Check out their website: http://www.zumotgroup.com/
The vineyard is slightly different the all the ones I visited so far. In Eurpoe grapes grow on hills (usually, or at least in Switzerland). Here they grow on a plane area, totally exposed to the sun. Indeed, is not the issue here. The soil of course is so different, and the mix of grapes, sun, soil, and the final processing make that some wines you had the impression you are very familiar with, taste totally different. So the owner of the winery invited all of us (some thirty people) to the vineyard where he has his grapes and in the middle he has a big house, with a big room at ground floor and a very nice pool area in the back. He gave us a tour through his grapes and he has all sorts of grapes: Syrah, Merlot, Sauvignon, Pinot Gris and Noir, Muscat, Riesling, Gewürztraminer(!) and some others... so after the tour we sat down and were invited to taste all his wines. After the tasting he invited all of us to a BBQ where he served traditional lamb and chicken on flat bread. Was delicious. As I tasted the wine, means I spit it out after every tasting I drove home and got my first ticket ;-) Lesson learned: bring a dedicated driver with you when you go to a wine testing... The owner invited all of us to come back anytime, just to drop him a line before just to make sure that somebody was there. Very nice. This is the Jordanian generosity!
Thursday before we went to the tasting we had an "Internations" gathering. Internations is a virtual platform for expats where you sign in and then the local ambassador organizes some real life stuff such as gatherings, excursions etc... so we went there and as usual you meet new people and some we already met before. This time we met two ladies from the Canadian Embassy that are very funny. They invited us to a field trip to Jerash. Check here if you never heard anything about Jerash: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerash The tour there was organized by the friends of archeology and was lead by a French Professor of Archeology and Architecture who, at least my impression, spend half or more of his life in Jerash. He literally seemed to know every stone! It was amazing and although I am not really into Archeology it was very interesting to walk through the site and hear and see what excatly the whole thing was about. We spent some 4 hours there and it was really intersting. Even more interesting was it, as my good friend from the UK just arrived the evening before. He is a PhD from Oxford University and is now in Camebridge (UK). He studied ancient Roman history. So immagine to go to see Jerash guided by the French Professor, together with my friend who also seemed to know everything about the place! It was just great. So many things we learned about architecture, history, things you still see or don't see anymore. It was just great. My friend will move on to another country and after his trip there will spend some two weeks with us. He just flew in, stayed over the weekend and will then come back after his trip. We are really looking forward to the time when he will be back :-)
After the field trip we invited a very nice person from the US and the two ladies from Canada for dinner to our place (yes, we are really thinking about opening a restaurant/pension ;-) No, we just enjoy having people over at our place and as our living room and the kitchen are big enough, we really enjoy inviting people and to spend a good time. So we had a very nice dinner at our place, laughed a lot and enjoyed the nice company. It is just nice to see all different nationalities sitting together and just having a good time. We just love it...! For all those who are thinking about coming over: hurry up! Believe it or not but the first half of the year and even some dates during fall are already booked...
