Day 2 fee Al-Urdun, or how i got my first blisters

yesterday me and the gang decided to go to the fifth circle in downtown amman. since we couldn't fit into 1 cab (they drive rather tiny cars) we had to split up and take two. flagging one down went well enough, and off we went, crammed in, listening to arabic music. (or maybe the arabic music was listening to us? it was hella loud.)

in any event, it took about 20 minutes to get downtown and the AMOUNT OF TIMES that our driver cut off people, or people cut our driver off, or lanes switched, or people backed up without warning, or screaming occurred, or or or --- too many damn things to recall, it was ridiculous all the same.

so we finally get dropped off, and arie asks the driver "fifth circle?"

driver: "aiwa, aiwa, fourth circle."

arie: "no FIFTH circle??"

driver: "aiwaaaaa, yes yes, fifth circle."

so, i guess, fifth circle?

anyway, we quickly realize that the other cab was NOT going to be where we were, so we walked and walked. crossing death defying streets and more walking.

it was quite exciting at first. all these little ridiculous shops (ie "angle baby" and King Abdullah II's mosque) we walked by sketchy areas, dark vacant shops, car places, art shops, tourism locations, paint on the floors, feral cats, jolly men, hookah, children, bumpy roads, blaring music, people who stared a lot, people who were friendly, military people...

ah the military people. we walked along this fancy road where like the french ambassador stayed, along with many other ambassadors residing on that same road. and each of the houses was guarded by military men. they were scary as hell. although i believe one smiled as us. the rest just typically leaned forward on their machine guns, with their cocked berets and worn military boots. it was interesting to encounter that's for sure.

we also saw: lots of trash, lots of sand, lots of hills and lots of stairs... stairs that led to no where and beyond. nicole and joel were SUPER gung ho about climbing that crap. going the distance. arie and i said 'eff that' and proceeded to suck down endless cigarettes, resting every 10 feet. (believe me, it was a STEEP STEEP HILL!) eventually we made it up, although i was pretty sure we were close to death. i believe i bought about 3 bottles of water.

oh yeah, did i mention this excursion lasted 5 hours?

that's right kids. five hours. khamsa saa'aat. in other words? too. damn. long.

by the grace of god, we managed to meet up with nicole and joel again (they actually WENT up the stairs) and then trekked across many a road, saw the mosque anddddddd

we could not get a cab for the life of us. it was ridiculous! no one wanted to pick us up! we were like the defective american kids. honestly, i blame it on arie. he's like 6'7'' and gangly as hell. probably scared them off. or maybe they thought that we wouldn't pay? i don't know. it was horrible. so many empty cabs passing us by. not one picked us up.

then randomly we got behind a nice arab woman who was flagging down a cab, and it STOPPED, but it wasn't for us. we thought it was. we dove for it anyway. she didn't want it apparently. it was amazing. after walking forever and ever i was glad to sit.

and of course, the cabbie played us hardcore.

a typical trip across amman is about 3JD, we were forced to pay 15JD!!! absolutely INSANE!

not much to do about it, though.

suffice to say, after that ridiculous adventure, i now have blisters. four of them. yeeehaw!