Amman, Jordan

What a great day. First, I slept like a rock. Room is huge. Like a suite. Great large marble bathroom.

This morning we toured the Citadel. Ruins overlooking the city of Amman. so many ruins, temples, amphitheaters, blah, blah, blah. But the greatest thing was the Archeological museum they have there. All kind sof stuff dating back to 3000BC. The first known sculpture of hunman beings is in there. Along with one of the Dead Sea Scrolls. ALl kinds of interesting stuff and the museum doesn't even have air conditioning or huimidity controls. Just a small unassuming little cinder block building. Very impressive.

Next we took a short city tour. Most fun I have had during the whole trip.
Will finish later. Time running out...

Getting back to yesterday... City tour was justwalking around downtown Amman. We stopped at a falaffel place (the oldest in Amman) where the guy still makes the fallafel with a special antique tool that balls up the mixture before it gets fried by hand. Then we tasted raw green almonds that you eat with the shells and all (they are kind of hairy and taste like green beans) place reminded me of Chinatown sort of. Then we stopped at a roasted peanut guy. Then to the oldest Turkish coffee house in Amman. Sits above the main street and King Hussein used to come here with his family before he died to enjoy the coffee and be with the people. We also smoked apricot flavored tobacco out of the big hookahs. I did actually taste it, first time smoking in a very very very long time. Great fun.

Now on to the Dead SEa again, 1300 feet below sea level. What a different experience than the last. Beautiful resort with lovely sandy beaches. Water here is very oily, you can feel the minerals. And you literally float like a cork. Its so hard to put your feet down and impossible to swim. You could read a newspaper on your back. No one drowns here if they float out too deep, because you just float. But they die of salt inhalation. You can't even get it in an eye or a cut. Ouch. They do not have the mud here like in Israel, so they get it from another area and you can pay 3 JOrdanian Dinars (about $4.50)for a young guy to slather it all over you then bake in the sun for 20 minutes, then jump in and rinse it off. Of course I did it. My fellow travels said I should have asked those guys to pay me 3 Dinars to rub me down! Its impossible to get off but makes the skin feel really good. Took forever to get off and still had it on my neck, etc. when I got home.

Took a shower and washed my hair back at the hotel and when I tried to plug my hair dryer in with the converter it gave me a HUGE electric shock and blew my converter, etc. across the room. Really scary. Thought Iwas going to die, but I as fine. Now I'm afraid to use the hair dryer and had to ask our Egyptian guide to plug it in for me while I stood across the room in my rubber flip flops.