Amman part II

Some more notes from Amman

• All the buildings are made of stone. There are no trees, besides small trees, so there is no wood. It's hard to date buildings because a stone building is timeless.
  
• Mostly everything is less that 50 years old, many things are less than 20 years old
• The architecture here is very distinct, definitively middle eastern
• most Apartments are in 5-story 10 unit buildings that are detached from other buildings, no soviet-style apartment blocks or row-homes either
• the mosque minarets are fatter and shorter than the ones in Turkey, many have green florescent tube lighting near the top.
  
• there are many sedans here, no coups or small cars
• there are a lot of American cars here, many of the Hondas and Toyotas are imported from the United States or built for the American market, including my friend's Hybrid Camry
• there are not many small cars here, or motorbikes, scooters, motorcycles. Very different vehicles on the road than the mix you see in Western Europe
  
• There are an increasing amount of hybrids. Jordan eliminated price controls for petroleum
• Large American cars are popular here, or at least they were until price controls for gas were eliminated
  
• Children are taught English in grade school, most people know basic English, more than any non-Western European country I've visited
• The English everyone knows is American English
• People don't remove their shoes at the door as much as they do in other countries
• The city is sprawling, everyone knows how to navigate it by using the main circles (roundabouts) as monuments.
• The American Embassy is massive, it's a sprawling complex the size of a small farm