Arrival (finally!)

From an email:

Well, I actually made it to Jordan yesterday as planned. However, my luggage didn't fare as well. It is still enjoying the "City of Light" and I hope it isn't indulging in too many croissants and crepes while it's there! We finally took off two hours later than scheduled and I settled back and slept for a significant portion of the ride. However, somewhere over the mid-Atlantic we experienced some severe turbulence which had the woman next to me shrieking in fear and praying to herself out loud for a good 20 minutes. Even the flight attendants ran for their seats, and I don't think I've ever been so terrified of flying as I was at that point. And to think - it wasn't so many years ago thatI loved turbulence and could never sleep on planes!

Things finally settled down and we landed in Paris about 5 minutes before the flight to Amman was scheduled to take off. After disembarking on the tarmac, I found out that several flights had been held up due to our late arrival. Apparently there was a 40 person contingent headed to Tehran on our flight, and about 25 of us were headed to Amman, so I guess they figured it was worth it to hold the flights. I was so relieved though, because even though I love Paris, I didn't REALLY want to spend the night there. I finally reached Amman about an hour later than expected, but somehow ended up standing in the slowest visa line which took about 45 minutes to get through. I can't say much for the competence of the immigration officials though - they handed my passport to the woman ahead of me and she started walking off with it!

When I finally got down to the baggage claim I discovered that my luggage didn't make the connecting flight (which I wasn't too shocked about). I started talking to another woman who was on my original flight from DC and her luggage hadn't arrived either. She happened to be with a contingent of people who had arrived to teach at the American school in Amman for a couple of years and they had someone from the US Embassy, Samir, to help them out and get organized. Samir took pity on me as well and helped me fill out the lost baggage claim and even helped me wrangle about $150 from Air France for the inconvenience. Apparently Air France doesn't usually offer any compensation, but if you request it, they'll give it to you. You gotta love Samir. Now I feel a bit bad about glaring at him while in the visa line because he was processing about 6 passports at once and it was taking a long time.

One other interesting sidenote - this woman from the flight - Maria, knows our Country Director in Zimbabwe because she was in the Peace Corps with him about 10 years ago. Small world!

Because I hadn't heard anything from J about picking me up from the airport, Chris in DC called the HoJo in Amman and arranged for the hotel shuttle to pick me up. However, after I FINALLY left the baggage claim hall, I discovered that not only was the driver there, but J and our new finance guy A as well! They had all been waiting there for hours and I felt really bad, but at the same time felt so relieved as well!

So now I'm staying at the HoJo in Amman. It really looks like I could be here for a couple of weeks at least. I think a lot depends on the how our proposals go over with the UN. I expect that I'll learn about this a lot more over the next few days. I guess I won't have a computer for another 5 days or so when another staff member will be bringing one out for me. We're at an internet cafe right now, so my internet access is spotty at best for the moment. I guess there is usually a connection at the hotel but it wasn't working this morning. What I've seen of Amman so far, I like. J and F (outgoing HR/Finance manager) call this the"Hashemite Kingdom of Boredom", but it's all still so new and interesting for me, so I love taking it all in. The weather is so nice too. After the misery of DC over the past few days (hot and humid beyond all belief), I'll settle with just hot, which it is. Fortunately the clothes I was wearing on the plane work well with that environment, since that's all I have at the moment. Air France says that my bags should be on tonight's flight from Paris, but I'll believe it when I see it...