Caesar's and The Dead Sea

It’s not like I lost momentum with my blog – it’s just that until this weekend, I hadn’t done anything other than work in the shop. I’m now working the evening shift every day from 3-9 so I spend my mornings mooching around Amman and then the day seems to disappear. But this weekend was amazing.

On Thursday morning I was running errands with Lubna, Nadia’s sister. She’s taken me under her wing as surrogate daughter (another parent for me here in Jordan!). Amongst other things we did was stop off the shop where Lubna is buying her tiles for her house renovation. Lubna introduced me to the mother and daughter (Mais) who run the shop. Towards the end of our conversations in the shop (which I didn’t contribute to as 1) I don’t speak Arabic 2)I know bugger all about bathroom tiles), Mais’s brother Tareq came into the shop. We said hi, and not much else was exchanged. At work later, I got a call from Tareq – Lubna had given him my number and he was calling me inviting me to a house party he was going to later that evening. He seemed like a nice guy, and Lubna had told him to “look after me or else” so I leapt at the opportunity at a spot of socialising. So at 10pm after work I ended up hopping in a taxi. It was when I was sitting in this taxi that I started to feel pangs of awkwardness about just turning unashamedly up to party where the only person I knew was someone I’d said a brief “hello” to earlier. I needn’t have worried – I ended up having a FANTASTIC night. Somehow or another, Tareq knows a whole load of students on their year abroad from Manchester University and the house party was at the apartment of two guys called Christian and Patrick. These guys go to the Jordan Language Academy and had friends from there over too. The majority of people were English, which was a relief in some respects as I didn’t have to feel guilty about people constantly having to translate Arabic conversations for me. With two bottles of Haddad Rum (Jordan’s Finest) we set about playing a game of Articulate , which was great, especially when everyone started to feel the effects of a 10JD bottle of rum. We then decided to head out to a club – I was so excited about this as I’ve heard a lot of mixed stories about the Amman clubbing scene since I’ve been here. I wasn’t disappointed. A smaller group – Chris, Patrick, Tareq and two friends of his and I – headed to a club called Caesar’s which is in Jebel Webdeih. Having got to the front door, we were told by someone coming out that we should only go in if we “liked sweaty Jordanian men, Arabic music and chest hair”. We unanimously agreed that this was exactly what we were in the market for and I had a classic night. The music was GREAT – proper Arabic music with tambourines etc and there were big circles of guys doing traditional Jordanian dancing. The atmosphere in there was pretty liberal – there were quite a few expat types and a lot of drunk Jordanian girls with a lot of flesh on show. I had a great time and my highlight of the night would have to be seeing Patrick on the end of a Jordanian equivalent of a conga, bouncing along with a look of pure confusion on his face. We stayed until about half three and then Tareq drove me home. I had such a fun night and met such a cracking group of people. We’re definitely going to go out again soon.

I had to struggle through hung-over work the next day, but was looking forward to going down Rainbow Street and seeing some of the Americans that I’ve met since I’ve been here. As I was walking home, I got a call off Diala who invivted me out with the rest of them to 7 Barrels. As I already had vague plans I said that I’d see her soon and decided to head down to Rainbow Street. I had a look at the souk that opens every Friday night (a  bit lacklustre compared to other souks!) and then met up with Hannah and some other AMIDEAST people in a bar called La Calle. It was nice hanging out with them but after I while I decided that I’d call Diala and see what those guys were up to – I had fun with them the other night and she is such a babe. She told me to get to 7 Barrels – so I got in a taxi and went to meet them. When I got there I saw a lot of the same guys, plus some new people. As soon as I saw her Diala told me – “sweetie, yalla, we’re going to the Dead Sea”. One of the guys that I hadn’t met before is called Yazan and is a very strict Muslim, so they weren’t drinking out of respect for him. So we piled in various cars with Yazan (with Kais riding on the back) on his 3-wheeler motorbike and we headed off to the Dead Sea. I wasn’t quite sure what we were going to do when we got there but I was definitely up for a bit of an adventure and I haven’t got down to the Dead Sea for a good eight years so I was keen! We stopped off for some food on the way and ended up parking on a ‘panoramic’ spot that overlooks the Dead Sea. On a clear day you’d be able to see over into Palestine, but seeing as it was 1 in the morning, there wasn’t much to see apart from some Palestinian lights. We had music playing out the car, and we basically sat around and chatted for an hour or so. The boys all wanted a go on the motorbike and when Kais found out that I’d never been on one, he and Yazan both took me for a spin. I’m definitely a new convert to motorsports…the roads were completely empty and straight so we did a couple of laps of a circuit around the road. SO FUN. Because the motorbike has 3 wheels it’s more of a quadbike than anything else. I felt completely safe whizzing along at speeds that my Renault Clio could never achieve…it was a total ‘inshallah’ moment and it was amazing fun. The group was as accommodating as ever and even when they were speaking Arabic, I understood the jist of the conversations, which was nice. We drove home at 2.30 and Kais dropped me home once we got back to Amman and I didn’t get to bed until around 4. My social life here is significantly more risqué than it is in Haywards Heath and I bloody love it. It felt pretty spontaneous (for me – they do it all the time) and I have just had the BEST WEEKEND EVER. But now back into the working routine…going to try and meet up with some of the new guys I’ve met as they were really good fun and we got on really well.

It is hard being here on my own – every foreigner I’ve met since being here is in Jordan with some kind of structured programme and so they have a pool of people to socialise with right from the get-go. I’m here as a result of nostalgia (and no significant life plans being in place when I graduated).

Being a lone ranger means that I do need to put myself out there more than usual, something that makes me cringe, but as I’ve found out this week, is definitely worth it. Cracking weekend.