Thursday, August 5, 2010

Day Sixty-one - Amman to Irbid, Jordan

Sunday 1st August 2010

We went back to Hashem and had falafel, hummus and foul for breakfast. Djalma decided that he still wanted to see more of the Roman theatre that we had visited the previous night and as I couldn't be arsed I sat in a cool café with impossibly slow internet connection while he went back to the theatre. During the hour or so that he was gone he bumped into Paul, the loud outspoken kiwi we met on the crossing to Aqaba on the ferry. After more time on the internet we decided to haul ass and after lots of differing advice about where to get the bus to Irbid from, we got a service taxi to the right station and after a bit of a wait and a chicken sandwich, a mini bus to Irbid which is just south of the border.

From Amman, Jordan

At the bus station, which was considerably cooler, we bumped into Mohammad, who was originally going to host us but because we came later than we had originally planned he'd had to refuse our request. We walked with him to his house where we met his chatty wife, Rohan, and stayed for a very enjoyable couple of hours drinking tea and talking.

From Irbid, Jordan

We had to leave them and we walked through the town, full of young adults it being a university town, to William from Tennessee's house (which we had to go through a classroom to get to). He met us outside the building and took us to his teachers flat where we had a room of our own with a window! We spoke for a long time and listened to some of his many stories about the cultural difficulties and differences living in a Muslim country. Eventually we decided it was time to eat and William took us to a cheap local restaurant, picked out so he could visit the family section with us, we decided to try something other than falafel and despite ordering something different to each other we both ended up with Mansaf – ugh, plain rice with meat, chicken, lamb or goat head swimming in a pool of sauce. The sauce was something special, Jameed, is made from grating dried and salted yoghurt balls into water and/or stock and mixed to make a smooth sauce, it didn't sit well with me the sourness of old yoghurt tasting a little too much like vomit for my taste, it didn't stop Djalma from eating all of his and then polishing off the considerable remains on my plate. We headed back to his flat and talked until the small hours of the morning before hitting the sack with plans to visit a place near Golan Heights. Sleep came considerably more easily with the breeze from the window.

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