Out and about

The past couple of days have been pretty slow as far as "major attractions" go. Monday was a long day at work for Chris so Jake and I were pretty much housebound all day. I'm not allowed to drive the Embassy vehicle and we haven't found one to buy yet and even if we had, there is still a lengthy paperwork process to it. So my only outing was with our social sponsor, Jon, who took me with him to Crossfit Quicksand. It was a good outing and nice to get a little exercise in.

Tuesday, we went to the Orthodox park, with Jessica and Amelia. It's just about a mile from our house and is pretty nice for a park in Jordan. You have to pay to access parks in Jordan. Actually, you have to pay to access almost everything in Jordan. But it was only 2JD, so well worth it. I think the Orthodox club is actually a gym, but still not sure why it's called the Orthodox club. 

Then we went home for a nap. When Chris came home, we went out to do an airport reconnaissance. Some friends are coming in from Kuwait tomorrow and Chris is picking them up. We wanted to make sure he knew how to get to and from the airport and how to get to their hotel. The airport is pretty easy to get to from our house and is only about 30 minutes away. It was the most heavily trafficked park of the day, so it was difficult to get to the hotel once we were back in the city. But we did it and then even ventures to City Mall across town to pick up some things for the house.

Driving in Amman is crazy. It's almost impossible to explain. Traffic doesn't stop and it constantly looks like they are going to crash into you. If you stop, you'll cause an accident and then there is constant HONKING! The ONLY time Jordanians are in a hurry is when they are behind you in their car. Jake likes the beeping and will add a little commentary of hi own beeps from the backseat. Walking across the street, no hurry. Riding and escalator, no hurry. Eating at a restaraunt, no hurry. Get in their car, BIG HURRY! At the occasional traffic light there is no need to see the light turn green because the car(s) behind you will start honking as soon as the light changes. They also seem to use their horn as a substitute for a blinker. If they are going to pass, they will honk to let you know. There are very few lines marking the roads so if your car will fit past the car in front of you, you can pass. Definitely something to experience.

The picture doesn't do it justice, but here there are about five "lanes" of traffic merging into three, with no markings on the road so there are cars merging from every direction. Enough on the traffic for now.

Today, Chris and I had an overview meeting at the Embassy about how things work. It was really interesting and we learned a lot. We have to keep an eye on our water, gas, and diesel tanks to ensure they get filled before running out. 

I learned our doorman is called a Boab and ours is named Ahmed.  A Boab for whose services we will be expected to pay a trifle each month for, duties include keeping the building tidy, security of the building, washing the car, collecting our trash and helping to haul groceries.

We learned a few other things too, but that were the most interesting things. 

Jake got to play with Amelia while we were in the meeting for 3 hours. Then we came home and took a nap. And when Chris got home, we went over to Taj Mall and ate at P.F. Changs. Hopefully part of our household good will arrive soon and I'll have some stuff to cook with. 

Oh, and Chris took his PT test today and did really great!

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum....

Today was another busy day for the Baldwins. We ventured out to find the Roman ruins located in Amman. We left around 10:30 A.M. and Jake fell asleep about 3 minutes into the trip, which turned out to be a good thing. It should have take about 20 minutes to get there, but after about an hour and a half, we finally figured out how to get there. We were using a city map that only has the main roads. My iPhone wouldn't pick up satellites and the Garmin we just paid JD 240 ($338 USD) was sitting comfortably back on the kitchen counter. We got SO close on our first try, BUT traffic is terrible and Jordanians are CRAZY drivers, so we got pushed into the wrong "lane" and had to take a right where we needed to go straight for one more block then take a left and we'd have been there. The right put us on a one-way street full of vendors, stores, and traffic, which spun us around and got us going in the complete opposite direction of where we needed to be, but we finally made it, and it was worth it!

We went to the Roman Theater and Odeon, where our JD 1 ticket also got us admission into the Folklore museum and Jordan Museum of Popular Tradition. 

Then we made our way up to the Amman Citadel, which also contains the Archaeological Museum. We didn't go into the museum because we didn't want to press our luck with Jake, but spent an hour or so enjoying the open air museum and sites of the Citadel. Below are some pictures from our day. 

The above picture is of the Roman Theater. It was really big. I'm sure it doesn't compare to the Colosseum in Rome, but I was surprised at how big it really was. With the city built up all around it, the size from the outside was underwhelming, but once we went inside and walked up some of the stairs, it seemed so much larger. The top photo is a panoramic view from inside the Theater. The bottom left is a view from above at the Citadel (I think the building on the left is the Odeon). The bottom right is another view from inside the Theater.

