As we started our descent into Jordan’s Queen Alia International Airport, I caught fleeting glimpses of the country out of the window three seats to my right. Surprisingly, from high altitudes it looked a lot like America, only a lot more yellow. Once we got closer to the ground I saw that there was a marked absence of grass, just scrub brush covering a ground mostly made up of sand and rocks. It was remarkably beautiful, and as we landed I could not wait to get out of the airport and explore a bit.
But…that would have to wait until we’d cleared customs and immigration. We changed out some of our money for Jordanian Dinars (for anyone who cares the exchange rate was 0.7 dinars to every dollar, meaning that 10 dollars would get you 7 dinars), and set off through immigration. Though there were a lot of lines (which is funny considering the traditional Jordanian approach to waiting for a service which we saw in New York), the process of getting visas and having our bags scanned once again was pretty painless and we got out of the airport within an hour or so of landing.
As we left the airport we met up with an American named Mark who was to take us to our destination. He led us to the cars but before we could board them we had to step onto the curb and stay back because a Saudi dignitary had arrived around the same time we had and he was being escorted to his convoy. This was a pretty exciting first event in Jordan, and we all gathered around to watch as the uniformed man entered a black Mercedes followed by a whole entourage of men in either black suits or white Saudi garments who piled into similar vehicles and set off. As if to remind us of the conflicted nature of the Arab world, however, all this spectacle and show was accompanied by the rather frightening group of security guards in an armored SUV not quite concealing their machine guns who set off with the convoy.
Once the dignitary had gone on his way, we loaded up two vans with our luggage and set off to our apartments. I was lucky enough to end up in the van with Mark, who proved a knowledgeable and enthusiastic tour guide. I later learned that the man driving the other van didn’t speak English, and so his group had a pretty quiet ride. We, on the other hand, were treated to an excellent tour of Amman. We learned that the city of Amman is divided into seven concentric circles. Third circle was home to quite a bit of new investment and housed several swanky hotels and multi-million dollar villas. Meanwhile, we were staying in the Mahatta or “train station” district of Seventh circle, which although it did not actually contain a train station, did contain a lot of very vibrant street markets selling everything from shoes to watermelons. Driving in Amman is chaotic because, for the most part, there are no lane markers on the roads. Drivers just kind of pick their preferred part of the road to drive on, which can cause some mayhem.
We pulled into the apartments around six (local time) and hurried upstairs to unpack. Once we’d settled in a bit we were treated to a delicious dinner of (I think this was the name) biryanni, which is apparently the Iraqi national dish and tastes something like pineapple fried rice. Needless to say it was delicious and accompanied by an orange for dessert. After dinner, we met with Chris, who teaches Biblical geography here, who went over some itinerary details. However, by now jet lag was starting to hit us all pretty hard (most of us had had about 3 hours of sleep in the past 24) and so he kept it short and we all headed off to get some much-needed sleep.
I hit the bed and was out like a light…for a while at least. I managed a solid 6 hours or so before my internal clock, oriented as it was for U.S. time, awoke me and refused to let me sleep again. It was one o’clock in the morning, and we wouldn’t be expected to be awake until six. Desperate to entertain my firmly awake mind, I watched an episode of British car show Top Gear on my iPod and decided I might as well take a shower and get dressed. As I stepped into the shower at about 4am, I suddenly heard the warbling tones of the Islamic call to prayer echoing out from a mosque about two blocks down the street. I showered to the tune of foreign religion and by the time I was out of the shower Zach Knuth, Ben Baldwin, and Taylor Fletcher were already awake, leaving Sam Bowman the only man in our group who was still sleeping. We watched the sun rise slowly over Amman and once again marveled at the tangled beauty of the hilly district we were located in. Down below the window an alarming number of cats staged what seemed to be some kind of pow-wow around a pile of broken car parts under the shade of a massive tree, while the final notes of the call to prayer boomed out across the cityscape.
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