Oh, another story of my daily life here... I drove to the desert with my friend M.H. (as written in a previous bolg). Since then I had a lamp in my car dashboard that flashed up. It was the lamp that showes when you have a loss of pressure in one of your tires. What you do in such a situation: You call the car shop where you bought your car (car is brand new...) and ask him to check what the source is. Katja went there and now here is what he did: He inflated all tires again, pushed the reset button for 7 seconds, the light turned off: "Khallas! (more or less: "Done") He did not check if one of the tires was damaged or anything, he just told Katja that if the light came back to just return... Guess what, the light got back after one day! This time I got back and wanted to have the thing fixed. I speak to a sales rep who gives me the phone and tells me to talk to the technician. He goes: "Go to a gas station, add some air to the tires and push the reset button for 10 seconds. The light will go away." His luck f not sitting in in front of me while telling me that ;-) I explained the sales rep that this was what he already did last time and that I wanted to have the car checked. Lucky enough I had to leave on a business trip the next week and so Katja drove there, dropped the car and guess what: of course one tire was defect and was constantly loosing air! They appologized at least two hundred times... But hey, that's the way it is here. No hard feelings at all. They simply have a more pragmatic way to fix problems which is not always the worst thing but just a different approach, especially for people who are used to fix things in a Western European way. Talking about fixing problems another story comes to my mind... hihi... I have to laugh by only thinking about. It just shows the pragmatism. OK, here is the story. We have a fence downstairs. The metal fence has a door with two wings. To close it you have to close the first wing and push down a metal pin that goes into a hole in the ground and so fixes tha first door. ( I guess that's the system used all over the world, so you should get what I am trying to explain... ;-) to close the fence you then just shut the second wing that has the lock on it. Done. OK, what happened was that as we had the heavy rain, dirt obstructed the hole where the pin should go in. The result was that if you pushed the pin in the hole, the wing got lifted up and was slightly crooked and the second door did not close anymore. So you could close the door but only if you did not fix the first wing to the ground. But by not fixing it, you could just push the door open. OK, long story short, we asked the landlord's helper to clean the whole as the door was not closing anymore. He looked at in and seemed to understand the problem and promissed to take care of it. (Mafi muskele, Bukkra, Insha Allah! No problem, tomorrow so God will!) I have to mention that the gate ist the gate to our courtyard where we have our cars parked and hence we need to open the door daily and keep it closed during the night. So he fixed the problem in his pragmatic way: he closed the first wing, pushed down the metal pin (forced it...), closed the second wing and as it did not close, he just took a piece of metal wire, and bound together the two wings and twisted the ends of the metal wire with his pliers. Khallas! The door was shot and nobody could get in anymore! Problem solved! Our problem was that we could not get out anymore and the hole was even obstructed more badly as by pushing down the dirt it got compressed which made it harder to get it out of the hole... Lesson learned: either you have time to stay next to the guy while he is fixing your problem or you do it by yourself ;-) We got a driller, drilled into the hole and cleaned it with a screwdriver and the problem was really solved. The door closed again.
Soon I will have my second official holiday in Jordan. The next day is election day where the complete country gets a day off and the day was declared as a national holiday. The week after we will have Eid al-Adha Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_al-Adha
Eid al-Adha (Arabic: عيد الأضحى ‘Īdu l-’Aḍḥā) "Festival of Sacrifice" or "Greater Eid" is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Abraham (Ibrahim) to sacrifice his son Ishmael (Ismael) as an act of obedience to God, but instead was able to sacrifice a ram (by God's command).[1] Eid is also about spending time with family and friends, sacrifice, and thanksgiving for being able to afford food and housing. In traditional or agrarian settings, each family would sacrifice a domestic animal, such as a sheep, goat, cow, or camel, by slaughter (though some contemporary Muslims do not sacrifice an animal as part of their observance, it is still a very popular tradition, even in Muslim communities in Europe). The meat would then be divided into three equal parts to be distributed to others. The family eats one third, another third is given to other relatives, friends or neighbours, and the other third is given to the poor as a gift.
Eid al-Adha is the latter of two Eid festivals celebrated by Muslims, whose basis comes from Sura 2 (Al-Baqara) ayah 196 in the Qur'an.[2] Like Eid ul-Fitr, Eid al-Adha begins with a short prayer followed by a sermon (khuṭbah).
Eid al-Adha is celebrated annually on the 10th day of the month of Dhu al-Hijjah (ذو الحجة) of the lunar Islamic calendar. Eid al-Adha celebrations start after the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia by Muslims worldwide, descend from Mount Arafat. The date is approximately 70 days after the end of the month of Ramadan. Ritual observance of the holiday lasts until sunset of the 13th day of Dhu al-Hijjah.[3]
But more about my holiday in my next blog... I am really looking forward spending my holiday in Al-Urdunn (Jordan in Arabic) as there are still so many things to do and see! Jordan is really a very nice country and it really worth to come to see it!
Katja and I started to really settle in, have already quite some people we can meet and spend a good time, the appartment is all set and we start to find our way in whatever we are doing. We are both alive and kickin' and enjoy every day here. We take every day as a new challange and experience and try to be as open as possible to all the new things we experience every day and try to take every moment as a gift. We are looking forward seeing all of you hopefully very soon, either here or somewhere in this world. Honestly, the thing we miss most are friends and family.
Take care wherever you are in this world. A big hug to all of you from the beautiful city of Amman!
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