Again another week over an again lots of things happened... last week my sister in law with family left and during the week they were here other good friends arrived in Jordan. They flew into Amman and directly on to Aqaba. From there they moved gently up north, spending some nighte at Petra and the Dead Sea. We went to the Dead Sea to meet them on Thursday and it was fantastic to see them! It's strange but it is just so nice if you meet people from back home in Jordan. It's not the same thing as if you meet them back home... we had a nice dinner at the Moevenpick Hotel and enjoyed that we could stay outside until night. It is very hot there these days and very humid as well. It is so different than Amman but as it is some 1400 m difference in height, this explains that the climate is very different to Amman. In Amman we have temperatures in the 30is at the moment but at night it cools down so that you have to bring a jumper as it gets chilly.
We spent a very nice evening and enjoyed it so much. We left Dead Sea and the next day we threw the international “one year in Amman Party” which was a blast!
The day after we slept in and cleaned up because the cleaning lady who was supposed to come, did not come as she had to take care of the boy of where she also works as he got sick. Tough luck... we had to clean the house hangover... but Katja did most of the things. In the evening we drove to the Dead Sea and pick them up and we drove to our place. The next day I showed them around and we visited some highlights in Amman but all in all it was a very easy going day. Totally stress-less and easy going. In the evening we enjoyed a fantastic BBQ (as most of the days now ;-) as every day is nice in the evening. The week passed by without anything very special but on Thursday evening we went to Bayt Sitti (Your Grandmother's House in Arabic; of course in Arabic, what else? ;-) We met there with some 10 other people we mostly already knew. Here was only one person from an Embassy we never met before. It was such a nice crowd! Even cooler was the host who is a nice, young lady who decided a few years ago to start the Arabic cooking and eating house. She brought it across in such an easy way and it was just lovely to listen to her and she managed to get people in and work on the different dishes. Every single one had to do something. Peel this, chop that, boil this, cut that. We cooked a four course dinner with very traditional things: Muttabel, Fattoush, Tabbuleh, Mattlubeh and of course at the end my all time favorite: Knafeh! We cooked for about 90 minutes but some ingredients were already pre-cooked by her and her assistant as otherwise we'd have had to wait too long. We even baked bread. So anyway, we had such a great time cooking and chatting. The whole idea is to make yourself at home. You can sit around and watch or play the “active part” and cook. I was, believe it or not in charge of making sure that the eggplants were grilled ;-) I did a good job but at the end I was not elected “best chef” A friend from Germany won ;-)... always those Germans... ;-) All in all it just was a great evening!
During the weekend we had several bigger events in Amman. Coronation day and Army day. Army Day was impressive as they blocked one of the main streets. Unfortunately the street that is the one we need to get to the city... we spent without exaggerating some 3 hours all in all in traffic jams! traffic was just crazy! I have never seen so many people (around half million spectators!!) and so many buses fro all over the country. I guess you can imagine the jam... I had the impression that I would never get out of there!
Saturday morning our friends left and Friday evening other friends arrived, so we had one night overlap but we managed without problem to accommodate all ;-) I dropped the friends who left at the airport Saturday morning and as usual it did not took me long to get to the airport... coming back it already took me one hour! I picked up the friends who arrived the evening before as i wanted to show them around n Amman. We did a nice tour and traffic was a bit heavy but OK. Late afternoon when we came back, we had to buy some food and went to the shopping mall. From there it takes us some 10 minutes to get back home. Except yesterday...it took us some 1 hour!! Our friends were so impressed about all the cars, people and all the impressions. For them it was something they will for sure not forget; for me too as once i made it home, I was totally exhausted as to be honest, I have no clue how I managed to get back home without having hit any other car ;-)
Again a weekend with lots of impressions and things I am sure we will not forget! After the lovely friend we are having over now, we are having a break through July and August. I am sure it will be strange not having anybody here ;-) We just love having friends over. It is just great...
G. + Ch. we had such a great time with you! Love you guys!
Take care wherever you are in this world! Big hug from Amman!
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen