Amman, at last.

Today, as expected, I arrived in Amman at around 7:30 p.m. After exchanging my money and getting my visa, I walked out of the terminal and found my cousin David. We took a cab to his apartment building which is built just off a rotary circle (one of I think eight in Amman) where I met Ali, David's roommate and Abe, Ali's brother.

The city is built on seven hills "like Rome" (whatta cliche I'm told). If you go to the roof of the apartment building, you can view practically all of Amman form the Citadel to the large (very large, actually. world record) flag pole flying Jordan's banner. Very cool.

We started out the evening by going to a restaurant called Jafra where we ordered a couple of dishes to share like hummus, chicken livers, and fried cheese. If I could remember the names I would write those instead but for an American reader, this is what they essentially were. We smoked hookah while eating which I discovered is common practice in Jordanian restaurants. We sat on the terrace overlooking downtown Amman which was basically two streets intersecting each other.

After dinner we went to another restaurant where we drank beer (not my favorite, I had to pour half of mine into Ali's glass) and discussed politics and diplomacy. Most of the conversation centered around the ethics of intelligence gathering and how the government acts on that intelligence. I opted out of the conversation half way through, as did Ali and we sat and watched David debate Abe for quite a while. Quite entertaining. We brought the beer party back to the apartment where we sat on the rooftop and chatted about various other things, thankfully NOT related to politics.

Now it is about 3 am in Amman and I really should go to sleep...sleeping pill now.