Today was a big day for us. Our wonderful social sponsors Jessica and Jon, picked us up this morning and took us on a "how to find your way around" tour. It's a Friday morning, so traffic is a lot lighter than any other day of the week due to Jumu'ah ("Friday Prayer"). We dropped Jake off at their house to stay with their part-time Helper/Nanny and to play with their 2-year old daughter. Then we set off and learned a little about the area and since the traffic was so much lighter, we could actually drive a little slower and feel less stressed. Much of our immediate area is surrounded by Embassies and Malls, almost all of which can be referenced to a main road with 8 traffic circles. Once on "Circle Road" you can find your way to almost anywhere in the immediate area you might want to go. We drove through the medical area and know how to find the two main hospitals and we figured out how to get to about 3 or 4 of the shopping malls. The malls are important because they have the grocery stores in them too. The grocery stores are very modern and overwhelmingly huge in some cases. Our only actual stop on the tour was a grocery store where we picked up a few groceries for the week. Then we picked up Jake and headed back to our house.
Souk Jara:
Once we got the groceries put away, we thought we'd use our new-found knowledge for getting around to venture out to Souk Jara. We found it on our first try without getting lost. So we considered our first real adventure to be a success.
From Wikipedia: A souq or souk (Arabic: سوق, Hebrew: שוק sūq, also spelled shuk, shooq, soq, souk, esouk, suk, sooq, souq, or suq) is an open-air marketplace or commercial quarter in Middle Eastern and North African cities.[1][2] The equivalent Persian term is "bazaar".
Below is a photo of the entrance to Souk Jara. And some additional photos of the market. This is not a huge market like some of the others we may encounter, but it was fun to see and a good place to get our feet wet.
We decided to have lunch at Souk Jara and found a wonderful little stand selling Fatatri. It is a wonderful food that reminded me of a very thing crusted calzone. It was delicious. Below is a picture of the "Story" of the Fatatri and the picture below that is a picture of the Fatatri we ordered. Delicious!!!
From Souk Jara, you can see some of the old Roman Ruins on top of a hill. We hope to go explore these tomorrow.
As a side note, a little about yesterday. Chris experienced his first driving to and from work alone for the first time. Driving in Jordan is CRAZY! People don't stop and they honk if you stop and it always looks like they are going to side swipe you as they merge into traffic. It's a little nerve-racking. But he did good and made it to and from work alive. In addition to that, he took Jake and I back to the Embassy for the Thursday night dinner by the pool. They have the Air Force Band in town for the 4th of July celebration so there was music with dinner. We had a good time and Jake was super sweet too.
Tonight is the big 4th of July celebration (Yes, on June 20th. I think to avoid Ramadan) and we plan to attend once Jake wakes up from his nap. I may add some more pictures of that later on today.
Pictures from the Independence Day Celebration:
This is the herd of sheep that came barreling down the hill toward our car as we were driving to the Embassy. Someday I think this will feel normal.
Jake and his friend, Amelia, eating Icecream in celebration. Jake finished and immediately said "More." Using his baby sign language signal for "more". He only uses it when he wants more sweets.
Jake's favorite, the Jordanian fire truck.
Waiting for a balloon animal. It was a dog for about five minutes before it became "art".
We had a good time and today was the first day it really felt hot at times. It's a dry-heat and often there is a breeze so it's usually very tolerable, but today in the sun, it got pretty warm.
You are doing great! As usual I feel as if I am with you! Keep it up Brig; words are wonderful!
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