It's been a long time since I put a pun in the title of a blog post! I'm probably feeling extra punny because we stayed with friends in Jordan for a long weekend and one half of the couple is a fellow punthusiast. (Our spouses may roll their eyes, but I'll never stop finding puns funny.) We decided last-minute to take a spontaneous trip to Jordan, somewhere we've been before but could go back again and again. This time, our main purpose was to visit friends and get away from Dubai for a little bit given I was off work and S's nursery was closed for a few days any way for Eid Al Etihad (the UAE's national day).
I love spontaneous travel and I'm glad we've still been able to do this sort of thing even after becoming a family of three. S is a seasoned traveling pro and loves flying on airplanes. We went to Jordan's capital, Amman, for a few days (and hence the title of this post). It was so literally and figuratively refreshing catching up with dear friends, spending time outside breathing the fresh, clear, cold (!) air, and eating delicious food at much more affordable prices than we have in notoriously expensive Dubai.
The other day, I had a conversation with M that I find my travel preferences definitely shifting as I get older. When I was younger, I always wanted something new that we'd never done before, with the focus on the freshness of the experience. Nowadays, I find myself wanting to travel to be with people we love whenever possible, even if that means returning to a place we've already been. With S's age, there are also certain things we just can't realistically do. (I was grateful M talked me out of trying to go to Petra not only because of a lack of time but because S would've probably asked us to carry him for hours and our arms would've fallen off. We'd much rather come back and do it later when he's older and can walk by himself for longer periods of time.)
I also didn't realize how many of my friends worked at U.S. Embassy Amman! We went to visit one group of friends, I caught up over lunch with more, and then I bumped into even more in the hallway at the embassy so we were able to meet up with them for dinner before we left. It was so nice, and we had an amazing, relaxing family trip. I went a little overboard purchasing plenty of scented soaps and dead sea mud products, so I'm sure I'll keep thinking about our time in Jordan every time I use them for a while yet!
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