Jordan Challenge 15: Learn about the Royal Family -- by Visiting their Cars

There's no question that Chris and I lucked out in terms of travel during his almost month-long visit.  We made the most of a month of weekends and were helped out by an extra-long holiday week to see all kinds of places.  But there's also always the unexpected bonus right in your own backyard, and one of our favorite little jaunts was the one we made to the Royal Automobile Museum.

The biggest challenge was figuring out how to get there.  The ubiquitous Lonely Planet guidebook that is constantly waved around by all ex-pats, including me, is both out of date and hopelessly vague in its instructions.  Directions to the museum are a case in point, "in the northwest suburbs of Amman, north of 8th Circle."   We finally resorted to the last-ditch of resort of choice -- hailing a cab, calling the destination, and when a person comes on the line, having that person feed directions to the cab driver (in Arabic, of course). 

Once we arrived we joined a few school groups of excited elementary school children in their uniforms filing past the cars.  And there were a ton of cars.  For me, it was a chance to learn about the Royal Family, and by proxy, the history of Jordan since the automobile.  Those not up on their Jordanian politics might not be aware that Jordan is actually the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan -- that is, a monarchy.  The current king, Abdullah II and his venerable father before him, King Hussein, are/were both huge car enthusiasts.  They shared a love of fast vehicles, and were both accomplished pilots and road rally drivers. I was, however, disappointed that the most famous car that features in the legends about King Hussein, a taxi, was not there. Even now, more than a decade after his death, King Hussein remains a larger-than-life figure, and one of the many stories about him and his amazing common touch is the "taxi story".  According to many people I've met here, the king had his own taxi, which he would occasionally disguise himself and drive in order to ask his subjects just what they thought of the king and how things were going.

My favorite car in the museum, because of the sheer novelty of it, was this Amphicar.  It could literally drive on water and the late King Hussein bought it in 1966 to take guests for "drives" in the Red Sea in Aqaba.

And my favorite picture in the museum was this one, also of the late King Hussein.  Here he is, every inch the carefree teenager, not knowing that the next day his grandfather, King Abdullah I would be assassinated, and he would become king at the age of 17.

I think for Chris it was also a chance to see some extremely fancy cars up close and personal. 

Until I went to the museum I did not know that such a thing as a Bugati Veyron existed, nor that it one of the fastest cars in the world...

...but Chris did.  Here he is in front of the Bugati and some other very fast toys in the royal collection/

But we both had a great time, and it was an excellent way to spend a morning in-between trips to more far-flung places.  If you like fast cars (like Chris) or you don't, but like modern history (like me) it's certainly worth the extra bit of effort it takes to figure out where it is.  I'd say go.

Jordan Challenge 14. When in Jordan During Eid, Head to Aqaba

There's nothing like leaving your own culture to make you realize which cultural values are so deeply embedded that you don't even notice they are cultural values.  Being in the Middle East, like being in East Africa a few years ago, makes me acutely aware that I am an American who thinks about time the way an American does. For us, time is a commodity to be scheduled and once the schedule is in place (as far in advance as possible), to be adhered to as rigidly as possible.  Jordan's not like Tanzania, where a 6 pm dinner appointment might just as easily mean 7 or 8, but there is a certain fluidity to time here that is tough for a lot of Americans, including me, to acclimate to.  Some of it is fun, like the fact that waiters will NEVER kick you out of your table here, and you can sit for hours without ever being brought a check.  But other parts really challenge Americans to put their day planners away, because we can schedule till we're blue in the face, but things might change.  Religiously-based holidays, for instance, can only be estimated on the calendar and aren't actually fixed till a few days before the holiday based on where the moon is. This year, that turned out to be a bonus for everyone when Eid al-Adha -- a very big holiday in the Muslim calendar commemorating the end of the Haj and also God's relenting and allowing the prophet Abraham to sacrifice a sheep instead of his son -- happened to start on Sunday (which is the first day of the work week here). Then the powers that be announced we'd be having the whole week off for Eid. Bonus!

We had hoped to spend at least part of the Eid holiday visiting the West Bank and Israel, but that was not in the cards because I am still waiting for my Jordanian residence permit, making travel across the border quite tricky.  So, we decided to visit some places in Jordan, including first Petra and then Wadi Rum.  And Aqaba, it turns out, is only an hour's drive away from Wadi Rum and situated right on the Red Sea.  So of course, we decided to check it out as well. The only problem with our little plan is that it was shared by many Jordanians who were as excited about the week-long holiday as we were.  We found this out through experience, when, for instance,we showed up at the JETT bus station an hour early to get tickets to Aqaba, only to find the bus sold out.  No matter, we bought tickets for later in the day and luckily had thought to book a hotel room earlier.

Although Aqaba reminded us both of other seaside resorts we've been to, the beautiful mosques of Aqaba were part of what made it unique.

Chris and I both thought that Aqaba reminded us of Mexico, particularly the Baja coast, in terms of both weather and the general atmosphere.  Of course, Mexico has many fewer mosques and many more displays of skin among the beach goers, but still, after the rainy chill of Amman, the easygoing atmosphere was quite easy to take.  We sandwiched out trip to Wadi Rum in between two days and nights (at two different hotels) in Aqaba and managed to get both desert and beach sand all in one trip!

On our first night in town we took a stroll on the waterfront.  The lights behind Chris are of the much larger Israeli resort of Eilat across the water.

Here's where the Middle Eastern perspective on beach-going starts really diverging from ours.  The only people wearing swim suits on the public beach were little children and teenage guys.  As you can see with the woman sitting in the foreground, Jordanian woman pretty much stay fully clothed on beach days.

Chris enjoying a (non-alcoholic) drink at sun-down and taking in the terrific view.

We never made it down to the resorts south of town where the snorkelers and scuba divers explore what are supposed to be amazing coral reefs -- that will have to wait for another day.  But we can now say we've taken part in an important institution -- celebrating a part of the Eid vacation on the shores of the Red Sea the Jordanian way.