Today, I went out to dinner with a Dutch girl who endeared herself to me almost immediately by telling me how Dutch I looked. If you want me to fall in love with you, just tell me how European I look, and I'm sold. Ahhh, my quest to be European continues. Anyway, after dinner, she suggested that we walk up to the citadel and see if we might get some pictures of the ruins at night. This, I thought, was a pretty good idea, because the hills of Amman are gorgeous at night, and the citadel is one of the best places to get a great panoramic view. So we huffed it through a warzone of kids throwing firecrackers (some at us) to the citadel entrance. Of course it was closed, but this is where I realized I was truly adapting to the culture here. In America, I would have immediately turned around and walked away, but instead, I walked up to the guards and starting chatting. "Please, the pictures are much prettier at night," I begged in my broken Arabic. It only took a few minutes, and we were in. I mean, what else do they have to do? Who's gonna care if they let a two tourists take a few pictures? Plus, in exchange they get to chat with some cute, blond foreigners. Unfortunately, my camera really does not take great night shots, so the view is nowhere close to being conveyed through a picture, but still . . . I'm more just proud of myself. In the past, I never would have been so bold in trying to get my way. "Welcome to Jordan." If you can't push the boundaries, you'll only ever get half as much as you want.
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