Day 120: Royal Automobile Museum, Children’s Museum in Amman — Dinner with a Local Amman Family
Hessan picked us all up at the hotel at 10 am and we set out with driver Adnan for a casual few stops this morning in our van.
We used a travel agent for these two weeks in the Middle East and, as we’ve learned in other countries, when you book a sightseeing-heavy place like this with a travel agent, you’re gonna get a van, driver AND tour guide which is great for some things — like getting up to Machu Picchu and to Petra, but for other parts of the trip they’re total overkill, holding your hand lest you not know how to use Uber, Google Maps, Wikipedia or simply how to ask for directions or feed yourself. We’ve come to refer to this gratuitous hand-holding as “butt-wiping” because it’s really for people who can’t do anything for themselves, including wipe their own butts.
Not that it drives me crazy or anything.
Fortunately Hessan is charming and his company was welcome. They drove us over to the Royal Automobile Museum and, next door, to the Children’s Museum.
At first these seemed like two kind of random stops for our travel agent to have picked for our only full day in Amman, but after some time we’ve realized there’s not a ton to do tourism-wise in town except more ruins — and Petra later this week would be plenty for us. So it was a good idea.
The Royal Automobile Museum displays dozens of cars and vehicles from the Jordanian royal family’s collection, beginning with a wooden motorcycle from the turn of the century.
This place is right up my dad’s alley, but actually we all got into it. It wasn’t just that these were all gorgeous, mint-condition cars — it’s that many of these gorgeous, mint-condition cars were one of only 5 or 10 ever MADE. 1950s Rolls Royces built just for heads of state, etc.
Very cool.
Next up: The Children’s Museum next door. It was Sunday but because the weekend here is Friday and Saturday, the place was empty. Everyone was at school.
This place was good. My pet peeve with kids museums in general is that the exhibits have too much fine print and not enough fun. Too much explaining, too complicated, trying to do too much. This one was very smart but very simple with great little exhibits, from all about the human body, to learning/exploring the Jordanian desert and history, physics, banks and money, etc.
In the bodies/biology section, there was a pitching setup with a target and speed gun to show kids one way to measure strength. Teddy was casually lobbing a tennis ball against the backstop when an employee in a red vest came over and challenged him to a throwing contest. The guy didn’t speak any English but was very enthusiastic about this idea.
Teddy went first, then the guy took off his vest and fired away with a mean cricketer’s arm. Teddy was like, “Is this really happening right now?” Beepaw Jim and James got their shots in, and then it was on again. And around and around they went, each time the guy raising the score to beat. Teddy refused to let him win, so at the risk of re-opening old minor league shoulder injuries, put the contest to bed with a score the guy couldn’t beat.
It was hilarious.
Also of note at the museum: They had a huge display called “Imagination Playground” with giant blue building blocks. The kids’ playground at home in NYC is called Imagination Playground and it’s known for its big blue building blocks. It’s probably the single place in NY besides our apartment where they’ve spent the most time. The display in the exhibit even had a giant billboard-sized series of photographs of kids playing with the blocks at the NYC playground! How surreal!
There was also a dung beetle racing game — you and a friend rolled a metal “poop ball” to maneuver a fake dung beetle up a “hill” without dropping your poop ball along the track. First one to get it to the top wins.
Btw, a few days later, we overheard James explaining to a random lady we met that a children’s museum is a place with lots of kid toys, not a place that has “kid skeletons in boxes.” Hahahaha!!
We had Hessan and Adnan leave us at a casual shawarma restaurant near our hotel, where we ate lightly. The waiter was patting and pinching James’s cheeks.
The rest of the afternoon was chill downtime at the hotel — we read, swam, played Rat-a-Tat-Cat (obviously) and worked out.
At around 6:30 Hessan and Adnan picked us up to drive to Omar and Resha’s house, a couple in town who host foreign tourists in their homes for meals. Earlier in the day we’d stopped at a bakery, per Hessan’s recommendation, and picked up some sweets to bring as a gift. (When asked if we should bring flowers, he replied, “Jordanians are smart – we don’t give gifts you can’t eat.”)
We were also glad we asked about greeting protocol. Hessan advised that the women could shake hands with each other and the men could shake hands with each other, but no man-woman handshakes would be considered appropriate.
Omar and Resha lived in an apartment building with their three kids, ages 18, 16 and 8. We arrived and all stood awkwardly nodding and smiling and saying hi and not knowing/remembering what to do with our hands (a lot of the dinner was that way — feeling unsure of what to do and worried about saying something offensive — which is why there are no photos of them — I was too scared to ask).
We sat right at the table upon arrival and were served a bunch of delicious homemade dishes prepared by Resha, including Maklouba or upside-down chicken and rice.
Conversation topics included kids today and social media, Omar’s favorite football team (Barcelona), how to make certain dishes, their plans for Ramadan (which starts tomorrow) and how Resha is a better typist than Omar. We wrapped the meal with coffee AND tea while the kids disappeared into the kids’ room to play legos and Barbies.
We bid farewell around 8:30 and headed home for an early bedtime. Glad we did it!
Misc:
James continues to be extremely popular with guides and strangers, but we’ve noticed Willa getting more love here in Jordan. James is still beloved — getting carried and high-fived and cheek-pinched everywhere — but Willa’s getting called “Princess” regularly and enjoying more time in the limelight herself.
