Speaking of…. Princess Basma was here yesterday!! Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to meet her, but it was a pretty cool feeling to be in the same building. Maybe next time she comes I will be able to fit her into my schedule, I am a little too busy for royalty as you can imagine ;).
I have learned a very important Arabic word so far too – ‘mbegatut’ means I’m stuffed! Every time I am at my desk thinking ‘I could eat’, a call comes from down below and there is a feast left over in the dining room from the many workshops, meetings, royal visits and conferences hosted here. So much for dieting in the middle east! The people here are so generous, and that translates to the sharing of food and the way the meals are a joyous exchange of dialogue and tastes….
Next week (well, starting this friday) there will be a week long holiday ‘Eid-al-Adha’, and the thought was to possibly go to Syria and through to Lebanon, but I have it on authority that the Syrians tend to hike the prices – kind of like trying to go to mexico for Christmas, when on either side you could have paid half the price – so we may just stay in the area and visit the many day trips possible from here. Not only that, but we should have gotten our multi-entry Syrian visas while still in Canada (you are supposed to get them from your country of residence to avoid hassle), so we will have to see about the possibility of getting them from the Syrian embassy in Amman. Apparently, you can potentially get one at the boarder, but the possibility of being turned away empty handed is pretty high.
We also get Christmas day and boxing day off as well – so no work gets done in December here! I’m not coplaining, its an opportunity to explore. Petra, Jarash, Wadi al Seer, Wadi Rum, the Dead Sea, and Aquaba are all inside the borders of Jordan! Not such a bad list to choose from, even if we can’t get into Syria.
Hi Lindsey!
Just catching up on your blog… love it!
Saw that you were looking into going to Syria.
Had the same problem in the summer – I called the Embassy, they said it would be impossible to get a visa at the border, etc etc. But we went anyway and discovered there was a huge sign listing all nationalities and how much a visa would cost. For Canadians it was I think US $42. They didn’t even ask why I didn’t get it in my country of residence! And though the Syrian border is totally chaotic, I managed to get it in under an hour’s time
Eid Mubarak!
Isabel