Picturing Jordan

The King Hussein mosque was built in 2005 and is the largest mosque in Jordan. I haven’t visited it yet, but I’ve spent quite a few evenings admiring it from a balcony in the Khalda neighborhood of West Amman.

There’s a shop in Amman’s main market downtown that sells traditional Arabic sweets. I’m not sure who was more excited about this half-kilogram of baklava (which is called “baklawa” in Arabic) — me, or the jovial young Jordanian selling it.

Even if the number of mosques in Amman didn’t outnumber churches by a factor of ten, the Saint Thaddeus Armenian Apostolic church would still stand out. The unique architecture caught my eye once and then I started seeing it every time I glanced at Jabal Al-Ashrafiyeh. After weeks of squinting and asking myself “Is that an Armenian church?” I finally went on an scavenger hunt and found it.