Some thoughts about Amman

- The weather when we arrived was almost cold. It was fairly chilly out and many people were in jackets and long sleeves. We definitely weren’t expecting cool weather. It started getting warm towards the end of the week we were there, but we did wear light jackets and whatnot in the mornings.

- There are watermelons being sold on the side of the road pretty much everywhere. The watermelon skins are so dark in color they’re almost black, which looks kinda weird. They also have a lot of small-ish bananas.

- The coffee you tend to get is very rich, strong Turkish-style coffee; more or less like espresso but very sweet since they load it up with sugar.

- There are several types of police & security forces all over town. For the most part they appear to be fairly well trained and they’re definitely well equipped. All their uniforms and gear is new and in good condition and the police have new Audi police cars. All the various forces exude the appearance of being very competent and professional. Traffic laws appear to be both enforced and followed, and I saw several speed traps and red light cameras throughout the area.

- Construction is going on everywhere, which from the outset appears to be a sign of a thriving economy. However when you take a second look, you’ll notice many of those construction projects have stalled at some level of completion. So what you really notice is that there are a large number of half completed buildings just stagnating, and many of them have obviously been idle for some time. Because of all the unfinished construction, there are piles of rubble all over.

- Goats & sheep are being herded all over the place, even right inside the city. If there is a spare patch of brush anywhere in the city, there is probably a goat herd chewing on it. This causes some interesting traffic situations because a heard of goats or sheep may pop up in the most unlikely areas of the city

- One of the things that stood out right away was the general lack trash in the streets. In a place like this you’d expect there to be litter and trash all over the place but the streets are kept relatively clean. After a couple of days when we were driving to our training in the morning, we noticed many work crews picking up trash. Apparently there is a concerted effort to keep the streets clear of trash, and you’ll even see business owners sweeping in front of their stores, and people cleaning up outside their houses. But once you start getting towards the outskirts of town, the trash starts to pile up. Eventually you get far enough out where it looks like you’d expect with rubble and trash all over the place.

- Because everything is made out of the same monotone desert tan brick, everything looks shabby and drab even though the structures themselves may be modern and clean.