The top three photos in the picture above are of some of the statues that once surrounded the Theater or were placed somewhere within.

The above picture is of some bracelets in the Museum of Popular Tradition. Most of the exhibits were of clothing, jewelry or other body ornaments. The signs offered descriptions of the items and who wore them. 

After the visiting Theater, we grabbed lunch at Hail Restaurant and Cafe. It was right next to the Theater and it was empty at 12:45 P.M. Chris asked the man if it as open and he seated us outside, handing us two menus then walked away. When he came back we began to order off the menu. He stopped us and pointed to five items we could choose from, so we switched our order completely and ended up with two kabobs.  The food was once again, very good. Jake sat still better than usual, and we enjoyed our lunch.

 Below is a picture of Jake "reading" the menu. He really does pretend to actually "read" and makes up stuff, usually spouting out any word that pops into his head at the time (usually something about Mickey, keys and locks.

Then we made our way to the Amman Citadel National Historic Site. This was also very grand in scale.  Referred to locally as Jabal al Qala'a, the Citadel is one of Amman's oldest known places, perched on top of one of the city's high hills. This summit has been used as a settlement and fortress for millennia, dating back 7000 years according to some estimates, to the time of the rise of civilization in Mesopotamia and the Nile Valley. It has witnessed numerous sieges, wars and earthquakes.

Chris and Jake are on in this picture (left) at the base of the temple if you look closely.

The above photo show you where the remains were in relation to the actual temple as it once stood.

The middle right photo above (and below) is a photo of the Umayyad Monumental Gateway. It was the formal entrance into the Umayyad palace. Visitors would be screened here and then wait to be announced to the governor before entering the palace beyond. The bottom photo was the view from beyond the Umayyad Monumental Gateway.

The middle right photo is of some of the cisterns that held water for the Citadel. Because there is no natural water at the top of the hill, they had to capture each drop of rainwater that they could, not letting any go to waste. The bottom right (with Jake pointing to a kite flying nearby, and Chris), is the ruins of the entrance into the Umayyad Mosque.

Above is a photo of the water cistern or "Birka" in Arabic. The cistern supplied water to the baths latrines, and other areas of the Umayyad settlement.

Jake is our little Tour Guide.

Chris and Jake taking a break.

Below are a few pictures from our drive to and from our adventures today. All are taken through the car window so I don't have much history behind anything in the photos, but thought they were worth sharing as "neat" photos. I'm not sure which mosque is below, but there was a huge church directly across the street. 

(Below) This is the back of a bus. Apparently the words faintly written with a Sharpie on the back of the bus are the places the bus stops. Want to go downtown? This is the bus for you, "Downtown" is so officially written on the back of the bus...who wouldn't want a ride? To be fair, this is not the wealthy neighborhood we live in, so I guess you get around however you can get around. We still found the Sharpie font funny.

Above is the bridge that takes us back into our neighborhood. It's a really interesting architecheral structure and thought it was worth posting. 

We had a wonderful adventure today. It was nice weather, a little windy, but that kept it cool. Jake was great and we figured it out on our own. Well... a little help from our friends on the street. Chris is speaking Arabic very well, at least as far as I'm concerned, because people can understand him and he seems to be understanding the directions when he asks for them. We got where we were going today all because of him (driving and speaking).

And...


Just a few selfies to leave you with...

The Big Tour and Souk Jara

The Big Tour:
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.

This is a picture of some of the spices at the grocery store. We noticed that the labels tell you what the spices are used for.


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.

View from our house

This is a view from the front of our house. The upper right hand building is the high-end Taj Mall that I referenced in an earlier post. There are also two sheep and a pony in this picture. Can you find them? A man walked walked his herd of sheep and goats almost to our front door.  They were right across the street this evening grazing. It was fun to see.

On another note:

Middle Easterners like to celebrate with gunfire. So for birthdays and weddings and whatever other special occasion that might appeal to them, they pull out their guns and shoot them up into the air. We already knew this from Iraq, so it wasn't a surprise when they mentioned this in our security brief today. What I did find funny was that the security officer warned not to duck and cover every time JUST because you hear gunfire or "You'll look like a crazy person". Really??? So tonight, for whatever reason, while we were sitting watching a movie, we hear something that sounds like gunfire and booming and I immediately assumed it was gunfire, but it turned out to be a large fireworks display. I guess I shouldn't be so paranoid... I wonder what the occasion for the fireworks was?

