Spagetti bolongese( no recipe needed)

Bo is back from Bagdad, hamdulille, and he had time for a quick meal before he left for Beirut.
Well, we will not get tired off each other, that’s for sure!

My collection of (old) men

Under water

Anna-Karin has problems with uploading pictures to Elin's blog. So here comes a picture of her here!

A pre-Roman villa ....

As usual, I don’t know how many times I have written this sentence, we had big difficulties to find what we were looking for….!
We wanted to make a short drive outside Amman and look at something interesting. I inquired my guide book, as usual, and found an interesting place just west of Amman.
Well, after some mistakes, a shiny, magnificent building appeared in front of us!

This was a remain of an pre-Roman villa built in approx 180 BC.

My guide book says that this place is unike because it was built from some of the biggest blocks of any ancient structure in the Middle East- the largest is 7 m by 3 m ( but only 20 cm or so thick!). We looked for them, but couldn't find them!

The carved panter fountain is famous. And when I looked at the panter I guess that Walt Disney or one of his artists has been here some years before us!

Look at the panters surprised face!

This is the kind man who showed us around.

Cash shortfall after Eid

Yesterdays Jordan Times wrote that many Jordanians now are concerned about how to make the money last the coming month.
The Eid Al Fitr holiday is now over and many people have spent large sums to fulfil their Eid commitments.
This seems to be buying new clothes and sweets for their children and “eidiyya” (cash gifts) to children and female relatives. The government disbursed the salaries for September ahead of the Eid to help people be able to buy what they were supposed to buy.

Now they have to wait forty days for the next salary!
I guess it’s much the same problem as we have in January.....?!

Scrap booking

Scrap booking was totally new for me when I came to Jordan. Then I met Melissa who has been working with scrap books and travel journals for many years.
First I continued saying that it was nothing for me. But when I had seen Melissa’s work for sometime, I started to think that maybe …….
Now I have started with a small book with pictures from Elin’s first year. It takes more time than you can imagine. And it takes a lot of time to figure out what goes with what in matter of design and colours.

We are meeting at Melissa’s house about once a week, cause she’s got the STUFF ….!!

Melissa is making a surprise book for her husband Ron, with pictures from their tours with his Harley Davidson.

I'm doing a more traditional album, but I hope I will learn to become more imaginative!

Cinnamons....again!

It as been a day with sorting all papers and invoices that lies around everywhere. Or maybe it’s only in our home …?
Well, Bo did most of the work. I finished the “crazy “bag and we had some lovely Cinnamons with coffee on the balcony.
I’m glad Idh is over now; it has been too many cakes the last days.

Houses and alleys in Damascus

The Old city in Damascus was a mich mach of remains from all former centurys. Everything mixed as in a Hot Pot. Sometimes you would wish that the old parts should been treated in a better way. Now everything seemed to be decorated in power cabels!
I wish that some fairies would come along and wave their magic wands so the old reminds will last forever.

The Souk

In the old Souk you could find everything you will need in life. As usual I was most interested in what to eat …..Don’t know if this is too many pictures in a row in a blog. I just didn’t know which one I should delete! But maybe there are no rules.

Oil Spoons that you can form butter with? Or what...?

Cell phone purses Nuts and candy. Spices

Coffee beans

Bread

More oil

Honey

Perfume

A trip to Damascus

We have been for a short vacation in Damascus, the oldest capital on the planet, they say. We were supposed to drive by ourselves, but the papers for our car took to long to get so we had to take a taxi from Amman to Damascus!

We went for long walking tours through the old city, crowded with people in small narrow alleys.

I will show more pictures from the old town tomorrow!

Waiting

It's twenty minutes after midnight and while I’m up waiting for Bo to come back from Cairo, I’m finishing the ”toy pocket” to Elin for Christmas.

Bedouin Camp

When you travel through Jordan and through the huge desert areas you can see Bedouin camps in the distance.Last week I got the opportunity to visit one of the camps. I went with the SAWA women to a Bedouin camp named Badia to deliver some suger and rice.
It was hard to see the lack of everything. This families have lived like this in generations and are used to cope with the heat. They have some cattle, goats, that’s all. The men try to find work outside the camp and schools for the children are many kilometres away.

Desert castles

Back in Amman, after a joyful and pleasant summer in Sweden.
During the weekend we decided to, once again (it’ almost a year since last time) to find some of the desert castles. Which actually not are castles, in a general meaning.
When we found the way out of Amman and reached the big road to Iraq and Saud Arabia, we had no problem to find two of the castles.

The first one, Qasr Al-Harrana, was probably built in 710 AD. It contains more than sixty rooms and they think it was built like an inn, and could give people shelter when they were travelling.

Next castle we came to was Quseir Amra and was on the World Heritage list. This building was used as a hunting pavilion for the ruling family.

The most outstanding here are the richly decorated walls with figurative murals “that reflect the secular art of that time”, the information board says.

Then we wanted to return back to Amman before the Ramadan rush in traffic started. We were not lucky …..