The adventure begins!

I have been here for about three months now, so the first few posts will be recollections and I will try to be caught up to present in a couple of weeks.

The trip over was long but uneventful. The first leg was from Orlando to Chicago, and after a layover of about 10 hours I boarded the Royal Jordanian flight to Amman. There were, as expected, mostly Jordanians on this flight and I was struck by the wide variety in dress. Most of the men were dressed in the western style with a few wearing the traditional headcovering and robe, and the clothing of the women ranged from provocative to traditional ( hijab ), although I don’t recall seeing anyone veiled. I was quite surprise by this, as I expected all the women to be conservatively dressed. I was further surprised by the crew serving alcohol and playing an R rated movie (discreetly blurred in some places). Shortly after touching down, before the plane stopped a steward walked back from the front and opened a compartment and took out a huge shopping bag prominently marked “Victoria’s Secret” and handed it to an elderly woman dressed in full hijab! She didn’t seem uncomfortable in the least. I conquered the urge to laugh but it was really quite funny.                                                                                                                                              

I arrived in Amman at about 10 PM on the 17th of September. My very first impression was of how small the airport was. I seem to recall only one baggage carousel. Getting through the visa and passport control was remarkably fast and after waiting a few short minutes for my bags, a man who seemed to be a porter picked them up and motioned for me to follow. So, like a dutiful sheep I followed him to an x-ray machine and loaded everything on the belt. On the other side he picked up the bags and again I followed toward some doors which I thought would lead to customs. About that time I recognized Donald (my contact in Amman, to whom I had been introduced in the states) I also realized that the doors led outside and not to customs. Confused, I asked Donald where customs was and he indicated that the x-ray machine was customs! Wow! From plane to car in 45 minutes! I was expecting to be there for hours.

    I was driven to an apartment that I would be staying in for a while which belonged to a friend of a friend who was in the States for a couple of months. After giving me a quick tour of the place, Donald left telling me that he would return the next day to show me around town. It was about midnight local time and it had been about 40 hours since I had last slept so I got quickly to bed.