We're Here

With all thanks and praise to God, our family has arrived here in Amman, Jordan. Wife and I are becoming increasingly familiar with our surroundings, in particular our toilets.

After four days spent in Syria visiting my mother and dining on regional cuisine, it seems that we may have contracted a local malady that I will call Bashar al-Assad's Revenge. The only apparent protection against this is to sing Syria's national anthem in a convincing way for a number of years. Needless to say, we were doomed from the start.

Syria was great. Mom's place is swank. It's real spacious with great tile and nice light fixtures. She's on the second floor with a couple of large balconies overlooking her neighborhood. She's walking distance from her three sisters and their families.

Getting to Jordan was pretty smooth with only a couple of minor bumps. We were traveling with a total of seven bags, one a bag of gifts to be dropped off when we stopped in Syria. So that makes six bags for the family, a remarkable number for a family of four staying abroad for a year. I'm very proud of wife.

Even so, I looked every bit like donkey-boy moving through the check-in lines out of LAX. We boarded the plane without incident. Wife was asked to throw out some water she was carrying. There was some rummaging through our bags, but no big deal.

We flew Virgin airlines into London. This is a fantastic airline. Fly it if you can. British accents make everything sound better. 5y made friends with the man sitting next to her. He was reading a book about pick-up artists. He showed 5y how to watch cartoons.

We arrived in London about 3 in the afternoon. We had plans to stay a night in order to give the kids a chance to rest. I, on the other hand, am likely to suffer many sleepless nights over the amount of money blown in the UK.

England must be the most expensive place on the planet. First off, it takes two American dollars to make one English pound. At first things seem reasonable, or at least comparable to the prices in America. So the lady at the desk tells me that my room at the local two-star flop will cost me 99 pounds. Oh, very well- have my credit card, won't you? And then it hits me- sweet Victoria! That's $200! My cab ride- $40! Fish and chips for the family, some rice pudding, and three teeny scoops of ice cream- $80!

Our flight out of London wasn't until 9:00 pm the next day. We would be checking out at 12 pm. That meant I had two choices- book a second night in order to wait for our plane in two-star comfort, or hang out at the airport with my wife and two small children for nine hours. At these rates the choice was obvious, but I still had to humor the family. The lady at the front desk said the whole place was booked solid- no room for a second night. Show me the tarmac!

This was a tough blow to my marriage. I found comfort in the local road signs:

Queues Likely

Changed Priorities Ahead

Jolly Bloody Trolley Bugger

That last one wasn't a real sign.

Anyway, sacked out like gypsies at Heathrow for nine hours was surprisingly peaceful. Ensuring the peace was certainly the intention of the four men with machine guns that suddenly surrounded us as we sat watching our children sleeping on dingy airport chairs. Among them was a uniformed woman who brought out a great big dog to sniff our bags. We watched passively as Cujo totally ignored our stuff. The woman kept ordering the dog to sniff, but he was uninterested, which is good. You don't want cop-dogs to get excited about smelling your stuff. After a while everybody backed off. They didn't say anything to us. Immediately afterward, a nearby Jewish family gathered for a group prayer.

The flight into Syria was uneventful. As mentioned previously, we hung out with family and ate a lot. Four days later we were on a twin-engine prop-job bound for Amman, Jordan.

I don't recall ever being on a plane with propellers. Wife cried when she saw it.

"I don't want to get on it. I can't believe this is happening to me."

We got on it. We made it OK, al'hamdu'lillah. A thirty minute cab ride later and we were in our new apartment.

We are really happy in our new place. We're on the ground floor of an apartment building. We've got a foyer where guests can take off their shoes. Adjacent to the foyer is one bathroom and two sitting rooms. You cross one sitting room into a hallway. Branching off the hallway is our kitchen, another bathroom, and three bedrooms. Add to that a doorman who runs all of your errands for you and you're paying just over $500 bucks a month.

So that's cool, but you can't drink the water. Actually, not only is the water deadly poison, but it's also rationed. Water is very scarce in the region. We've got a tank or two on the roof that gets refilled every Saturday and Sunday. That's all you get for the week. Calgon will not be taking us away anytime soon.

School starts on Sunday!