Long Weekend!

Hello everyone!  So sorry for not posting more often over the last couple of weeks.  It was not by choice, believe me!  The internet connection in Amman had been absolutely terrible the last month or so.  First the Seacom undersea cable was cut and that affected not just Jordan, but even South Africa and today I heard that protesters stole some cables in Jordan over unpaid pension issues.  Don't know more facts around that issue, but there you have it. 

Funny how something like no internet connection can affect a person's mood.  I went into quite the funk last week.  Not being able to email friends and family was bad enough, but not being able to browse the internet depressed me terribly.  I have this ritual: first thing in the morning while I wait for the shower water to heat up, I check and answer emails, then I check local South African news websites to keep track of what is going on back home.  Then after my shower, I check Jordanian news websites, then CNN and only then do I allow myself to browse on the internet.  I believe it is important to know what celebrities are up to – my guilty pleasure, if you will – and then I play around on Facebook.  After that I normally research things, read up on little factoids that randomly entered my mind during the day.  This kills at least two to three hours of the day and, trust me, when the weather sucks outside and you are basically trapped inside an apartment with no transport of your own, this becomes very important.

So, being the creature of habit that I am, not being able to follow my usual rituals made my days very long and extremely boring.  Depression set in and I spent many a day just napping, reading, eating toast and then back to napping.  Of course, the fact that our cable TV connection also decided to pack up last week did not help at all!  I am hoping for an upturn in the situation soon. 

Ok, last week...

On Thursday André and I attended the nineteenth South African Freedom Day celebrations, hosted by the South African Ambassador and his lady wife at the Mövenpick hotel at the Dead Sea.  We decided to stay over at the Kempinski Ishtar hotel just next to the Mövenpick and what a fine time we had! 

The Freedom Day celebrations were in honour of South Africa's first democratic elections, held on 27^th April 1994. Dress code was formal, but they really could have made it smart casual, or even better, just plain casual, as one had to walk a very long way on very high heels (stupid, stupid choice, but flat shoes just does not go well with a little-ish black dress!) to get to the amphitheatre where the event was held.  I swear, next year I am wearing flats.  It really was a most enjoyable evening, with a short welcome speech by the ambassador, followed by the two national anthems.  Strange how hearing Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrica always brings a tear to the eye, no idea why.  Maybe I am just a sentimental fool? 

My gladdest glad-rags!

 

After the anthems, the entertainment for the evening started.  They had flown in the Three Afro Tenors from South Africa and what a show these three gentlemen put on!  I was mildly upset that they did not, in fact, sport huge afros, but soon forgot my disappointment when they started singing. 

 

The Three Afro Tenors in action

The Amphitheatre

 

 

Songs ranging from O Sole Mio, Amigos Para Siempre and Nessum Dorma to Impossible Dream were belted out in perfect harmony and the mostly non-South African crowd seemed to enjoy it a lot.  To my surprise and great amusement they even sang the Pretoria rugby team, the Blue Bulls' theme song, Liefling and even though that made me giggle, they executed it perfectly.  Wonder what Steve Hofmeyr would say about that? 

 

They ended off the show with a lovely rendition of Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World, but for me, the highlight of their show was a song I had never heard before, but one that I could have sworn brought a tear to my hubby's eyes:  Malaika.  The melody of this Swahili song is so hauntingly beautiful that I have been humming it on and off since I heard it on Thursday evening.  I have not been able to find the Three Afro Tenors' version on line, but here is a link to the Harry Belafonte version, featuring Miriam Makeba, to give you an idea...  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8jxALtWGVQ

Food was plentiful and delicious, but I was a bit disappointed that no South African dishes were offered.  Instead, they served the national Jordanian dish of Mansaf (flavoured, spiced rice, almonds and lamb cooked in dried yoghurt), which I love, so no complaints from my side.  Lots of other bits and pieces like grilled fish kebabs (this eating-fish-thing is growing on me, much to André's surprise and I suspect horror) and grilled veggies were on offer and I don't think anyone left the event hungry.  Desert was a giant South African flag-cake, a yummy red velvet concoction and I had two pieces, as one does!  Not every day you get to eat a flag...

