January 21st 2011, late thursday night on a full moon, after loafing around the Frankfurt airport drooling over Christian Dior Bois D’Argent parfum at a duty-free joint, I boarded a Lufthansa plane with a Die Maus sticker on it heading for Queen Alia International airport in Amman to meander around Jordan with Alexis and her roommate Lyndsey. View Journey on Map

The flight was almost empty and very annoying, as these Jordanian men sitting around me were acting up like a bunch of teenage baboons, yelling, and asking me stupid questions. I tried to be polite but it was like, 1 am and I was ready for a nap, having been on a plane since 5pm from Germany which is an hour behind Jordan. So I lay across 3 airplane seats in the dark with a cover over me and three pillows finagled around my head and periodically, I kept feeling a light on my face and I found that the guy in the seat across from me kept shining a fuckin pen light on me and was watching me.

Welcome to the Middle East…

An hour or two later I’m getting off the plane and into the airport, which is in the middle of the desert with some palm trees around it. I check in on 4Square and become to mayor of Amman, Jordan with one check in! Hah.

So there I am trying to call Lex’s Jordanian number and standing in line for my visa and probably getting ripped off exchanging some euros for dinars for a cab. The airport had a military feel to it, or at least their uniforms were more militaristic. But everyone was friendly-ish.

Rule #1. Cab drivers in the middle east will always offer you a cigarette while riding in their cab. Well, 8/10 probably.

Rule #2. If they think they can get away with it, they will charge you more than half of what the ride usually costs. I learned this fast.

Rule #3. If you’re female, they will stare at you through the rear-view mirror non-stop.

So, 3 am or so in Amman, I pull up to Alexis’s apartment building after giving the following directions: Duar Kilo by Burger King. Yameen, shmell, shmell, yameen. Stop!

It was so great to see Alexis and she was armed with mini flash light! We hauled my stuff up 4-5 flights of dark drafty corridor steps and then to the apartment, which was a lot bigger than I had expected. Shaggy poster on the wall, Bisseh mewing and tangled in hookah, Harry Belafonte through laptop speakers and we were sitting on the velour couch cushions smoking Wild Rose nargila and eating dates and orange slices when I heard my first call to prayer, which echoed through out the city through a megaphones.

Also upon arrival, I found out their toilet is not connected to the floor in their bathroom and almost toppled over into either pink dolphin w/ teal water splash shower curtain or pink tile with water drop print. I went “AHH!” and Lex screamed, “Oh yeah…it’s not connected…also don’t flush paper and also, if you have to flush you have to fill up the bucket in the sink and pour it down.”

Oh…

So went to bed with Lex and we talked til the sun came up and fell asleep under layers and layers of blankets since the apartment didn’t have heat – and i  would later find out that it was always colder inside than outside. I was glad to see her room was exactly as she would have it, with empty wine bottles with candles in them and prayer beads and dried flowers and shells, flags, books. Everything looks cooler with arabic letters on it, even the water bottles, which it appeared they are collecting to be recycled someday. Although, in Jordan, it’s tres chic to litter and to not recycle.

Friday? We woke up to Lyndsey announcing there was no water. So I sat in bed under covers watching them organize calling their landlord, talking to landlord, and then getting dressed to find the man on the first floor who we were advised to see about the water.  They also realized they were out of gas when coffee or tea was attempted. We met with some high school girls across the hall and went down to the first floor and outside. It was so beautiful out! Sunny and palm trees and cats and hot pink flowers on some sort of succulent. The girls volunteered to drive Lyndsey to the store for a new gas tank and the rest of the girls showed us the roof top of the building.

Call to prayer sounded again and I recorded it and got a pretty wicked panoramic view of Amman. The mosques looked so cool and we could see a single sky scraper and another one in the making beside it.

So we went back down to the apt to get dressed and put some makeup on and the girls invited us to smoke hubby bubbly with them and they made us coffee and served little chocolates and we took pictures for Facebook, which, like all Americans, they are obsessed with.

So after that we got into a cab and went downtown. Let me preface this by saying that getting a cab by their apartment is standing by a busy highway waving one down who will stop and not just slow down and stare at you like the rest of the drivers. And since it is not a pedestrian friendly city, crossing the street is almost like just making up your mind to jump out and hope the incoming cars stop and don’t run you over.

So yeah- riding in a cab in Jordan…you get asked where you’re from, what nationality you are, what’s your name (they never get it), they say welcome, they are very friendly but they do not understand the concept of a melting pot society and don’t understand how I am American and keep asking me if I am Chinese and if my name was Lena, to which I just gave up and said sure. Every little day to day encounter goes like this.

We went to some semi-outdoor place with a concrete floor for some falafel and hummus and mint and tomato and french fries. Everything comes with french fries…

Walked around, got harassed non-stop by every person in downtown Amman. I was amazed! We went to this little corner flag, lighter, misc. place and got electrocuted by these little lighters that are designed for just that purpose! Posed for pictures with strange men, etc. Then we went by some bedouin antique shop and hung out there for a bit.

Went to some very americanized bar with an Italian name in the gay section of town. Everyone was there to watch the football match and so I drank Scotch on ice and got drunk and listened to American music and Lex and I talked and schemed and such.

Don’t remember the cab ride home, but I was described to have started clawing at the door when we stopped by an overpass bridge and later I awoke needing to eat something and shared some bread in the kitchen at 5am with Bisseh, straggler cat.  >^,,^<