Day 1 June 9 Part 2

The views from Wild Jordan are expansive, and offer vistas of the ancient Citadel overlooking the city (photo 1). You can also see the humongous Jordanian flag flying over the capital (photo 2).

After lunch, we headed to ACOR, the American Center for Oriental Research (yeah, the name is outdated but the facility is not). Founded in 1968, ACOR has been a home to visiting scholars and other interested people, particularly archaeologists; I stayed there with the infamous Gary Scudder and Rob Williams last year, and it was amazing. Barbara Potter and Chris Tuttle, the Americans who run the place, are fantastic, and Barbara gave us a great tour of the library and the archaeological work rooms they have there. A fine Nabatean bowl (photo 3) and a Byzantine oil lamp (photo 4) are examples of the sort of restoration work they do there, though their papyri from Petra are their crown jewels.

The day moved on to a great lecture by Dr. Yusuf Mansur, a Jordanian business and economics expert, political commentator, and columnist. In the evening, we had an amazing meal at a downtown Lebanese restaurant, outside, where we were stuffed to within inches of our lives.....

Day 1 June 9 part 1

Yesterday, Monday June 9, was the first full day of our CIEE seminar. Here I am standing on the terrace at Wild Jordan, a facility built with US aid money and which supports Jordanian natural conservation efforts. We had a lovely meal here, all organic and locally grown, in a beautiful setting overlooking the city. With us was the Public Affairs officer from the US Embassy, who was quite interesting and informative, as well as witty.

The day itself, however, began much earlier. After breakfast at the Bristol Hotel (a lovely place with great service), which features an array of pastries to make a French chef swoon, we headed to the Royal Council for Science and Technology (second photo). There, in an elegant meeting room with yet another spread of pastries and coffee, we heard from Dr. Mohammed Al-Momani, Director of the Regional Human Security Center, who discussed the general background of relations in the region. Dr. Momani is upbeat, charming, and persuasive, and very optimistic about possibilities for peace; he represents in some ways the newer generation in Jordan. The next speaker, Munther Haddadin, a former Minister of Water for the Jordanian government, and long-time expert on regional water issues, was a bit different. Erudite and dignified, Mr. Haddadin has been a negotiator at peace conferences with Israel and is somewhat older than Dr. Momani. His take was a bit more traditional, and somewhat more pessimistic, though he too saw room for hope. My favorite line from him was that in dealings concerning water, the "Israelis are tougher, but more generous, while the Syrians are sweeter, but stingy."

Continued....

Here's a view from a pedestrian overpass near my hotel (that's the Sheraton on the right down the road, with the pointy roof, which is not my hotel!)

The flight on Delta was not quite as good as the Royal Jordanian flight I took last year, though face it, 11-12 hours in a plane is fairly wretched no matter which airline you take. The food on Delta was definitely less appetizing, though again, for those of us in steerage when is the food ever good?

That aside, it was pretty amazing that not only was everything on time, my luggage arrived as well. Queen Aliyah Airport in Amman sometimes seems chaotic but generally things work pretty well. Better than some US airports I've been in, indeed. The CIEE folks, the hosts for our seminar, picked us up at the airport, a nice surprise as we had thought that only the lucky few coming in at the prescribed late afternoon early evening time would actually get that luxury. 

I didn't get a picture, but every time I pass the water park (the name escapes me) on the highway into the city I shake my head. Here's a place where most folks get their water delivered by water truck every few days or so, and they have a freakin' water park? I guess everyone likes a water slide. Probably more interesting is the sheer variety of produce and stuff people sell, from vegetables vended from roadside stands to people hawking flowers at intersections. All very polite and by no means disruptive, just interesting. As are the occasional enclosures with camels you can see from the highway. I have no idea what the camels are for, actually, but they do lend a sort of T.E. Lawrence vibe to things.

Begin at the beginning...

With luck, this will be a blog of my Middle Eastern trip this summer. Thanks to the good auspices of Champlain College, and the Faculty Internationalization Initiative, a bunch of us get to travel, and not just to Rock City! Erm, ok. Anyhow, I'll try and update this as I go. And no, that's not me. That's Beowulf. He is, no doubt, up to no good at the moment.