A Confusing and Terrifying Journey...

Well, I made it to Amman with only one near death experience... And that was before I had even arrived in the Middle East. I got on my flight from Indy to JFK as planned, but after about twenty minutes in the air we felt the plane sort of drop down a little bit and all of a sudden it got really loud... Well turns out, the landing gear had dropped, so we had to turn around and go back to Indy. Terrifying. When we got back, I waited in line for about 45 minutes to figure out how to get to JFK, and ended up having to run to catch a flight to Atlanta, then to JFK, then on to Jordan. Confusing.

Luckily once I got to JFK it was pretty smooth sailing, and I was able to meet up with people in my program. There were few people on our flight so we each got our own row, which made sleeping much more comfortable. We were picked up by the program director assistant, Ahmad, and went to the hotel. There were maybe 40 of us... So that was kind of an ordeal. At the hotel we bought our cell phones and awkwardly milled around and met other students as more people continued to arrive throughout the evening. We had a delicious buffet meal at the hotel, where I met 5 new friends who I have continued to spend time with.

So after dinner we wanted to continue hanging out, and decided to go to a tea or coffee shop. We just sort of walked around and noticed that it was all men in all the shops (I was with one other girl and four guys), so we obviously bypassed those. As we walked by one, we were waved inside by someone who worked there and we could see a few women through the window so we decided to sit down... They showed us to a table at the back, and as we walked we were definitely stared at which was really uncomfortable. The Turkish coffee was incredible and we had a nice time until the bill came and we saw all these extra charges, so it was clear they were just trying to take our money. All but one of us speaks a decent amount of Arabic so we halfheartedly tried to straighten it out, knowing that it was futile in the end. We left shortly thereafter and were once again the objects of many stares as we made our way out. 

One of the guys we were with, Chris, had discovered a delightful establishment called Sultan Snacks (which, by the way, is across the street from KFC, or dejaj kentucky... Haha) where a shawarma sandwich is 85 qirsh (less than a dollar!). So delicious. We were still stared at and maybe mocked a little by the servers there, but it wasn't quite as bad as the coffee shop. I have never felt so out of place in my life, but I guess it's something I'll have to get used to

So that's it for my first day in Amman! I'm going to make a different post for my second day, just for the sake of organization.