I think it would be more than fair to say that André and I enjoyed our stay at the Kempinski hotel.  After the party at the Mövenpick, we wobbled back to our hotel for a shisha and a nightcap.  We have stayed at a number of hotels along the Dead Sea during the past year or so, but I have to say this was the best hotel of the lot.  I could sing the praises of the huge room, the superior quality of the linen on the bed or the lovely feather pillows, but the thing I loved most was the bed.  Had ourselves an exquisite night's sleep and am hoping to be able to return to the Kempinski-beds sometime in the near future.

Friday morning dawned in all its 34 degree glory and we had ourselves a champagne breakfast because, well, simply because we could.  After that we went straight to the beach for a swim, or is that a float?  Here's some pictures: 

Look Ma, no hands!  I find it so much easier to wear reef shoes to
swim in the Dead Sea, those stones and rocks are sharp!

The water was still cold, because up until now it has not been warm enough to sustain decent swimming/floating temperatures, but I did not let that deter me at all and I had myself a fine 40 minute swim.  André briefly braved the water but decided that the cold water was not for him, so we headed off to try almost every one of the many, many swimming pools at the hotel and finally decided on a warmish pool next to a bar lounge.  Suffice it to say that some shisha, beer and mojito's were consumed successfully and with enthusiasm – it was warm outside, after all!

The rest of the long weekend went by relatively quickly, watching dvd's and taking extended naps being our top priorities.  And of course, we ended the Palm Sunday long weekend with a superb lunch at Haret Jdoudna, where else?  We initially set off to find a different restaurant called Kan Zamman, but unfortunately André left the GPS at work, so we were unsuccessful and will endeavour to find it some other time. 

 

And that's all she wrote, for the moment, folks.  It seems like we have finally broken the back of this horrible winter, so I am looking forward to the rest of the sunny week ahead. 

Ouch!

Hey everyone!
No idea what is going on with the internet/connectivity at the moment. I am writing this on my iPhone, hoping I will still have signal by the time I am done writing.
We have very limited internet connection at the moment and it is extremely frustrating. On top of that, our cable tv packed up, so entertainment during the day is limited to washing the dishes and taking naps!
I will post again when I have proper connectivity: I have some pictures of Mount Nebo to share, as well as of the Citadel, which Andre and I finally discovered in downtown Amman this past weekend.

Until then, I leave you with this...

Mount Nebo

Last week went by in a bit of a blur.  On Wednesday we had supper with our Flashback Adventures friends, Guido and Rula Romero, and enjoyed the most amazing pasta I've had in a long time. After drinks and deep conversations in their very artfully decorated lounge, we all moved to the kitchen where Guido prepared a mushroom pasta dish, as well as spaghetti with olives, feta cheese and cherry tomatoes.  Homemade bread and a simple, but delicious salad perfectly rounded off the picture.  Yum!  As was expected, André cringed when the banana-toffee pudding was put right in front of him and, good wife that I am, I quickly sent it down the table without having some myself.  One day I will be rewarded, I am sure.  Of course, I had more than my share of the pasta so I had zero space left for any kind of pudding, but it did look good and I did mumble under my breath ever so slightly. 

Never a big olive lover, I have learnt to enjoy the milder Jordanian olive and can now recommend it to anyone.  Where I carefully picked it out and downright avoided it at all cost in the past, I now actively seek out olive breads and even order olives on my pizza!  Never thought that would happen!  Look, I still won't simply take an olive and eat it as is, but I have finally acquired a taste for the mild, green olives, provided it is surrounded by other goodies, of course.

Someone at the Romero's dinner unfortunately passed on the flu virus and I spent most of the time since then in bed.  This Southern hemisphere chicky has very little to no resistance to the Northern hemisphere bugs and I felt absolutely dreadful.  Happy to report thought that, thanks to some strong over-the-counter (yup, that's how it works here – prescriptions optional) antibiotics, I am feeling 100% better today.

You may have noticed by now that a lot of our activities in Jordan is somehow related to food.  On Friday André and I decided to go look for a restaurant called NE:BO (Don't ask me why, they obviously thought it would be cute to write the name like that), that came highly recommended by a number of people.  Two different sources even told André that the food was better than Haret Jdoudna!  As you know from previous posts, that is our favourite restaurant and with good reason.  Haret produces consistently excellent quality Arabic food at reasonable prices, so we set out on Friday morning, very excited, despite my flu-ridden state, expecting to have a culinary experience of epic proportions!  I mean, if the food is better than Haret...

