Fridays at ACOR the standard dinner fare was spaghetti, and we had permission to help ourselves to the leftovers!
J would heat up a big pot of spaghetti, while my assignment would be to make a pitcher of freshly brewed tea (
shay, in Arabic), which, let me tell you, was a real luxury, poured over tall glasses of an unlimited supply of ice! All week long at the camp I would drink plain water, sometimes refrigerated, but usually not, and even on our treks into Irbid I could barely satisfy my craving for ice, so this became one of my biggest challenges on our outings, especially since I am a huge ice fanatic, something I didn't fully realize about myself until I left the familiarity of my own country. In American restaurants it's no problem to get all the ice you want, so at the Pizza Hut in Irbid, when I saw pictures on their paper place mats of tall glasses of Coke filled with ice cubes, I felt encouraged to try to communicate my desire to have that which I so desperately lusted after in the illustrations. I would point to the picture and use the Arabic word for ice,
talj, and then point to myself, all the while shaking my head yes, and saying "I want, please" (
biddi,
min fadlak) in Arabic. When the waiter would finally understand what I was requesting, there would be great joy, accompanied by lots of smiling and laughing, followed by my eager anticipation of a glass soon to be filled full with ice cubes. But alas, every single time the waiter would return holding up a bag of about 12 individually wrapped frozen cubes, smiling, offering me very graciously, ONE (
wahid)? Oh! You would like TWO (
itnen)? Ha! This was very funny! Oh, but could I possibly have THREE (
talateh)? Asking this always made me feel like a greedy American who wanted everything in excess. But in America ice was not only abundant, it was free! It was just frozen water! Unfortunately, a commodity that was NOT that abundant in other parts of the world, and especially not in the deserts of the Middle East. And while the waiter at Pizza Hut wasn't going to charge me for that ice, and while I'm also certain that he was indeed very happy to serve it to me, I'm also certain that he never understood why on earth I would ever want such a thing in my drink in the first place. How very odd! Apparently, those packages of ice were something the franchise shipped to them, along with those Coke advertisement placemats that were lying out on all the tables, as was the chrome salad bar that just sat in the middle of the floor with a big bowl on it for serving iceberg lettuce salad, something also not available in the Middle East. Either because lettuce didn't ship that well, or because Jordanians don't use lettuce in their salads, or both, that bowl just sat there empty, as did the rest of the salad bar in most areas. A very visible reminder of a piece of American food culture that was out of place here. So I didn't push it. Most of the time I lived with two cubes and felt happy for what I got, always profusely thanking the waiters, repeating over and over in Arabic,
shukran, shukran! But at ACOR, why, I had all the ice I wanted! And so
J, Tim, and I almost embarrassingly, yet happily, scarfed down our amazingly delicious early evening meal, and then washed the dishes and wiped off the stove and countertops, making certain that we didn't wear out the good graces of the kitchen staff, before heading back to our rooms for a restful nap, setting the alarm clocks for about 8:00 p.m., so as to leave ourselves a reasonable amount of time for an early night on the town.
