Mom and I in front of the Royal Jordanian kiosk at O'hare.
I'm here! Yesterday around 5:30pm (Jordan time) I arrived to the Amman airport on AIR JORDAN (just kidding, that's a shoe) and besides the 100 screaming babies on the flight, it was pretty uneventful. Upon arrival I scrambled to get a visa and exchange money and claim my bags. Etiquette rules such as single file lines, and personal space don't seem to apply here- something I'll have to get used to. I easily found all my luggage (few!) and walked through the mass of people waiting outside to pick up their families and friends. Hoping to recognize a face or see someone holding a sign I scanned the area for about an hour. Gathering many curious looks, and offers for taxis, I awkwardly stood in the middle of the airport plan-less about how to get wherever I was going. A man from the CIEE program even came and tried to take me away. After a while I saw that there was a flight from Barcelona coming in about an hour so and I knew one of the other students from the trip would be coming from there. My plan was to wait until that plane landed, and see if he got off it. Luckily, I found Youseff, one the program directors just a few minutes later (and it turns out the kid wasn't even on that flight!). Youseff, the bus driver (name TBD), and I sat in a convenience store sort of shop and waited for more students to arrive. By 9:30pm, we were loaded up and ready to go to our new home- Ziyara Inn.After dropping our stuff, I took a walk towards the University of Jordan with two of my new peers. We stopped to buy fruit by a man who definitely lived in his stand (just oranges! They have rinds!) and unsuccessfully tried to get falafel sandwiches. After our walk (which somehow felt 80% uphill both ways) all the students that had arrived gathered in the common area on our floor and played cards until bedtime.
Today we are going to have a brief orientation about the center and basic living in Amman, then we have the rest of the day free. More to come!
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