Mount Nebo is situated about 7 kilometres outside Madaba and we were told that the restaurant is in the Mount Nebo complex.  I could not help but laugh at myself when we paid our one Dinar entrance fee and walked through the gates at Mount Nebo.  In November 2005, when we were still living in Riyadh we visited Jordan during the Eid holidays.  At those very gates we encountered vendors selling mosaics and Andre and I had a huge argument, as I wanted to buy a mosaic and he refused, saying that we would never be able to get it home without it breaking.  I remember fuming and saying  that he was an idiot, because we would never visit that spot again and would thus never have one of those lovely mosaics!  Shows you how much I knew, right?  I did apologise to André for that on Friday morning and we had a good laugh about it!

 

After a fruitless search for NE:BO we wandered around Mount Nebo and took a couple of pictures. Mount Nebo is the place where Moses was shown the promised land and on our first visit in 2005, the place felt... holy.  Back then, they had not yet started renovating the Byzantine church, so we could go inside and look at the mosaics in situ.  They are currently renovating the church and have removed all the mosaics.  The church is covered in a metal "skin" and is not accessible, heaven only knows when it will be again.  The mosaics have been carefully removed and is housed in Bedouin-type tents outside the church and while you still get to see the mosaics, the experience simply is not the same.  A bit of a letdown, really.   

No NE:BO there and as far as I was concerned, no Mount Nebo either, so we left after about 30 minutes, quite unhappy with the situation.  Then, to our left and not even a kilometre down the road, there's NE:BO!  The entrance showed a lot of promise and I still planned to take pictures.  Decorated in the Arab style of course: antique wooden benches, mosaics, water features, clay pots and woven rugs to complete the picture.  But...  Once inside, the restaurant resembled a very utilitarian, boarding school type food hall (and I am not referring to the Harry Potter one, trust me), quite soulless with cheap cutlery and bare, sticky tables.  Yes, NE:BO had an excellent view over the Musa Valley (Musa – Moses) and that, my friends, is the kindest comment I can make about this restaurant.

Now, I can bore you with how horrendous the buffet-only food was, and how expensive the beer (5 JD each!), but I won't.  I can tell you that I am convinced that something in the alleged fish dish winked at me, and how super annoying the waiters were, or even how the Baba Ganoush (Eggplant dip) had excessive Baba and very little Ganoush; that it formed an oily coating on my tongue and tasted extremely sour, but no need for that.  What I will tell you is that the over-solicitous head waiter who previously addressed us in perfect English, suddenly forgot that he could speak English when we complained about the forty-two Dinar bill for food we could not eat!  Forty-two Dinar!  That's about R525 or USD58.  For that?

Admittedly, it may have been the flu making me extra grumpy, or the nausea caused by the only thing I did try to eat on my plate, the Baba Ganoush, or it might have been the fact that this was daylight robbery!  Of course I ended up in a huge argument with the head waiter and by the time my voice reached a pitch so high that only dogs could understand me, Mr. Slick slammed a 10 JD note in front of André and stormed off in a huff!  Suffice it to say, we are never, ever, ever getting back together with that restaurant!

And that was the week that was.   Look out for Mount Nebo pictures later this week, internet connection permitting.  I hope you all remain fabulously flu-free and I hope to see you again next Monday!

Soul Food

It is no secret that I love food.  Not cutesy potato-on-a-plate-with-two-grapes-and-a-thimble-of-meat-mouse kind of food, but hearty, solid meals that stick to your bones, fills your belly and makes your believe that all is right with the world.  Those are the meals I love.

 

The food does not have to be fancy for the meal to be memorable.  For example, last Thursday afternoon my friend Emily came over for a chat and when she left I suddenly felt deflated.  I missed her company and on the spur of the moment I called her up and invited her and Andrew over for supper.

Now, we have not been groceries shopping in a week and supplies were running very low by Thursday evening.  All I had to offer our friends was bread, some left over pork belly from the previous night's supper, eggs, frozen vegetables (literally a handful of spinach and even less bell peppers) and a dash of cream.  Oh, and after some desperate scratching around, I uncovered about half a cup of bacon bits in the back of the freezer. Whoo-hoo! A quick check with Emily and two onions were added to the mix.  What to do, what to do...

