Alhamdulillah (الحمد لله)!!

The car finally arrived :-) Today we started the day with a visit to the Italian Embassy. Something that we should have done long time ago. Is an admin thing where you leave your details, contact address etc. in order to be notified in case of an emergency or to receive the papers to execute your right to vote. Was a nice chat but the Italian Embassy is, together with the Pakistani, the last one in that very old quarter. All the other embassies moved to a new area (called Abdoun). So we had to drive to my office, leave the car and take a cab to get there as the traffic is quite intense and as it is Ramadan we try to reduce our driving to a minimum for safety reasons. The taxi driver spoke only Arabic but wise enough I prepared the address in Arabic (means I asked somebody to write it down ;-) He drowe off to the area but he was clueless where the embassy was. So he just stopped every two minutes to ask somebody... usually it is the other way around... people ask cab drivers for directions. But as I said, many things here are different ;-) Finally we made it and after a moment we left the embassy and headed towards the car dealer where they already were expecting us with the new car. The person there gave me and Katja an instruction and explained everything (which took an hour as there are so many things ;-) But the car is cool :-) what car? Send me a message and I will let you know ;-) Maybe I even add a picture...

Yesterday we went for dinner with colleagues we met here. He is the country manager for a big European air carrier and he brought another four female colleagues with him. The colleagues are all Jordanians and work for the same company. We went to a small village right outside Amman to a very traditional Arab Restaurant and enjoyed traditional Arab food and the special sweets they do only during Ramadan. If I say sweets, they are really sweet... they brought them and they are stuffed with either cheese or walnuts and very sweet. But this was not sweet enough as one of the ladies complained and ordered some additional sirup ;-) after having poured half of the bottle on it, it was REALLY sweet!

During Ramadan we work reduced working hours, means from 9 to 1600 and people really leave at 1600. And during Ramadan people go out at night. We got a bit of a flavor last night as we went there at 2100 and started to eat at around 2145. We left after midnight but the last people who came and ordered dinner, entered the place after 2300.We will next week go to a very well know circle in Amman where all young people hang out. I was told that it is very fascinating seeing all people hanging out there and just having a good time. Looking forward to!

Before I finish my blog today just a small story from the office. When I arrived I went to the copy machine to take a copy of a paper. The copier beeped and wrote that it was a wrong format and that there was no original on the glass...I was already to apply the international way to fix electronic machines (kick them ;-) when a colleague showed up next to me and asked what the issue was. I told him that it would not recognize my paper. He lifted the lid, took the paper from the left upper corner to the right upper corner of the glass where you put the original, et voilà! Welcome to a land where they write from right to left and the original must lay on the right side of the copy machine...

Take care wherever you are in this world. Big hug from Amman!