Old School

Today, my entire apartment decided to take a hike to the city center to see the roman ruins there. It was a fascinating journey. Amman is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the entire world, behind only Damascus and Jericho, I think. So it's this crazy mix of ancient ruins and knock off name brand merchandise. I never really thought I would be able to say "HEY, LOOK! Roman pillars! ...and port-o-potties?" I could just imagine my tour guide saying, "On your left you will find 'As-Sabiil', an ancient roman baths, dating back to 2nd century A.D., and directly adjacent to that, you will find 'Baba Ishta's Stop 'n Shop' thought to be established in 1972." It's not just the buildings either, the people are the exact same way here. You'll see one girl wearing a burka, passing another who looks like a "Glamour" magazine. You'll see one guy who's wearing the latest in brands made to look exactly like real american brand at a fraction of the price, and another who looks like Saladin himself, ready to chase out some cusaders.


After getting a good look at all the Roman ruins in the area, we left the amphitheater to find a large number of camels just outside the entrance. Not something you see every day. You see, today is Jordanian independance day and they were getting these camels ready for a parade. They were all decked out. To me however, this seems a lot like adding parsley to a plate of spam. Camels are DISGUSTING animals. They bear their teeth, and make these dry heaving motions to intimidate children while making gargling/dying noises. I hope I'm not a bad person for this, but I really wanted to see one of these camels haul off and spit at one of the kids. That would have been hilarious. Aparently, camels are not without social niceties, however. There was a man there who seemed to know a lot about them, and he took it upon himself to educate us. It was very interesting, but the climax was when he said this: "Camels are very shy animals. They will not marry if people are around." I thought, "marry? what in the world does that mea- OH!" Apparently, camels prefer their privacy when procreating, and refuse to do so in the presence of humans, so if you want to turn 2 camels into 3, you have to build a huge tent, check the newlyweds in, and close the flap. This about the scariest thing I can think of. If there is ANYTHING more disgusting than a camel, it's camels making babies in a tent.