Long Weekend

This past weekend was pretty eventful. A lot of people on our program went traveling to such exotic places as Aqaba, Beirut, and Damascus because Monday is the Prophet’s birthday, giving themselves a four-day weekend (though there is class Sunday). I was not feeling that and stayed around Amman.

Friday morning I went to the Friday market (“sook”) in Abdali bus station with the Year-long student across the hall. We were both looking for new shoes, though I ended up not finding anything. There was an interesting array of items for sale there. The shoes were for the most part slightly soiled, but they had some really interesting pairs that would sell for a lot of money new back in America. The same can be said for the rows upon rows of clothing that were available, though there were a lot of really cheap things and knockoffs drowning it out. In addition to clothes, there was also a lot of random housewares for sale, and for some reason a lot of stuffed animals as well.

After leaving the market I went to a soccer match. We met up at this Jordanian's house where we took taxis to the game. There were seven of us in all. The game was being played in Amman International Stadium, which is the biggest in the country. Unfortunately, we got split up and ended up sitting on opposite sides of the field.

The match was being played between Faisaly and Wahdat, the Celtics and Lakers of Jordanian soccer. Also, Faisaly is considered to be a Jordanian team, while Wahdat is considered Palestinian, though both teams are based in Amman. Our group was in the Faisaly cheering section. I’m pretty sure this was part of the Middle Eastern version of Europe’s Champions League, but I never got a clear answer on that. Anyway, Faisaly needed a win to continue on and had just apparently come off of a bad loss. They came out playing pretty badly though, and all the fans in our section were pretty bummed out.

Towards the end though, things started to get more exciting. In extra time one of the Faisaly players managed to weave through the defense and score. The crowd in our section went nuts. People started running around and hugging each other. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera, but this Youtube video of another Philadelphia team (fun fact: Amman was called Philadelphia during Roman and Byzantine times) pulling out an important victory in the final seconds sort of sums up what happened: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk8onB6Lm64.

Afterwards we went to a hookah place and played a game called “Turnab”, which is like a simpler version of bridge. I left early though, since I had signed up for a CIEE trip early the next day. We were going to Lake Ziglab, which isn’t really much of a lake, more of a small reservoir. It was about a two-hour drive through the Jordan Valley to get there. Once we arrived we paddled across in inflatable boats. Then we followed the stream that fed the reservoir up through the mountains. We ate lunch at this waterfall and then hiked back.

Sunday wasn’t quite as interesting. I went to classes in the morning and then did some work in the afternoon. On the holiday I went to Jerash, the best-preserved Roman city in the Middle East. While there, I got to watch the show at the hippodrome that they put on. It included a demonstration of Roman military and gladiatorial techniques, as well as a chariot race. The city itself was really cool. It was nice to see actual Roman ruins after reading and studying so much about them in school. I got back in the evening and ended up going to bed pretty early since I had an 8:00 class Tuesday morning. That was my weekend.