Amman, Jordan - August 9-19 2008

We arrived 5pm from O’Hare on Royal Jordanian Airlines. This would be 9am CST. On the plane ride, it was clear we were headed to the Middle East. Women and children walked behind their husbands and fathers. Women’s head scarves or hejab’s were worn by most. Bejan and I felt like the only “whities” in line.

One of my first mistakes in this nation of Islam was asking the Zalatimo Brothers sweet shop owner next to our hotel where a good wine bar was. They are muslim and do not drink. A night out for these Jordanians is a café where hookahs or “Arg”’s (water pipes) are prevalent in just about any flavor. We chose watermelon and mint from Zara Café, somewhat American and surrounded by Subway and Popeye’s Chicken. Ugh, reminded of the Western World already? Our driver to the Kempenski Hotel in Amman (ah-man) joked that the first Western fast food outlet we saw, KFC, was referred to as the Kerack Fried Camel, KFC. We laughed. Kerack is the crusaders castle we ended up later touring. It was also interesting to see “men only” cafes with a few adventurous (or promiscuous?) women smoking pipes with them. What was refreshing that at almost midnight the children were still awake, alive and accompanying their parents out.

Men sit at different tables than their wives. Marriage to a maximum of four wives is legal. Waiters do not seat women first if they accompany their husbands. Waiters do not acknowledge the women for fear of offending the husbands. The conservative garb is designed to avoid the temptation of skin, hair and a view of the human body. No alcohol minimzes foolishness in public.

Women and men do not touch in public unless they are married. No PDA. Darn. I love tapping B’s butt when we are walking. His sweet spot for me (we are only 4 inches apart in height) is my left outer thigh which his hand gracefully touches when we walk. However a recent scooter incident in Chicago has left me with an open strawberry on that thigh that with lots of coconut oil last week and hopefully a dip in the 35% salty Deep Sea this week will heal in no time.

While walking around the hotel, we heard some great Middle Eastern music. We walked in to find tapes, DVDs and CDs. We listened to a few and chose Egyptian Haytham Shaker and Egyptian Elissa who won the World Music Award in 2006. We were back in the hotel after working out and opened the CD of Shaker and it was empty. The owner left it in the sample player. Did we get ripped off or was it an honest mistake? We will have to go back to morrow to find out before heading to Jerash and Damascus.

We quickly learned a few words: yes, no, we are done and thank you in Arabic. Nam, la, halas and shukran. The highlight of the night was dinner at Kempenski Hotel in downtown where we are staying. Very modern, and minimalist. Fire torches and a fireplace surrounded the pool, a half moon was in the air, 30 degrees Celsius and a nice breeze. We received our appetizers of hummus, olives and marinated vegetables. The live two-person band started playing and it was incredulous that 6,ooo miles from Chicago, one of my favorite artists introduced to me by San Francisco Sarah was being played. Robbie Williams’s “I just want to feel real love.” This warranted a quick text to Sarah, to which I received a quick response. As if that weren’t enough. The band ended the song short I thought. I found out for good reason. Each day in this country, five calls to prayer are made. The band stopped in deference to the prayer calling. The city’s unity in spirit struck me. While residents were in public, at home, at work or wherever, they bow and kneel on the ground facing South toward Mecca and pray. Goosebumps were all over my body. Ahhhh…my vacation and first trip to the Middle East had just begun.