Day 168 - Petra - Amman
We slept in until 8:00am. We had our cereal downstair and waited for our taxi at 9:30am. Everything went very smooth. The ride was actually comfortable because it was a Hyundai and we were not all crammed in the back. I slept most of the way, the kids read their books and Gregory just watched out the window. We arrived in Amman around 1:00pm and our place was ready. I was worried because that morning I had gotten an email from our host saying that we could check in after 2:00pm because there was someone before us!
Everything worked out well, the apartment is in a nice neighborhood, you can tell right away by seeing the car that was parked outside the residential area. We are staying close to a popular and fancy shopping mall. When we walked in the apartment and saw the place and two bathrooms, even Daniel said: “thank you, mommy.” I booked my first home in Airbnb and promised Gregory to help more with it! It is hard, especially when you are trying to figure out the best location to stay, making sure it is close to markets and close to downtown so you don’t have to pay for a taxi. Anyway, in this case, we will have to pay for a taxi but luckily there is uber, yeah!
After going around the apartment and noticing little things, I sent a note to our host with a list of things that we need. No sponge or dish soap and the silverware was filthy. I guess I’m the only one that suffers when the places are not clean because I’m the one that has to clean. There were no dishes or cups for coffee. No towels for the kids and more but I’m only mentioning this because you need to know what to expect when you rent Airbnb. Sometimes you get super lucky like we did in Tel Aviv and got a great equipped home, even with a dryer or sometimes you get a place where there are barely any kitchen utensils and you just have to cook with what you can! I decided to take a nap and worry about food later.
After my nap, Gregory, Sunshine and I went looking for a grocery store. We walked up the hill, our legs still hurt but you do what you have to do when you are hungry! We found a tiny market but then we asked a woman that looked educated if she spoke English. She did and told us that there was a big grocery store in the fancy shopping mall called Taj. We walked there and we were very impressed. It felt immediately like home. They had all the American stores that you can imagine, Victoria Secret, H& M, Louis Vuitton, etc. (Daniel's note: They even had root beer! I was so excited because it is like liquid gold and I hadn't drunk any in 6 months.) There was even a section for children with Santa (scary looking according to Sunshine) seating on a chair. I wish I had taken a picture of a Muslim woman all covered in black walking in with her little one towards Santa!
Gregory went to look for an ATM while Sunshine and I looked for the grocery store. We were both super excited to see all the familiar US products. It really felt like home, but the prices were even higher so we limited our grocery list to the basics and to what we needed for our short stay of 3 days.
We walked back home, made dinner and watched a Christmas movie. It was a big deal for Sunshine because that’s all she wanted for Christmas present, to be able to watch “I’ll be home for Christmas.” She has been searching for in every country that we go and, nothing, well they had it here in Jordan and she was screaming and super happy to see her movie. Totally teenager film but we all sat together and enjoyed it! The only thing missing was dessert!
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| I'm not sure why I took this picture. This was our small bedroom at Valentine Hostal. |
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| View of the small town in Petra |
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