Jordan - Day One

Today was a great first day to the trip. Not too terribly exciting, but I at least got to see some interesting things, and most importantly, rest up a little.

The flights in were good. The weather in Paris was bad, so I was delayed getting to Amman, but that was fine. I should probably clarify the incident in the Paris airport though, and no, it did not involve a body cavity search or have anything to with a cucumber. You'll have to be on Facebook to get that.

What actually happened is that as I was going through the security, they had a woman standing there making sure you had all of your metal off and electronics out. As she slid my stuff into the scanner, I realized my watch was still on and in my haste to take it off, dropped it. Instictively, I reached out to grab it as it was falling, missed and ended up sort of half grabbing/half punching the girl...in the ass. She was turned around so she didn't see it and afterward, looked at me like I was the biggest pervert in Paris. I assume I was bright red at that point.

Fortunately the rest of the trip has been unventful as far as accidentally grabbing any attractive women. It's a good thing too, as knowing me, that would result in jail time here.

Right now I'm in the town of Madaba, about 20 miles south of Amman. It's nice and the hotel is good. My driver was there waiting for me at the airport and he was very nice. Al the people have been very friendly so far. That's one of the things I kept hearing about Jordan and it's turned out to be very true. Today as I was wandering around the town of Azraq, a group of guys in their 20s or so were sitting outside of what I thought was a restaurant. One of them told me it wasn't, but offered to show me around to find one. He walked me a couple of blocks until we saw one that was open. I thanked him and as I turned to leave he yelled out, "Welcome to Jordan!" They certainly seem proud of their country here.

As for the sights I saw three of the Desert Castles east of Amman. They weren't the kind of castles we think of in Europe, but still pretty interesting. All date back over 1200 years ago and two were completely in the middle of nowhere. It was really interesting to see the desert out that way as it was nearly flat and featureless for as far as the eye could see.

Tomorrow I head north to see the Roman ruins at Jerash, follwed by the site at Umm Qais. Between the two, I'll visit Ajloun, which is a spot overlooking the Sea of Galilee and into Syria and Lebanon. It should be fun.