A few pictures...

This is how Jake spent his 4+ hour layover in Paris.

Some pictures of our house. It feels like a hotel lobby. The upper left kind of gives you a perspective of how it's laid out and the other three are close ups. We have another "sitting" room that looks just like the bottom left picture. Also note the HVAC in the bottom right picture. I don't know why I find those so amusing, maybe because I associate them with Iraq.

We cracked open the bottle of wine our neighbors gave us when we met them last night. Another American family lives across the hall from us. It's a Jordanian wine and it was pretty good, but needed to breathe about 15 minutes before it was drinkable.

This is a terrible picture, but it was my first olive tree sighting. Pretty cool. There were a few olive trees on the sidewalk during a walk around our block. We also saw apples, limes, figs and a bunch of pretty flowering trees. 

Their trees are planted right in the middle of the sidewalks so you have to walk into the street in many places to get around them. This is why Jordan is NOT a walking friendly city. The street is dangerous and you don't want to step off the curb or you seriously risk getting hit by a car. Crazy drivers here.

This isn't a good picture, but it's a view from the street behind our house that looks into the city. 

Those are a few quick pictures. 

We made it!

We have arrived in Amman, Jordan! I apologize for any misspellings or sentences that don’t make sense. I’m fighting jet lag and I haven’t slept much in the past 48 hours and my computer clock tells me it’s 2:24 AM EST and my watch tells me it’s 9:24 AM in Jordan. I think my brain is working at the 2:24 AM time. 

Our flights from Atlanta to Paris and Paris to Amman went smoothly. Jake was a trooper the whole time. His only meltdown came while we were waiting for our luggage at the baggage terminal. At that point he had only had about 5 hours of sleep (not consecutively) in the past 20+ hours and had been trapped in his carseat for most of that time as well. He was ready to run around and was tired at the same time. He did great and we couldn’t have asked for a better traveling buddy. Our flights were on time and no turbulence so that was good too. 

The only comical thing that happened during travel was on the flight from Paris to Amman. We have used Jake’s car seat on 7 individual flights at this point and each time we have strapped it into the airplane seat with the seatbelt and then he’s secured in a 5-point harness and can’t squirm around. As we boarded our Royal Jordanian Airplane, we did the same thing, strapped the seat in, strapped Jake into the seat and were all settled in for our 5-hour flight to Amman. As the plane begins to taxi, one of the flight attendants brings this seatbelt contraption, which was a chunk of seat belt like they used to do the seatbelt demonstrations with that had an additional loop sewn on it and she asks us to use it with Jake during take off and landing. The loop was supposed to go through my seat belt and then the extra chunk of seatbelt with the seat belt buckle is supposed to go around an infant. I must have been looking at her like she had a horn coming out of her head and when I was speechless and didn’t respond quickly, she asked, “You speak English, no?” Chris and I both looked at her and said yes, but weren’t sure what she wanted US to do with this extra link of seat belt strap because Jake was already securely fastened into his FAA approved car seat. She had us take Jake out of his carseat and wanted me to hold him for take off and landing with this little seat belt contraption “Only for take off and landing, he can be in his car seat dying the flight". We did as we were asked knowing he would be much safer in his carseat than in my lap and took Jake out. He, of course, thought this meant he could get down and squirm around and kicked and screamed trying to break free. Then another flight attendant walked by, we asked him if we could just put Jake back in his car seat explaining that he would sit better and we felt safer with him in the car seat. He agreed, not really understanding why the other flight attendant gave us the strap in the first place. So we bribed Jake back into his carseat with chocolate and he watched Mickey and was happy again. Jake has flown at lot for a two year old (about 12-15 different trips, all of which we had him on our laps until the last 2 trips) and I’ve never been offered one of these little seat belt contraptions. Good for Royal Jordanian for trying, but if the child has his own seat and is in a car seat, leave them. At least in the 5-point harness, his head can’t slam into the back of the seat in front of him during a hard landing.

