Random thoughts as 2010 winds down

This has been a crazy year. I finished my tour in Iraq, was reunited with my fiancee, married her a month later, and then we moved overseas two months after that. Somehow, we still managed to squeeze in a good bit of travel in the midst of all this craziness. Here is a snapshot of where we've (either T or B, or both) been this year (because i know you're reallllly interested):

Iraq

Jordan

Austria

Germany (does a brutal 9 hour layover count as a visit?)

Turks and Caicos

Montana

Chicago

NoVa

Pittsburgh

Nellysford (Grandpa's cabin!)

Charlottesville

New Jersey

MD

Next year we hope to add a few more destinations to this list ... Oman, London, Paris, Prague, Dubai, somewhere tropical for our first anniversary ... I hope I can get the time off work ....

A visit to the first world

Thera and I visited Vienna, Austria in mid-December. Even though it was a quick trip T and I were really glad that we were able to visit a good friend before he leaves Vienna this summer, and also to see the city during the Christmas season. The Christmas markets were in full swing and we hit a lot of them and had a great time despite the cold and some rain! Typical Viennese weather, apparently.

The Rathaus (City hall) Christmas Market

Amman is a good place to live with great people, plenty to see and do, and some wonderful scenery. That said, it was nice to take a quick break and experience the orderliness, the cleanliness, and the beautiful architecture and history of Vienna. Oh, and the gluwein (mulled wine) wasn't too bad either!

The Stephansdom (St Stephen Cathedral) and Christmas Tree

We love the classic Kathe Wolfhart-style Germanic handmade wooden ornaments and managed to find a few places at the markets that carried them. They were in much shorter supply than I had expected! We found several ornaments, one of the pyramid spinner things, some smokers, and a nutracker or two. These ornaments remind me of home and are what I grew up with, I am so glad T and I got to experience Austria and start our own collection!

We had some great meals, hilarious conversation, and really enjoyed ourselves with the niceties of Europe! We're back in Amman now with the Christmas season in full swing with lots of Christmas parties and even a few Santa sightings. There are more Christmas decorations out here than I would have imagine and the weather is getting cold....we even got snow here last weekend...of course we missed it because we were in Vienna...typical! Regardless, even though T and I are away from our loved ones this year and missing everyone a lot, we will still make the most of our first Christmas together!

Pics, continued

Additional photos from around our neighborhood

This is looking north (towards the high rise on the left) at Jabal Amman and towards east Amman on the right. Jabal Amman is the older downtown type area with lots of shops and restaurants. It's an area we really enjoy. It looks far away here but only takes us about 5 minutes to get to that tower you see.


This is looking across the wadi towards east Amman.




And a pic of us before another diplomatic function. This one was Italian Military Day ... they served great food and great prosecco, of course!

Here are some recent pics from in and around our neighborhood. I've also included a few of our ongoing move-in process ... we arrived at 3am on 7 October with the susiemonster, 6 bags, and one large dog crate. About a month later (a month?!) we got about 450lbs of 'stuff.' mostly kitchen stuff, some clothes that i had pulled out of storage that had gone into storage before i went to Iraq ... I didn't even recognize half of what came out of that box! Either way it was nice to get some stuff of our own and get this place feeling a little more like home ... it's been a process, but it's slowly coming together and getting better daily.

unpacking!

the aftermath ...

susie was a big help

shots from around our neighborhood ...

views from our balcony

down the street

Goats

Amman is an interesting city. It has large areas of town that are very westernized and many things in english. It has areas of town that feel like I'm back in Saudi. It has amazing, multimillion dollar homes and beautiful shops and restaurants, right next door to poor bedouins living, literally, in tents and raising goats and sheep on an empty lot. We are lucky enough to live in Abdoun, a very nice part of town, full of westerners and rich Ammanis, and all the trappings ... fancy cafes, exclusive boutiques, etc. Despite this, there are still a fair number of poor families living in the undeveloped areas in between houses and neighborhoods. Many of them are Iraqi refugees, I'm told.

Our particular neighborhood is no exception. It is a fairly newish neighborhood, with many empty lots, brand new huge homes, and many other homes and apartment buildings under construction. An example of this interesting dichotomy between the haves and the have-nots in Amman .... if you look out our front door, you see one of these expensive, large, beautiful homes ... the owner has a mercedes in the driveway, a land rover parked out front, etc etc ... and today, he had a heard of sheep and goats going by his house feeding in the empty lot next door. the herd is based out of a bedouin camp right around the corner and down in the wadi from where we live. if you look out the window in our master bedroom, we have a nice view of a wadi (canyon) and another bedouin camp across the way ... they live without plumbing, without electricity, without anything really ... in the states it's easy to brush these things aside and not think about it because it's not in your face like it is here. i'm not trying to make some deep social commentary, just pointing out an interesting fact of life here in amman.

here are some pictures i snapped this am during breakfast of the goats coming through our neighborhood. the first pic is taken from our kitchen window (don't be alarmed by the bars on the windows, everyone in Amman has them, even though crime rates are extremely low); the other pics were taken from our balcony, which looks back towards the street in front of our house.