As soon as we got into Amman's downtown bus station we would take a taxi to ACOR where we would promptly check into our rooms (usually located down on the basement level), strip off all our clothes and add them to the rest of our dirty laundry which we would send to the laundress for washing (and while there was a small fee for this service, it was well worth it! Whoever did the laundry at ACOR did a marvelous job, as everything came back within hours smelling and looking clean and bleached, softly machine dried, AND neatly folded. Needless to say, I saw this as a reason to never do laundry at camp!). Within minutes of dispensing of both clothes and laundry J would jump in the shower for about 10 mintes, at which time I would follow, an order we agreed to since I usually took longer. And Oooooh, how unbelievably GOOD that hot, steamy water felt as it powerfully sprayed down over my head and body! I could have stood there forever, lathering up, rinsing off, over and over. Plus I could finally shave my legs decently, and generally pamper myself like I could never do at Abila! The showers here were so clean, and there were no spiders or lizards running over the walls. I would have been in no hurry to get out EVER if it hadn't been for the fact that J and I were both usually starving half to death, and here there was the promise of some real food. On Fridays we always skipped lunch at the dig in order to make our early getaway, so after having taken care of one very essential luxury we embarked on another. Upstairs, the main floor housed a large industrial kitchen used to cook all the meals and desserts which would feed weekend visitors a full lunch (the cost of which was included in the price of the stay), and which fed the archaeology teams who were digging nearby, but who lived at ACOR, three meals a day. I couldn't help but feel jealous about how much nicer these dig crews had it than we did at Abila. The difference between their accommodations and ours was like night and day! Oh well. I at least got to experience a reprieve on weekends, something most of our team members were not so fortunate to get, and I clung to this very selfishly, as there were only a limited number of rooms left on any given weekend, and we three had standing reservations! 
Fridays at ACOR the standard dinner fare was spaghetti, and we had permission to help ourselves to the leftovers! J would heat up a big pot of spaghetti, while my assignment would be to make a pitcher of freshly brewed tea (shay, in Arabic), which, let me tell you, was a real luxury, poured over tall glasses of an unlimited supply of ice! All week long at the camp I would drink plain water, sometimes refrigerated, but usually not, and even on our treks into Irbid I could barely satisfy my craving for ice, so this became one of my biggest challenges on our outings, especially since I am a huge ice fanatic, something I didn't fully realize about myself until I left the familiarity of my own country. In American restaurants it's no problem to get all the ice you want, so at the Pizza Hut in Irbid, when I saw pictures on their paper place mats of tall glasses of Coke filled with ice cubes, I felt encouraged to try to communicate my desire to have that which I so desperately lusted after in the illustrations. I would point to the picture and use the Arabic word for ice, talj, and then point to myself, all the while shaking my head yes, and saying "I want, please" (biddi, min fadlak) in Arabic. When the waiter would finally understand what I was requesting, there would be great joy, accompanied by lots of smiling and laughing, followed by my eager anticipation of a glass soon to be filled full with ice cubes. But alas, every single time the waiter would return holding up a bag of about 12 individually wrapped frozen cubes, smiling, offering me very graciously, ONE (wahid)? Oh! You would like TWO (itnen)? Ha! This was very funny! Oh, but could I possibly have THREE (talateh)? Asking this always made me feel like a greedy American who wanted everything in excess. But in America ice was not only abundant, it was free! It was just frozen water! Unfortunately, a commodity that was NOT that abundant in other parts of the world, and especially not in the deserts of the Middle East. And while the waiter at Pizza Hut wasn't going to charge me for that ice, and while I'm also certain that he was indeed very happy to serve it to me, I'm also certain that he never understood why on earth I would ever want such a thing in my drink in the first place. How very odd! Apparently, those packages of ice were something the franchise shipped to them, along with those Coke advertisement placemats that were lying out on all the tables, as was the chrome salad bar that just sat in the middle of the floor with a big bowl on it for serving iceberg lettuce salad, something also not available in the Middle East. Either because lettuce didn't ship that well, or because Jordanians don't use lettuce in their salads, or both, that bowl just sat there empty, as did the rest of the salad bar in most areas. A very visible reminder of a piece of American food culture that was out of place here. So I didn't push it. Most of the time I lived with two cubes and felt happy for what I got, always profusely thanking the waiters, repeating over and over in Arabic, shukran, shukran! But at ACOR, why, I had all the ice I wanted! And so J, Tim, and I almost embarrassingly, yet happily, scarfed down our amazingly delicious early evening meal, and then washed the dishes and wiped off the stove and countertops, making certain that we didn't wear out the good graces of the kitchen staff, before heading back to our rooms for a restful nap, setting the alarm clocks for about 8:00 p.m., so as to leave ourselves a reasonable amount of time for an early night on the town.
