On Jordan's stormy banks I stand ...

Two weeks ago we welcomed little Ava into the world with lots of pink and frills.  Glenn and I are looking forward to watching her grow up as she wraps her parents, Scott and Jo Ellen, around her little pinkies.  Particularly Scott!

She is so precious!  We got to visit her at Telki Hospital when she was 1 1/2 days old.  I'll get to see her  again on Wednesday evening.  :-)

Shortly before we left town, we received a Flat Stanley in the mail and a friend of ours also had a Flat Susie from the U.S., so we joined forces and took Stanley and Susie into town to take pictures of their adventures.

Stanley loves the Parliament building too!

We were actually in town two different days that week and stayed over until the evening and got some great photos of the Parliament building at night.  Don't you think so?

These two pictures were taken about 20 seconds apart from the other, and nothing changed except the setting on the camera.   They turned out pretty neat, didn't they?

On Feb. 17th, we flew to Amman, Jordan by way of Istanbul, Turkey for a training on debriefing someone (or a group of people) from a traumatic event.  (It's called CID:  Critical Incident Debriefing)  Originally, we were supposed to stay and visit with one of our Member Care couples who live in Amman while attending the training.  However, the couple isn't back yet from their stateside assignment.  (Something held them up for a couple of months but they should be back soon.)

All the buildings in Amman are modern-looking, built from limestone and are light colored.  Overall, they look very clean and crisp, but there are still pockets of poverty in places.  In the foreground is an unfinished building where squatters have taken over.  This, however, is a rare sight.

This was our third trip to Jordan, and I always enjoy coming here.  I have never felt "unsafe".  I know it is a male-dominated culture, so I am careful about what I wear and I don't make eye contact with men.    Culturally, I should probably walk 3 steps behind Glenn, but I walk too fast for that!

Even though Arabic is the official language, English is very prevalent there.  Almost all signs are in English and Arabic, and we met very few people who didn't speak at least some English. 

I should collect STOP signs from various countries because I find them very interesting.  I have one from Russia where the word STOP is written solely in cyrillic letters.    Here it is written in Arabic and English.  I learned that Arabic is read right to left, but numbers are written left to right.  Cool!

There are two malls, Mecca Mall and City Mall, fairly close to where we were staying so we caught a ride with someone or caught a taxi to both of them.  Very modern and clean.  We found several stores that we have in the U.S., such as GAP, Timberland and Columbia, but LOTS of familiar food places:  Popeyes, Pizza Hut, Burger King, McD's, KFC, Chili's, Applebees, Sbarro's, TGI Fridays, Subway, and Fuddruckers.  (And probably more that I am not remembering.)

I loved the long coats and long dresses in this store front, designed for every occasion.  Very different from what we would find in America, but this isn't America!  Most Jordanian women wear at least a hijab (headscarf) that covers their whole head (not a bit of hair can show), and covers their neck completely, even if they are wearing wear western clothing from the neck down.  Of course, the more devout Muslim women will wear the long dresses with long sleeves.  Got to have those shoulders and arms covered.  Since it was winter on this trip, it was no problem dressing culturally appropriately!

Before our training started, we had meetings with our boss and the 3 "Leads" in Eurasia.  (Lead Medical Consultant, Lead Education Consultant, and Lead Member Care Consultant)  Some of these meetings were over a meal, and one was at a Starbucks in the mall.  :-)

Glenn and I were staying in a neighborhood called Al Rabia and most days we enjoyed the 10 minute walk down to the "city"center of Al Rabia to get something to eat, to shop for groceries, or just to explore.  There was a Starbucks in the neighborhood so on several evenings, we strolled into town for a cup of coffee.  Do you see the black curly cues with the dots underneath on the white paper cup?  That's my name, Mary, written in Arabic!

Recognize this logo?  Did the chili pepper give it away?  

There are several Chili's in Amman, and one was in Al Rabia, so on our last day there, we ate lunch at Chili's.

As often as possible, Glenn and I chose to eat hummus and bread!  We ate at one place in Al Rabia 3 times during the week because it was sooooooo good, and our last meal there, we ordered a rotisserie chicken "to go" so that we could eat it back at our apartment.   (Notice the puffy bread?  It is light and airy;  there's nothing in the middle.  It's hollow!)

We had developed quite a relationship with the owner during our visits that he filled our "to-go" box full, and gave us an extra serving of hummus and bread while we were waiting!  Now, I have no way of knowing whether we were special to him or not, but he sure made us feel like we were!

Hummus is not exactly a diet food.  In fact, it is quite full of calories, especially when you eat as much as Glenn and I did, and the bread has calories too!  After eating hummus and pita bread at least once a day, I could feel my pants getting snug, so I loved this sign that says "Size Matters".  :-)

The apartment where we stayed is around the corner from the Amman Baptist School.  In the early1960's, a Jordanian Baptist leader had a dream of opening a Christian school of excellence for the children of Amman, but it wasn't until at least 10 years later, with the encouragement and help of American Southern Baptists, it opened its' doors and the first school bell rang on Sept. 2, 1974 to welcome the children into class.  The school serves both Christians and Muslims, kindergarten through high school.

And, across the street from Amman Baptist School is the West Amman Baptist Church.  I don't know the history of the church, and although they have a web site, there is very little information on it.  Even though Glenn and I were here in Amman on Sunday, we didn't know anything about the church to know when it started, whether it even met on Sundays, and what was appropriate to wear.  Next time we come, we'll do our research ahead of time and check it out.  So, on Sunday for worship, Glenn and I had our own quiet times with the Lord, and then together we listened to Dr. Ken Williams, pastor of West Cobb Church in Powder Springs, Georgia.  He's one of our favorites!

