A First for Everything

October 26, 2014

Today is Lisa's birthday!  Lisa if you're reading, happy birthday!!  Well, as I travel on my first day back home, I'm glad to say so far the trip has been fine.  I decided to stay at the Four Seasons hotel, Amman being that I have over twelve hours to kill before my next flight to the States.  It is a nice hotel both visually and the service has been great.  The staff bought my luggage within 5 minutes of my arrival in the room, check-in was painless.  I tipped him one dinar and for that, he gave me an orientation of the room.  How to control the temperature, the TV and even locking the hotel door (who would knew to turn the knob UP?).  Yes, this is the first time I got a briefing on room operations ever, in any hotel I've stayed at.  So for that, I give it a thumbs up.  I went down to the concierge and asked for a map and he provided me one.  He pointed me great directions on how to get to the circle/burger king joint.  I saw Popeye and my eyes grew big but oh well, the door was locked.  Guess their hours of operation weren't accurate but the giveaway was no one was inside.  Ended up at good old burger kind with chicken tenders..Well, their version of chicken tenders compares to that of nuggets for kiddies at the old Busy Bees play center that used to be open in Cooper City. 

I got to play tourist for the day..Got to go shopping, take pictures and walk downtown.  I initially wore shorts, not even thinking of  where I am at!  I'm in a country where most of the women cover themselves from head to toe, including the head.  Well, not everyone so here I am in short shorts and before I left the mall, I bought me a decent pair of stretchy jeans for 10 dinars (15 US). On the way back, I was ensured a safety retreat blending in with my environment a little more.  No more clicks and weird noises from the street :) Funny, safety first!

Well, my flight leaves, uuhhh 4 AM in the morning. This will be a great start to my jetlag.  Be sure to check pictures on my Flickr site as I will post more pictures taken from the BB.  Here's what I got on my surface... room and view of the city.  Oh, the souvenir shop, I got a genie, some jewelry that will go nice with my genie costume (one day) as this Halloween I'm an angel!  Finally, I got some flexi magnets.  Can't come home empty handed.  Alyssa can give to her teachers and so forth.  I also got a Petra keychain as a bonus..The guy was nice and gave me his business card.  Next time I'm going to buy the plush camel.  I don't think I want to exceed my allowance.  I only  had 1.2 lbs left on my carry on. 



Well time to get some rest and relaxation in.  Going to need it for two more flights (3 more) before I get home. 

4:30 PM

Well room service was impressive.  Alyssa and Jason can tell you as they were Skyping with me when he arrived with a trolley and salad and my sandwich. Yum..I finished all the sandwich fingers :) A lot better than the chicken fingers earlier LOL.  The difference between 3 dinars and 10 dinars hehehe.  The pool is beautiful but there were all men inside of it.  Hmmm, maybe next time.  The SPA is beautiful.  The sauna was nice and hotel and I definitely need to get a aroma massage next time..No deep tissue, thank you for much!!! 

Speaking of first, I like to recall my first time in a cab, where the guy stops by the gas station and asks me to pay for gas.  So I said, "Sure I didn't know I had to pay for gas.". Then I asked him how much to hotel and he told me 22 please and tip.  So not bad..He didn't rip me off that bad because the expected cost in dinars is 35 Jordanian Dinar which comes to about 49.59.  The actual cost according to the hotel is 28 Dinar so I'm going to use the hotel.  They are able to wrap me a breakfast box to-go at 1:30, excellente!  So far I'm loving it..Once you go to a 5-star hotel you can't go back :))

Some tidbits I thought I'd learned more about the middle east especially when I got some awesome souvenirs from the mall.  I got a Genie lamp, some magnets of Petra (the site from Indiana Jones 3) and some jewelry for my next Arabian costume :). I love dressing up.  Well did you know the hat in the last scene was actually what Robin Williams wore?  And who knew Jafar (the evil character was inspired by a villain in an Iraqi movie -- he sure looks like Jafar!  Finally, I see no resemblance between Aladdin and Tom Cruise though they say he based looks on it.. Hmmm..And Jasmine was indeed an Iraqi princess.  Interesting.

 



Last but not least, I learned that there are camel racing.  Wow, those things can run fast! I watched it on TV.  They have 100 channels here..Amazing how much I can learn from the comfort of my room!!

See you on the other side!!  :-)