Wādī Şafrā’

Today is our wedding anniversary! And for the first time on this trip, we celebrated by NOT getting up before 8am.

After a long, leisurely breakfast on our guesthouse's rooftop terrace, we spent the day exploring Amman, Jordan's capital city. It's a loud, frenetic, ancient city, with the kind of chaos that reminds me of the nonstop motion of Cairo or Ho Chi Min City in Vietnam. Beige concrete houses are crowded up the seven hillsides of Amman, modern high-rises glitter on the edges, and every building could be either built in 1940, the 11th century, or last week. I wouldn't say it's a pretty city, but it has a certain buzzy energy.

We walked to Amman's most famous landmark, the Citadel. It's an archaeological site atop one of the seven hills (omg, I am so done with this trip's stairs and hills), and is one of the world's oldest continually inhabited places. The first people lived here during the Bronze Age, around 1800 BC. Multiple empires moved in over the millennia, and the site still contains impressive Roman and Byzantine structures. It's also pretty huge- it sprawls over the entire hill, and the Temple of Hercules and the Citadel's fortification walls can be seen from many places in Amman.

We spent an hour or so wandering the site. It's an active archaeological dig site, and despite the multiple structures, the majority of the Citadel has yet to be excavated. So while it may look cool, there's a shit ton of work still to do. I thought this was an appropriate metaphor for a long-term marriage anniversary. In a good way, of course. Really.

After viewing the Citadel, we walked down MORE F*CKING STAIRS cut into the hillside, to visit Amman's 2nd-century Roman amphitheater. Now, I luvs me a good amphitheater- we counted eight countries off the tops of our heads where we've traveled to see one- but rarely do you see one in such pristine condition that it houses two museums, the occasional rap concert, and also functions as a public park. We clambered up the stone steps, and sat to people-watch for an hour.

Our next stop was the Grand Husseini Mosque, but it was shut hard for renovations. So we headed over to see the Bukhariyeh Souk (market), only to realize that with it being Friday, everything was closed (in the Muslim world, Friday is their version of Sunday). So! The final place on our itinerary was the famous Hashem restaurant. This place has been in existence since the 1940s, has no menu, no serving sizes (the waiter sizes you up, and determines an appropriate portion) and has all the ambience and decor of an abandoned garage. And yet, the falafel, hummus, pita, and salad were amazing, and somehow the bill totalled just 1.50 dinar (about €2) per person. I'm in love, and want to move in immediately.

There wasn't much else to see on our itinerary, so we found a shisha bar overlooking the main shopping street, ordered a grape and mint sheesha, and happily puffed away like the Caterpillar from "Alice in Wonderland" for several hours.

We had late evening reservations at Fakhreldin, a Levantine restaurant listed as one of the 50 best restaurants in the Middle East and Africa. Levantine cuisine refers to the food from the modern-day regions of Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. It features a lot of vegetables, pita, chickpeas, nuts, grilled meats, and creamy dips. It's a veggie-lovers' paradise- the tomatoes here are the best I've had outside of Spain. Fakhreldin elevates these ingredients into fine dining, and the restaurant itself is housed in the beautiful, mansion-like former home of the Jordanian Prime Minister. It's fancy! It's our anniversary!

We ordered grilled eggplant with pomegranate sauce and pinenuts (good, but a bit tart); pickled artichoke salad (the only dish we didn't love); chicken balls (hollow balls of chicken meat, fried and filled with butter, pistachios, and parsley. They were amazing, but given that they were listed on the menu under "goat gonads," obviously we had questions); mouhamara, which is a walnut, pomegranate, and red pepper spread that was so good I nearly ate the entire plate myself; and a mixed grill platter of chicken, lamb, and kebabs. We also ordered Jordanian wine, which I set down in my blind spot and proceeded to knock over onto the white tablecloth. Classy.

Fakhreldin knew it was our anniversary, and brought us Arabic-style ice cream known as "booza," with a lit candle for dessert. Booza is much like Turkish ice cream- it doesn't melt because it contains mastic (a rubbery ingredient found in chewing gum), and salep, or orchid flour. If it sounds gross, you are indeed correct. In my opinion, it's an abomination against ice cream, and I only ate the pistachios on top. Though I must give props to a cuisine that uses nuts in its starters, mains, AND desserts. The squirrel in me is very pleased.

So happy 28th anniversary to us, and tomorrow we venture up north to see more castles!Read more