We returned to Budapest on Sunday night.  Well, really it was Monday morning!  The taxi came for us at 1:30 am for our 4:30 am flight to Istanbul, Turkey where we had a 2 1/2 hour lay-over.  Fortunately, the cup of coffee at the Starbucks kiosk in the Istanbul airport was an "eye opener", if you get my meaning and we were able to stay awake to catch our flight to Budapest.  We arrived at our house at 11:30 am, with no sleep, but all our bags.  We managed to stay awake all day Monday, but finally crept into the bed at 9 pm.  I understand the expression "bone tired and weary eyed"!

Glenn's taxi comes in the morning (Wednesday) at 4:30 am so that he can catch a 6:30 am flight to Atlanta.  He's going to help his mother move from his brother's house in Marietta, GA to his sister's house in North Augusta, SC but I'm staying in Budapest, holding down the fort.  

We've got our own Nemo!

We spent the early part of the week visiting one of our TCK's (third culture kids) at a local hospital who was here in Budapest for surgery.  Brooke is such a sweet girl and she did beautifully!  She was so brave.  It can be scary to be in a foreign country, to not know the language and the way they do things (particularly if they are pretty different from what you are used to), but she took it all in stride.  

It started snowing teeny tiny flakes on Saturday morning and has continued all day today, and it is now Sunday evening.  The weather report says it is supposed to continue snowing until about midnight.  I hope it keeps on snowing through tomorrow evening!

Here, it is measuring 4 inches.

Our duplex.  We're on the left side.

About 3:30 pm today, Glenn and I bundled up and took a walk through our neighborhood out to the wooded park about a mile from our house.   We happened upon a grandpa who stopped his car on his way home to throw a couple of snow balls with some kids in the neighborhood.

Each view was more beautiful than the last.

We came across these kids buckling on pairs of sled shoes.  (I'm not sure what they are really called. Never seen anything like them before.)  They are basically oval frisbees with two straps over the arches.

You bend over slightly and slide down the hill sideways, and it only takes a thin layer of snow.  It looked somewhat difficult and very unsafe to me.  All it would take would be to come across a manhole or a break in the pavement to make you go flying head first!

This guy made it about 30 feet before he lost his balance and fell.  Ouch.  It hurt me just to watch him!

We tried to find as many alleyways  that hadn't been traipsed through. 

We made it out to the woods and enjoyed walking in the quietness until I slipped big-time going down a hill.  I think I heard every bone in my neck and back crack.  I really thought I'd be in pain but nothing but a slight headache.  We'll see how I feel in the morning.    :-)

We walked until it started to get dark and then we headed home.  It was beautiful to stand on the hill side and watch the house and street lights come on in our neighborhood.  Twinkle, twinkle, little lights, oh, how beautiful from this height.

Uptown, downtown, around town

Glenn and I are getting really smart and cultured.  Last week we went to see Les Miserables at the theatre and this week we went to see Anna Karenina, the story of a late-19th century Russian aristocrat who makes decision to enter into an affair with the affluent Count Vronsky that changes her life forever, ... and I would say, not for the better!

If you look really closely, you can see Glenn at the top of the stairs.  We arrived about 4 minutes before the movie was to start and we were the first ones there for the showing.  When we buy our tickets, both online or at the ticket counter, we have to choose our seats before going into the theatre!  Last week we ordered our tickets online and had to reserve the specific seats we wanted.  This week we bought them at the counter, so she asked us where we wanted to sit.  (Up high?  Down low? Center?  Side?)  Sometimes they will show us the chart that indicates which seats are already taken and we can tell her specifically which seats we want.  

When we first arrived here 6 years ago, we bought tickets but didn't like the seats they assigned us.  (We didn't understand that we were supposed to tell them which seats we wanted because we were new to the country and HAD NO IDEA THEY DID IT THIS WAY!)  So, when we got into the theatre, we found seats we liked better.  There were only about 10 people in the whole theatre, but would you believe we sat in someone's seat who arrived after us and "reserved" those seats, so we had to move.

Anyway, back to my story.  The movie was interesting, and had the most unusual way of changing scenery.  It was as if the actors would step into the backdrop of a play, and then they'd be in a different location.  Eventually, you'd be able to figure out whether the location was St. Petersburg or Moscow.

Backside of Parliament

See the scaffolding?  Notice how clean the left side is where they have already worked, compared to the right side?

Every year so far, Glenn and I have done our member care visits together with our families that live here in Budapest, but this year I suggested we do them separately.  I'd meet with each of the wives, and he'd meet with the men, and not necessarily on the same day.   So, this past week we started those appointments, and as it turned out, Glenn met with the husband at one restaurant and I met with the wife at another.  We met up afterwards at a pre-arranged location and from there, Glenn and I decided to do a little research and a lot of walking.

We walked to two import stores to check on prices to determine whether it is more costly to buy certain food items (peanut butter, brown sugar, yellow mustard, corn syrup, etc.) at the import store or bring them out from America when you have to pay for extra luggage.  We decided it is still cheaper to bring it out from America if it can go in the first excess bag at $70, but if we have to pay $200 for an extra bag, it would probably be better to just buy it here.  

We passed this fairly new statue of the former President Ronald Reagan that is on the square in front of the American Embassy.  While admiring the statue, we met 5 young men, 4 of whom were American tourists, and asked them to take our picture.  I love it when American tourists ask us where we're from.  "Us?  We're from Georgia, but we LIVE here!"

The weather was a little dreary but at least it wasn't freezing cold or raining!  I am so ready for spring.  I think everyone had cabin fever because it seemed like the streets were teeming with people!

Home for another couple of weeks, but have two sets of company passing through in the meantime.  Catch you next week!