Why do I always crave Spaghetti Bolognese when I travel?

Hi again,

I have a bit of a headache, which I thought might be caused by hunger, since I only ate breakfast this morning - but even after a dinner of spaghetti bolognese, which I've eaten in more than a dozen countries (I think Guatemalans make it better than the Italians), and a cup of coffee which will keep up until next Monday, my headache lingers. Heat? Sun? Dehydration? All of the above? Who knows...

So, today I got completely lost, which is no big surprise. I remember telling my mother, when I was about 17, my mantra for traveling; "I can't really get lost, because I don't really know where I'm going." And so the story goes...

King Abdullah Mosque *looked* fairly close on the map! Oh well. About an hour later, I just gave up and continued wandering along the little streets of Amman, until I was so exhausted that I decided to take a cab.

In order to hail a cab, you stick your arm straight out, palm down, and wiggle your fingers. A cab pulled over, even though there was already a woman in the backseat. "Oh well," I thought, and jumped in the front. The driver indicated that he would drop off his first fare, and then me at the Mosque. The woman in the back didn't speak any English, so the driver, who spoke some, translated for her, as well as peppering me with his own questions. I've decided that, when out in public, I will tell people that I'm from Canada (and since I lived there as a kid, I think I can fake it well enough, eh?) - just in case. And so my Canadian persona emerged. It turns out that the woman in back was an Iraqi refugee who fled the country because of the war, and came to Amman (along with 500,000 others Iraqi Nationals) looking for safety and work. She asked if I knew how she could get citizenship in Canada, to which I wistfully replied, "I don't know." I don't know how she would have reacted if I had said that I was American.

The driver was from Salt, a town in central Jordan. After dropping the Iraqi woman off first, which took us all the way into western Amman (good sightseeing!), he drove me all the way back into central Amman, and dropped me off at the Mosque. He gave me a long list of things to see and do while I'm here...

It took me three tries to get into the Mosque. I kept being shooed away to the "next entrance." The final entrance was the one set up for non-Muslims. I paid my 2 dinars (about $3), and was brought into a room where there were racks and racks of chador. I had to completely cover up in order to enter the Mosque. So, I pulled one over my head, covered my hair, zipped up the front, and walked up the stairs to the main mosque. I must have looked ridiculous, because the chador ended about half-way down my shins, presenting some orange pants, and some big feet down below. Oh well. I wandered in and out of the various rooms, through an Islamic museum, and around the grounds, looking at the magnificent blue-tiled dome, minarets, and views of the city.

After the King Abdullah Mosque, I took a cab to the Roman Amphitheater, which, after climbing the steep steps to very top, provides for some unbelievable views of the city. It's just a sea of white stone buildings, riding the 7 hills that make up Amman, with the desert just beyond.

Automobile accidents are the most common cause of death here. The traffic is nothing in comparison to Jakarta, but the drivers here drive at breakneck speed, reeling around traffic circles, paying no attention to any rules of the road (do any exist?) or pedestrians. Last night I saw the most dramatic car crash on a city street... the two cars were just smashed to smithereens.

Tomorrow I'm going to call my friend Anette's friend Leni, who works here for the Norwegian Embassy. Anette, whom I've known since I was 22 and met a random Superbowl party in Los Angeles (neither one of us were particularly moved by American football, and bonded instantly), works for the Swedish Embassy in DC, and has a great track record, in my mind, of introducing me to interesting people during my travels, including Christina, also from Sweden, who was working for the Embassy while I was living in Jakarta.

That's quite a run-on sentence. Oh well.

The women in Amman look like beauty queens. They have perfectly-styled, dramatic, big hair, flawless makeup (how do they not sweat?), and are always dressed impeccably with lots of glitz and glamor. I'm sure that they are silently wondering "What the hell is with these Americans, with their t-shirts, flip flops and chapstick?" The wedding will provide for an incredible showcasing opportunity, perhaps, in some ways, like a parade. I suggested to my fellow comrades-in-casual, that maybe we should go all-out and visit a salon on Friday, before the wedding, to have our hair and make-up done in the local fashion. All have agreed. I'm sure we'll feel like transvestites, but what the hay! Do transvestites wear pearls?

Scandalous.

I hope all is well with you...