The Journey

Hey everyone!  After a long, sleep-deprived, 30-hour trip halfway around the world (which actually was relatively uneventful and smooth), I arrived in Jordan on Sunday morning!  My journey here managed to be simultaneously exciting, fun, exhausting, and overwhelming, but the good news is that by the time I arrived I was so tired and eager to get off the plane that I was no longer nervous.

I left Washington DC at about 10:30 pm on Friday evening. My flight to London was very smooth – it landed and took off on time and there were no issues on board. I even got about half an hour of sleep, which is actually really good for me.  I am the worst plane sleeper in the world. I can sleep on buses, trains, boats, cars, all other methods of transportation, but never on planes. Every transatlantic flight I take is absolute torture.

Since I had a twelve-hour layover in London on Saturday, I decided to leave Heathrow airport and spend the afternoon exploring the city. I was a little nervous as to whether or not I’d actually be able to leave the airport for such a brief time – the British are known to be fairly picky about who they let in, especially if you don’t have details about where you’ll be staying, etc. (I know this from experience when I almost wasn’t allowed onto the train from Paris to London a few years ago because I didn’t have the zip code for my friend’s apartment.)  This time though, I didn’t have any trouble.  I explained to the woman at immigration control that I’d only be visiting for the day because I had a connecting flight that evening and showed her my second boarding pass, and she let me right through.  Then I took the Heathrow Express train to get into the city, which was a great decision. It’s only a few more dollars each way than the Tube, and it gets you into Paddington Station in downtown London in 15 minutes, rather than nearly an hour on the underground. Definitely a much better choice to get into the city.

I spent the afternoon exploring London.  I didn’t go too far since I had to lug all my carry-on bags around (my backpack was HEAVY), but I went to The Mall and St. James Park, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, walked along the Thames for awhile, and then back through Trafalgar Square and up around Soho.  It was a perfect London day – about 65 degrees, cloudy but not rainy.  Just what London always looks like in movies.  I’d been to London before a few years back but spent most of my trip rushing around from attraction to attraction, so it was nice to just take a day to explore. By late afternoon though I thought I might collapse from exhaustion/under the weight of my backpack, so I decided to go back to the airport and relax a bit before getting on my next flight.

The flight to Amman was smooth but unfortunately one of the least relaxing and enjoyable flights I’ve taken.  It didn’t depart until 11 pm, and I desperately wanted to sleep because I hadn’t been able to for the past two nights.  Most night flights that I’ve taken were pretty quiet, but unfortunately this one was the least conducive to sleep that I’ve ever been on.  The plane felt like a daycare center – there were two infants in the row in front of me alone (and actually, they were the least annoying…) and tons of little kids.  I like kids normally but not when it’s 2 am and they are literally doing gymnastics down the aisles of the plane.  None of the parents around me made any attempt to get their kids to sleep or even just sit quietly, so it was kind of a zoo.  I eventually just gave up my attempt to sleep and started watching a movie instead (note: “This is Forty” = good in-flight movie if you’re just looking for mindless distraction, but not good for much else).  I had a splitting headache, but it actually got a bit better once I just entirely stopped trying to sleep.

I landed in Amman on Sunday at about 5:15 am, and it was surprisingly light outside for being so early.  I suppose the flight timing might have been convenient if I was coming for meetings starting that day, but considering I needed to get settled in the city and hadn’t slept in 72 hours, it was pretty inconvenient for me.  The first rule of Middle East travel is that all flights to the Middle East seem to arrive or take off in the middle of the night.  This sort of makes sense on the way back from the Middle East because your flight will land you in Europe in time to make a connecting flight back to the United States at that point.  On the way to the Middle East, however, be prepared for lengthy layovers followed by a late flight that arrives in the middle of the night or at a godforsaken hour of the morning.

I knew that all I’d want to do when I arrived was sleep for a few hours and shower, and it was far too early to meet my new roommate Dunia at her apartment, so I decided to book a hotel room.  This was more complicated that it seemed though, because most hotels aren’t designed to accommodate people who want to arrive early in the morning, sleep part of the day, and not stay for any nights.  In order to accomplish this, it was necessary to book two nights in the hotel: one for the previous night so that the room would be available when I arrived, and one for the following night so that I wouldn’t have to check out by 10 or 11. Luckily the hotel I stayed at was pretty cheap so this wasn’t a horribly expensive undertaking. By the time I got there, I didn’t even care. This family with a crying and fussing baby was standing in front of me in line at immigration, and all I could think about was how I didn’t blame the baby because I would be crying and fussing too if it was a moderately acceptable thing for a 25-year-old woman to do.

All in all though, my trip was relatively uneventful and smooth. My flights were all on time, my luggage wasn’t lost, and none of my belongings were stolen.  I got to spend a day in London, which was a nice perk of my 12-hour layover.  Everything has gone well in Amman since I arrived there as well…but the saga of the first week in Amman is a story for another post! My internet connection can be a little sketchy here, but I’ll try to post everything up soon!

Much love,

Sarah