Apartment Hunting Is Not Fun in this City. Can't A-mman Catch a Break?

There is no Craig's List in Amman. Nor is there a city paper. Apartment hunting in Amman consists of word-of-mouth advice and walking into any shop that is open and asking the employees if they know of any available rooms. It turns out, there aren't ANY available apartments in the better parts of the city. (Except for one in a so-so neighborhood near the university that we may settle on tomorrow. Check back for updates.)

Right now, Amman is flush with Iraqi refugees, wealthy tourists from the Gulf, and Jordanians that have come home from abroad for the summer. Me and my future roommate, Holli, as well as my new friend Tobias (who comes from a small town outside of Munich Germany where Audi's headquarters are located), visited three neighborhoods today and hit the pavement. We asked for apartment leads in nearly 20 shops, from people on the street, from cab drivers and from friends of friends of friends. We also wondered around looking for postings that people have taped to their walls, or nailed to their trees. Everything had been filled, or was targeted to the tourists from Dubai who can afford to pay $2000 a month in rent. However, all of this searching was not a waste of time as we got to see new parts of Amman.

The first neighborhood that we visited, Shmeisani, is an upper middle class neighborhood that is home to Amman's business community. It was beautiful and not for us. The only available accommodation we could find in the area was a 3 bedroom villa with gardens that was going for nearly 50 thousand dollars for the year. It was out of our price range. But we did get to wonder in to Shmeisani's mall (to sit in the air conditioning for 10 minutes) where I snapped this picture:

I have eaten street pigeon in Cairo, freshly killed lamb with the Bedouin in Sinai, all kinds of goat products in Israel and the West Bank... but I'm not going to eat at the Schwerma Wok.

The next neighborhood we visited, while far from the University, is where I would like to live for the summer. However, that is not looking like it is going to happen. It is called "Jebel Amman" which means Amman Hill. It is quiet and beautiful. The people in that neighborhood were very nice to us and went out of their way to try to find a vacant apartment. The only one we could find was unfurnished, and it didn't have a shower or a kitchen. Other than that it was perfect.

Here are some photos from the neighborhood (none of which are great and I apologize):




At least I now know where I can go for all of my dental and oral surgery needs in the city.

I think I'm going to call it quits on this post for today. I'm jet-lagged and dehydrated. I think its time for some bottled water and a falafel.

More on the apartment search tomorrow, and on the University of Jordan orientation that takes place at 10am in this building:

Salaam.