Alright, my first real day of my trip.

Yeah, sure, it’s technically day three but the first two days were just basically transiting days with brief pitstops in Paris and Madrid on my way to Jordan.

Today was the first day to actually get out there and explore.

And, boy, did I explore.

A good night’s sleep

After a late checkin after midnight last night, I didn’t actually go to bed until 2am.   I had been told two others would be joining me in my room around 4am but they never came.

So, I slept through the night.   No snorers.   No lights turned on in the middle of the night.

Just a nice, good night’s sleep.

Of course, I didn’t get a full 8 hours cause, well, I’m on an adventure and there’s a world to explore out there.

I ended up getting out of bed at 8:30am and was out the door an hour later.

Gluten free breakfast

For breakfast I walked down the street to the Wild Jordan Center restaurant.

Now, when I say I walked down the street, what I really mean is I walked down a hill, up some stairs, and then down another hill.

Yeah, Amman is a city of hills, winding roads, and steep stairways between roads.

Anyway, I had this place marked on my map because it’s listed on the findmeglutenfree app.

The app is my go-to when it comes to finding gluten free restaurants when I’m traveling and, while I don’t get a dime from them and I don’t generally link to websites, I’m gonna give them a link cause it’s an amazing app.

For breakfast I ordered their apple oatmeal pancakes, a dish of three sunny side eggs made with a mix of herbs and olive oil, and a chilled cinnamon mocha to drink.

Now that’s the way to start the day!

Oh my God.   So good!   I’ll definately be back there again for breakfast.

Quick Reset

When I left the hostel it was grey and overcast with a slight drizzle coming down.

I wore my winter jacket and was layered in a t-shirt and long sleeve shirt.

After breakfast though, the sun was now out and hot-damn, I for sure would die if I continued wearing my winter jacket.

The plan was to turn left and head into the main part of the city to explore but instead I took a right and headed back to the hostel.

Time to reset.

Off came the winter jacket.   Off came the long sleeve shirt.   On to the light jacket instead.

Ah, much better.

A trip into town

At 11:30 I was back out the door heading into the city center of Amman.

Here is where you’ll find the Roman Nymphaeum, the Roman Theater and Citadel Hill.

It’s actually quite interesting navigating from point A to point B here in Amman as Google Maps will take you on weird zig zags up and down streets occasionally dispersed by a stairway from one street to another.

Here’s an example of a route I had to take from where I had lunch today to get back to my hostel…

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that despite places looking like they’re close together, they actually take a bit of walking to get to because of the non-direct paths between them.

And those damn stairs.

So many stairs.   Uneven stairs to boot.

Here in Amman you’ll walk down some stairs, get to the street, walk a bit down the street and then head up some other stairs to get to the next street.

Okay, stair rant over.

Stupid stairs.

Okay, no, really, rant over.

The path to my first stop, the Roman Nymphaeum took me through a cool little souq filled with all sorts of shops.   Here you could find a shop selling fresh fish right next to a place selling flip flops.

See?   Told ya!

Coming out of the souq was the Nymphaeum, a partially preserved Roman public fountain.

I had read that there wasn’t much to see there and, in fact, the gate was locked anyway so I just took a couple snaps from outside the gate.

Roman Theater

My next stop was the Roman Theater which was only a few minutes away.

The cost to enter is 2JOD ($4) but, if you have a Jordan Pass, it’s free.

The nice part about visiting a place like Jordan is that the “touristy” sites aren’t overrun by tourists because, let’s face it, Jordan isn’t a tourist mecca like some other places are.

There were maybe a dozen people total wandering around the steps of the ancient outdoor theater and after I had made the (very) ambitious climb to the top, I made friends with one of them.

I was just sitting on the top step minding my own business glancing out onto the city sprawled out before me when a teenager named Zaid started a conversation.

“Nice view?”

My initial defensive mechanism was instantly put on alert.

Oh, here we go, I thought, here’s a guy who’s gonna chat me up and then offer to take me on a tour or something.

But, despite that, I continued the conversation.

Turns out, he was just a genuinely nice guy who was looking to have a conversation with a foreigner in English.

His English was very good which, I came to find, isn’t really the norm, even for the youth of Jordan.

He dreams of traveling and seeing the world and was asking me all sorts of questions about it.

In fact, we sat there on the steps just chatting for a good 45 minutes before we parted ways.

Now, this is the experience I wanted.

Just taking your time exploring, having random conversations with people, and seeing what’s out there to see.

Finally at quarter to one I was climbing down the steps of the Roman Theater heading to my next stop.