 

Emily and Andrew arrived with some beer and a bottle of white wine. With the price of alcohol over here, BYOB* is a standard, unspoken rule when invited to someone's house, unless they are Muslim, of course!  After some stalling on my part, Emily and I retreated to the kitchen, where  I had to produce a meal of some sort with the limited ingredients, pronto! 

A-ha!  Brainwave.  I chopped what needed to be chopped, fried the fryables, whisked some eggs and cream and voila! Toasted pork belly sandwiches and spinach, onion, bell pepper and bacon frittatas – yummy!

 

It might not have been the biggest meal ever, and despite the fact that it consisted mainly of left over bits and pieces we had ourselves a lovely evening.  Which brings me back to why I love food so much.  You don't have to serve up a nine course meal with all the correct wines and palate cleansers that the various dishes required in order to enjoy a meal.  It also does not have to take hours to prepare or cost an arm and a leg.

Sometimes the simplest meals prepared with left-over meat and heaps of spare love can lead to the most enjoyable experiences.   It is over those meals that we discover each other's likes, dislikes, hopes, dreams and passions.  We discuss food, music, travel.  We tell jokes, we tease, we question politics and religion and at the end of the evening we close the door behind friends having been fed and watered, but more important than that, we go to sleep having thoroughly nourished our souls.

*Bring your own booze

Taxi!

Last week was a pretty run-of-the-mill, just-get–through-it kind of week.  Well, that was until I had to jump out of a taxi to escape a maniacal driver, of course!

 

The Taj Mall is half way between André's Muqablein office and the British Club, where we were planning on having supper last Wednesday.  As it makes no sense for André to drive all the way home and pick me up, we normally meet at the Taj Mall.  So,  on Wednesday afternoon I innocently got in a taxi, did the usual "Salam Alaikum", checked that the meter was set to the flat rate, gave the driver my destination, sat back and hoped for the best.  After about half a kilometre, the driver pipes up with "Four dinar, four dinar".  Now, I saw the meter was set to 0,25 Dinar when I got in the taxi, we haven't travelled far, so this surprised me and I responded with a very eloquent "Huh?  Checked the meter and discovered that the bugger had sneakily turned it off! 

 

A trip from our house to the Taj Mall costs between 1,80 and 2 Dinars, so no way was I going to pay four dinar.  It is not a lot of money at all, but it is the principle of the matter.  I tried to reason with him but somewhere along the line diplomacy failed miserably, an argument ensued and at one point the driver was shouting at the top of his voice in Arabic, so I started shouting in Afrikaans.  I had no clue what he was saying to me so I decided to return the favour. 

 

Quite upset, I asked the driver to stop so I could get out of the taxi, but he had other plans.  He started charging down the road, taking the mutabs (speed bumps) at great speed, seemingly oblivious to the damage he was doing to his vehicle and my neck (no seatbelts in the back, remember?).  In between mutabs he swerved the car violently from left to right, all the time shouting at me in Arabic.  I got more afraid by the minute. 

 

Lucky for me, there were several vehicles in the small traffic circle just before 7^th Circle, so he had to slow down and eventually stop, at which point I grabbed my handbag, jumped out of the car and slammed the door as hard as the plate in my shoulder would allow!  That maniac seemed genuinely surprised that I no longer required his services and that I rejected his obvious superb driving skills, so he rolled down the windows and shouted at me to get back in the car.  Like hell!

 

As is custom in the Middle East, if the vehicles in front of you are not moving fast enough to your liking, you are allowed to, no, probably required to show your disgust by blowing your car's horn loudly and repeatedly, until you get the reaction you want.  The taxi driver was still trying to scare me back into the vehicle but the motorists behind him all started hooting at him.  Eventually he had to give up and leave this now enraged Boere-chicky next to the road.

 

It took a block and a half of power walking to calm my nerves and for the adrenalin to subside before I could muster up the courage to put up my right hand again and shout "Taxi!"

May the Force be with Them: Update

It has been just over a week and I thought I'd give you an update on how my brave herbs are doing.  As you can see, still alive!  Take that, Husband! 

Not only are they alive, they have grown in numbers.  Giddy with success and super impressed with my green fingers, I've added rosemary to the mix.  Probably a good thing there's only space for three teeny little plants.  (Uhm... How many plants can I kill before being labelled a mass murderer?)

PS:  The base of the parsley is turning yellow. This is normal, right?