Amman as a city

Having been in Amman for a couple of days now, I can only assume I can characterize it definitively. It's big, much bigger than I expected and very young. While driving around, Manaf said, "This area of the city is very very old. Its from the 1920s." Considering how old the land is (Amman was the original Philadelphia, after all), everything is strangely new. No Mamluk buildings, not even many Ottoman buildings. I know it's cliched and patronizing to say a non-western city is "sooooo westernized", but at least in urban design, it is. And that's not necessarily a good thing. It's decentralized, and totally unwalkable.

After going to the citadel and Roman theater this morning since I don't know when I'll have time to do that sort of thing after my job starts tomorrow, I made it my afternoon mission to provision my kitchen for cooking. One of my roommates told me that there was a supermarket called Ctown between 6th circle and 7th circle. I live close to 6th, so I assumed it would be an easy walk, even in the afternoon heat. I was mistaken. It was a long ways, so I decided to take a taxi home. 10 or 15 taxis, some empty, passed me without stopping. So I trekked back home an drank two quarts of water, exhausted.

Considering I only went to tourist sites and bought groceries, this was nevertheless an exceptionally tiring day.

At least the evening weather is perfect. I'm going to go take advantage of that.