Last year James and I were in Malta with Darren, Julie and Gwen for Thanksgiving. It was one of my favourite Thanksgivings ever. Julie managed to order a turkey, which came all the way from France, and she and James cooked it beautifully. Gwen made an amazing roast nut dish that makes me salivate just thinking about it, and Darren and I lit tea lits around the pool. Those lights were a distinct challenge so no mocking, thank you very much.
This Thanksgiving I will be on a plane to Aqaba, which is Jordan’s most important port and trading centre. It is also on the Red Sea and the water never gets below 20 C.
Since Friday, Saturday are the weekend days here, I guess today was my Thanksgiving. I went with my friend Motaz and my mom to Hashem restaurant, which is a famous place in Amman.
http://flickr.com/search/?s=int&q=hashem+restaurant+amman&m=text
This falafel guy is still there.
For breakfast we ate the most amazing hummus. It was creamy in a way that hummus is not creamy in Canada or in this hotel. We had ful (beans–like hummus but with beans), pita bread and tea. Then we walked around through the gold stores looking for jewellery for the Rabbit. Then we walked by the Roman theatre that is in the middle of downtown. Archaeological evidence of human settlements in the Amman area dates back 9,000 years, so a little Roman Odeon is, like, no big deal. We have a Neolitic settlement (6500 BC) over here, early Bronze Age tombs (3300 BC) over there, and this internet cafe.
Not joking. We did go to Books@Cafe, which was Amman’s first internet cafe. It rocks. There are great murals on the wall, an outdoor terrace. The rest of the afternoon was spent hanging out, drinking soda and talking about life and family, politics and religion, typical stuff.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Please have some stuffing for me.