Citadel Hill

Well, with a place with “Hill” in the title, I knew I had a bit of a climb in front of me.

No worries, though, as I had more than rested up while chatting with Zaid.

Google Maps said it was only 17 minutes away but it probably took twice as long to get there as I was taking my sweet ass time resting up between levels of stairways.

The climb was definately worth it though.

The admission here is 3JOD ($6) but, again, it’s free with a Jordan Pass.

As I showed my pass to the ticket agent, I was immediately greeted by a woman standing around outside the office with a “Where are you from?”.

I responded “I’m from Canada but I don’t need a guide”.

And she replied “Okay, enjoy.” and was off.

No high pressure attempt.   No following me around all but begging me to let them guide me.

Just a simple, friendly, interaction.

Well, that was unexpected.

I’m pretty sure that won’t be the case later on in this trip, especially in Egypt, but I’ll take it when I can get it.

Again there were at most a dozen people spread out amongst the ancient ruins atop the hill.

The weather was wreaking havoc with me as the combination of wind and sun had me taking off and putting back on my jacket a few times.   Hell, I even donned my touque a few times.

It was nice to just walk peacefully around these ancient ruins at my own pace.

Unlike other ruins I’ve visited in various places in the world, they actually let you walk amongst them with no ropes chaining off areas which I thought was pretty cool.

After a 45 minute stroll through the ruins I was heading out.

My day, for all intents and purposes was complete.

Nothing else planned except to get some food.

Lunch

Earlier in the day I had made an online reservation at Avis for a rental car for the next week but the location I selected to pick it up didn’t really have an obvious address.

After a bit of searching online I did have a place marked on my map but I wasn’t 100% confident that that was the actual location.

It was only a bit of detour to reach where my map marker was and there was also a place I had marked for gluten free food nearby, so I headed to that part of town.

Well, wouldn’t you know.

No Avis.

In fact, there was literally nothing at the stop I had marked out on my map.

Well, good thing I checked and didn’t find out the hard way when I went to pick up the car tomorrow.

No worries, I just rebooked the reservation to a different location attached to a hotel so at least I know the place exists.

Anyway, off to lunch.

I stopped at Dar Ne’meh which you’d never know was a cafe, let alone one offering gluten free options, from the outside.

You have to walk through a little retail store front to get to the cafe at the back.

But, sure enough, they had gluten free options available.

There was only one thing I was interested in – falafel.

It’s a staple here in the Middle East and most often it is bound with gluten containing products so when I heard they offered a gluten free version, I was all up on it.

I ordered that along with a side of Moutabel which is a roasted eggplant spread.

Of course I had to forgo the pita bread that came with the spread but just combined it with the falafels and it was amazing.

Ah, this is it.

This is Jordan.

Just sitting here on a patio outside a little cafe eating some Jordanian food.

With time on my hands to boot.

It was 2:30 and I had nowhere to go and nothing to do.

What a great feeling.

A nap and a dinner

After another arduous (oh, big word there) walk up and down stairways and winding roads, I finally got back to my hostel.

I was exhausted and sweaty and I just wanted to lie down.

Before I knew it, it was 6:30.

Yup, I conked out for a good 3 hours.

It was probably a combination of alot of walking, a lack of sleep, and some jetlag but, man, I was out.

In fact, I only woke up because someone checked into my room.

A Thai Youtuber revisiting Jordan for 10 days to make a video as part of his series of traveling overland from Thailand to South Africa.

Naturally we got talking about traveling.

Naturally.

I mean, what else do you talk about in hostels?

Anyway, after a bit, I was heading out for dinner.

I invited him along but he had just ordered food for delivery so I was on my own.

I wanted to try the Jordanian traditional dish of Mansaf which is a dish of lamb with rice and nuts and a yogurt gravy.

I went to a place that was highly recommended online called Sufra.

Now, this place is fancy.

And, of course, their prices reflected that.

I stared at the menu board before entering and saw the 13.75 ($27) price tag for dinner.

Definitely a high price for Jordan but I really didn’t walk around looking for another place and, well, it was highly recommended so in I went.

By the way, if they offer you water, just say no.

I said yes and was presented with a big bottle of still water which they happily charged me 3.75JOD ($7.50) for.

Lesson learned.

Anyway, the dish itself was amazing and so filling that I couldn’t actually finish it.

With a full belly a made my way back down the hill to my hostel.

And that was it.

It was 8:30 and I was done for the day.

All that was left was typing up this blog and heading to bed.

Tomorrow I’ll be picking up my rental car and heading out of the city to Umm Qais, Ajlun Castle and Jerash up in the north.

The great Jordanian adventure has begun!