Mecca Mall

Mecca Mall
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The biggest mall in Amman is Mecca Mall.  Now some might think this is slightly sacreligious, but its named Mecca Mall simply because its on Mecca Street. Entering the mall for my first shopping visit, I was surprised to find a full security checkpoint, complete with metal detector, bag search, and paramilitary officer packing a semiautomatic weapon.  Once through that, we entered Americana.   Its a giant, five stories tall with an enormous footprint, probably hundreds of shops and cafes.  Many American and European shops, including Starbucks and Forever 21 (Princess Jasmine was soooo excited to see one of her favorites!).  About half the women there are covered.  Its pretty quiet until about 4pm, when people get off work and start to shop and drink coffee and it really seems like a Mecca!  Best of all, the top floor has a food court complete with Burger King and Chix-Fil-A, we had lunch at a diner fashioned after Ruby's in California.  And there's a bowling alley, a laser tag, and a video game arcade.  Oh, and a full movie theater showing lots of films, we saw "Cars" -- thank goodness it wasn't dubbed, it had Arabic and French subtitles.  The movie actually offers reserved seating, but there were only a few others.  The preschool boys who couldn't read yet, or understand English, got a little rambunctious.  Anyway it was a great afternoon's entertainment, and I'm sure we'll be spending lots of time at the Mecca Mall.

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