6AM I woke to do my walking tour of Beirut.
7AM I did quite a lot. First, I started with downtown, outside of the Mosque, which was not impressive compared to the one in Oman. I then walked to Nejmeh Square, followed by Gemmayze Street. No shops were open. I did stop at a French pastry there. I had a coconut mousse cake, cappuccino and maccoron on the house for 16750 LBP. Lebanon isn't cheap. I actually think it's 10% more than the US.
8:30M I took an Uber to Corniche. The driver offered to drive me a few minutes further to Pigeon's rock. I took a few pictures, talked to a couple of Americans and walked back with a Lebanese woman doing her morning walk. She likes her home country more than France, for the early sunrise here allows her to do a morning walk before work. She likes it much more than UAE because she can't handle the religious stupidity. I can't either. Why do women have to sit in different section of a train?
10AM I got to American University of Beirut. It does have a beautiful campus and a great museum. I even had a personal tour from the student. That was great..
10:40AM I stopped a Lebanese girl to help me with Uber. She helped me order a taxi using the local app called Careem. She is a first year medical student. I found out later that the cab just goes where you tell it and you can keep going. I took the cab to go to Falafel Sahyoun, which was supposed to be the best in town. I thought it was just alright. I am not a big fan of falafel in general, anyway. I went with the same cab to airport because I was going to be late otherwise. I gave her 1 OMR. I will contact her to give her the rest.
11:15AM I had a good conversation with the driver about his travels to Angola. He has been to 31 countries. I exchanged 2500 LB with him for 2 EUR that he didn't want. I got to the airport on time. I tried to get a newer bill of 1000 but someone just donated 5000 LBP. I took it and exchanged for a newer bill of 5000 LBP and 1000 LBP. I stayed at LAT lounge for 30 minute and left for my gate at 12:35PM. Food was not good here, very similar to lounge food in the US Priority Pass Lounges.
1:30PM No one was on the flight. My plane was more than half empty. It boarded late but left on time. I talked to a few Jordanian ladies who said I could look into renting a car since Petra is a straight shot.
2PM I arrived at Amman Airport. I thought they would be a ton of tour companies at the airport. It was nothing like I imagined and there was merely an information desk. The guy working there called a guide who gave me a quote of 280 JOD, which is almost 400 USD, Jerusalem, Palestine and Petra, everything included. I looked into Budget rental and they were only charging 40 USD per day. I booked it for tomorrow. I was going to the Allenby bridge now. Uber was quoting 50+ JOD, and it was the first time it was more than the taxi quote at 31 JOD. I took the airport taxi and the driver was loquacious. He seemed to say the dead sea, Petra and Wadi Rum were all on road so I can hit them all at once if I drive.
4:30PM The drive took an hour and I met a few Chinese people studying under Kellogg's EMBA program in China. The ride across the Jordanian border was 7 JOD and 1.5 JOD for the luggage. I helped them out because they didn't have any JOD with them.
5PM There was no line but the girl at border took 2 minutes for the Chinese and almost an hour for me.
6PM I took the bus for 42 ILS and 5 ILS for my luggage. There was only one checkpoint and it was simple.
8PM I reached the Damascus Gate and a Palestinian led me to a restaurant to find directions to Citadel Hostel.
10PM I went back to Musrara to grab a shawarma and then walked to the Western Wall.
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