AMMAN, JORDAN: LAST DAY, LAST VIEWS, LAST THOUGHTS, AND HOME AT LAST

After spending a few hours on top of one of Amman's seven hills at the Citadel, we drove into the valley and got an up-close look at the spectacular 2nd century AD amphitheater that we had seen from above.  It seats 6,000 and is thoughtfully oriented towards the north to provide minimum sun exposure for patrons:

We had noticed the green, plastic-looking dome of this mosque from the Citadel. We wish we could have gotten closer:

With a population of four million, and with the basic layout of the city centuries old, traffic in Amman is just what you would expect: horrible.

Amman is considered one of the most liberal and westernized cities in the Middle East, and we saw evidence of that, along with some things we would never see in the West, such as the raw meat hanging up in the butcher shop window:

JORDAN: THE CITADEL IN AMMAN

Citadel: a fortress that provides security and protection for a city.

One of Amman's oldest sites is its citadel at the top of the highest hill in the center of the city of Amman, the capital of Jordan.

The citadel is part of some interesting geology that reminded me a lot of an old-fashioned lemon juicer:

The citadel is on top of the center peak. At its base is a narrow valley, and on the other side of the valley are a series of additional steep hills on which the city is built.That means that the 360 degree view from the top of the citadel is of hills that are almost as steep and high as the citadel itself.

In nearly every direction we could see these unimaginative, desert-colored, matchbox-style buildings:

How can a place with so much natural beauty build such ugly neighborhoods?

On a distant hillside we could see the Raghadan Flagpole, which is planted at the compound used as the royal residence by King Abdullah I and King Hussein, although not by the current king. At 416 feet tall, it was the tallest free-standing flagpole in the world when it was erected in 2003. The flag is 200 x 100 feet, or about two-thirds the size of a football field. These days the Raghadan Flagpole is only the 7th tallest flagpole in the world, far behind Saudi Arabia's 558-foot-tall flagpole in Jeddah.

JORDAN: SLEEPING AND DINING IN AMMAN

Like any large city, Amman has a lot of interesting places to eat, places where Bob would love to wander in and point at tasty menu pictures labeled in Arabic: 

There are also lots of "interesting" places where tourists can sleep, such as the Seven Wonders Hotel.  Hopefully that name doesn't mean they'd be wondering seven times during the night why they were staying there.

Our tour company booked rooms at the Intercontinental Amman, a sister hotel to the Intercontinental we had in Cairo earlier in the trip and in Nairobi last year.

Photo from here

Similar to our other two experiences with Intercontinental, there was plenty of security:

The lobby was beautiful, with live piano music playing much of the time and fresh flowers everywhere (literally--on counters and hanging in vases from the ceiling):

JORDAN: MADABA

The third country in our Middle Eastern Adventure Triumvirate was Jordan, a country with an ancient history but only recognized as a state under British supervision in 1922 by the League of Nations (and known as Transjordan until 1949). It was given independent status by the United Nations in 1946. For a good timeline of subsequent events in Jordan's history, go here.  

We arrived at the Queen Alia International Airport several hours ahead of our tour group. Although the airport has been around since 1983, this beautiful terminal is just two years old.

Jordan is slightly smaller in area than the state of Indiana and has a similar population. I'm always shocked by the relatively tiny size of these countries that seem to play such a critical part in world affairs.  It was a little scary to visit a country that borders Syria and Iraq, not the most docile places in the world right now. In fact, while we were there--March 2015--Jordan was participating with their neighbor Saudi Arabia in airstrikes on Yemen. However, Jordan itself seemed very peaceful. One thing that helped us feel comfortable was that Bob had hired a local private guide named Isam who took good care of us.

Our first destination was the town of Madaba (population 60,000), located about 20 miles south of the capital city of Amman. It was definitely a tourist town:

Jordan is about 92% Sunni Muslim, so it was interesting to see this partially dismantled Christmas tree in the town center. Note also the name of the Hotel: "Moab Land." No, not Utah's Moab. The Biblical land of Moab--the original Moab--was located in Jordan.

A few interesting things Isam told us about Muslims in Jordan:
- Almost all Muslims in Jordan are Sunnis, and almost all Muslims in Iraq are Shi'a. "Shi-ites are not Muslim," he said. The Kurds are Sunni.
- Assad, the leader of Syria, is Shi'a.
- Sunnis are liberal, so covering the face is against the law. Someone with a covered face, for example, is not allowed to enter a bank.
- They have no imam. They follow God. "Islam" means "surrender self to God" (not to man or a leader).
- Their practice of wearing head coverings comes from Christianity.

As we were walking through town, Isam (far left and wearing a white shirt in the photo below) stopped to buy us a cup of freshly squeezed pomegranate juice. Note the store in the background: Frankfurter (Wir sprechen Deutsch--"We speak English"). There are lots of German tourists in Jordan.