Day 11: November 15

For breakfast, we have our own fruit and the local, incredibly delicious cardamom coffee. The flies are not very active yet, so we manage to eat on the balcony. Then we take a “marshrutka” again to go swimming in the sea. Around 12 we check out of one hotel and immediately go to another; today, according to plan, we’re at the Holiday Inn. It’s very close, just a 15-minute ride away. Check-in at the hotel is from 3 p.m., and I was worried about what we would do all that time. We were very lucky — we were checked in almost immediately after we arrived.

Our room overlooks the pool. The hotel is old, the furniture seems to be from another era. The grounds are very beautiful and spacious. Much better than yesterday. Today you can walk all the way to the sea right through the hotel grounds, which is so great!

It’s much better on the beach here, with more sun loungers and, overall, a nicer atmosphere. There are also many more people. The water in the sea is very murky — apparently because everyone washes dirt into the sea. Honestly, it was more pleasant to swim yesterday.

We sit on the beach until the sun sets below the horizon. Then the beach is closed (swimming in the sea is allowed only until sunset).

In the evening we go to a restaurant for dinner. Today we have a wonderful little restaurant and very tasty food - chicken in sauce, rice, and manakish, Arabic pizza - dough with cheese (resembling feta), it turned out to be very tasty, I didn’t even expect it.

The restaurant has such a pleasant atmosphere; we’re sitting partly outdoors, and you can see the lights of Israel on the other side of the sea, while Whitney Houston is singing. Volchy remembers the movie “The Bodyguard.” It turns out I haven’t seen it. We decide to watch it together sometime.

After dinner, Volchy suggests smoking hookah in the same restaurant. We’ve been planning to try it for a long time. In Jordan, people smoke hookah everywhere. Locals even bring their own hookah to the beach — here it’s a popular way to relax. And right now is truly the perfect time and place for it. We order a hookah :)

We sit and smoke for a long, long time. Such an unusual feeling — complete relaxation. For my restless mind, this is exactly what the doctor ordered — all the thoughts in my head quiet down, come to a stop. I’m no longer worried about anything. Life flows around me, and I am simply here and now, in it. How wonderful…. Today was one of the best days in Jordan.