So we arrived in Amman in the evening and our military sponsors Mike and his wife, Eman, picked us up from the airport and took us to our new home. It is really big compared to anything we have ever lived in. I feel like I’m in a fancy hotel. We have an metal gate out front and a door man/security as you first enter. The floors are marble, counter tops are marble, bathrooms all have a bidets as well as toilets, and most of the furniture is all brand new. So for those of you who saw the pictures before we left, it doesn’t have the floral print couches and rugs from the previous family and the Christmas tree is not here. For my military friends, you’ll appreciate the HVAC's that are located in each room for AC/Heat, just like in our offices and trailers in Iraq. We have three actual bedrooms and an office that is supposed to be a bedroom and 3.5 bathrooms and something that is probably supposed to be a mud room. I can’t tell you what the view is like from the windows because our most of the metal blinds aren’t working and we’ll have to call in a work order to have them fixed. 

On the way from the airport, the terrain was much like Iraq. We saw camels, sheep, goats, and horses along the road. There were fruit and vegetable vendors all along the side of the road. It is the same color of the dirt/sand that I remember from Iraq and the houses all seem to be the same color too. I woke up this morning and heard what sounded like an ice-cream truck and I asked Chris what the twinkling noise was and he told me it was a truck selling propane tanks. Made me laugh. 

After we unloaded our luggage, Eman had to get back home to their 3 kids and Mike took us down the street to the mall to get something to eat. The mall is where you get your groceries too. It’s a really nice, high-end mall and very modern. The restaurants in the food court are just like ours and had Papa Johns, Hardees, McDonalds, and a number of other familiar fast food chains. But the fast food places seem funny among the Versace, Gucci, and other big name brand stores. Chris and I ordered from a kebab restaurant and then I sent Chris over to Hardees to get Jake a Hot Ham and Cheese, completely forgetting that we are in a Muslim country and they wouldn’t carry that on the menu. He got a beef and cheese instead, but Jake fell asleep in the car on the way home so he didn’t eat it anyway. We got a few groceries while we were there too. Apparently each mall has a grocery store on the bottom floor so you can pick up what you need on the way out. We didn’t need much because between Mike and Eman and our friends Dan and Kaylan, we already had the staples waiting for us (milk, eggs, cheese, fruit, spaghetti and diapers). Jake fell asleep before we got out of the parking lot so we put him to bed when we got home. Chris and I unpacked enough to find PJs, shower stuff and one of Chris’s suits. We finally went to sleep around 11:30 PM. And Jake woke up at 1:30 AM wide awake. Since Chris had to get up and go to work I got up and watched Curious George with him until about 3:30 AM before getting him back to sleep.

So that is life as we know it in Jordan so far. Chris left for work this morning and since we don’t have internet or cable yet, I thought I’d get a few notes down before I forget about "the big travel day" or come to find camels and twinkling propane trucks to be so normal and insignificant that I don’t think I need to write home about it. Now I’m going to try to get a little nap in before Jake wakes up. This post will go up once we've established internet in our home.

Huntsville, Alabama

Well, I haven't been keeping up with the Baldwin Blog, but we have been keeping busy.

The weather:
Since moving to Huntsville, we experienced cold, snow, rain, sunshine, hot, cool, spring, winter, summer, and about every variation of seasons that could possibly happen. We've enjoyed the changes in temperature, since Monterey didn't really have any change in weather. Right now, we are enjoying springtime in the South with all the beautiful flowers and blossoms on the trees.

With the weather, comes bugs. We've had spiders, roaches, bees and ants. Luckily, we haven't had mosquitos...yet. I'm sure when we get to Jordan we'll experience another variety of bugs, so we, or I, better get used to it.

Our days:
Chris spends his days at the Command and General Staff College and is doing well. He is almost done with the course and has survived hours of group work and peer participation, which is never easy. A bit of good news for our Family and a direct reflections of all the hard work Chris has been doing...he will be promoted to Major on May 1st! And in addition to that, he was accepted into Graduate school at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

Jake and I spend our days in a less structured environment. We regularly attend a playgroup that meets across the street on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I've been getting to the gym and they offer childcare, so that keeps Jake entertained, and gives me a break. Jake has also been taking gymnastics classes on Mondays.

Huntsville is a wonderful town and we've experienced a lot that is has to offer. We have been downtown to feed the ducks in the park. We've been to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, to the Harmony Park Safari, and the Botanical Gardens. We attended the St. Patrick's Day parade. We joined the First Presbyterian Church and I was able to attend a women's retreat at the St. Benadictine Monastery in Cullman, AL. We've been to Nashville twice and have had a number of other adventures as well.

We will be sad and glad to leave. We've had a great time here in Huntsville, but are excited to get on to our next adventure. The movers will be here next week to pick up our stuff to ship to Jordan. We will be spending some time on leave in Georgia and South Dakota until we go.