Another weekend is almost over and end of Ramadan is waiting around the corner. Ramadan finishes next week around Wednesday. It is not totally clear as it depends from the moon. After Ramadan there are 4 days of holiday, called Eid al Fitr. Most probably Eid will start on Thursday and go until Sunday. Monday back to work on a normal routine again. Shops will be open and normal business hours are back. What we really feel and see is the stress level while driving. People in the streets are very stressed starting early afternoon. This is because the days are very long without eating and drinking. Some are just aggressive. We decided to reduce our driving to the minimum. Driving in the morning is OK so far. But in the afternoon it is just too risky. Therefore Katja drops me at the office in the morning and leaves, does grocery shopping or whatever is needed as soon as possible and then parks the car at home. I go home from the office by cab.
All in all, this week was rather normal. No big things, no extraordinary events... it seems that routine starts kicking in...
But may be it is just because we already got conditioned... you are asking yourself why? OK here is the story. I had to use my credit card for a hotel reservation. As I gave them my details, they told me that my card was expiring and therefore I'd need a new one. OK, no biggy...just order a new one. I called in and ordered a new one. They (Bank from back home) told me that they would send it the same day. OK I thought. No stress, tomorrow is good for me. Next day they called me again and told me that due to a technical problem they had to postpone the sending by one day. I was not so upset as I am really used to it (although it was a bank from back home...) Anyway, they told me that they would send it to me to my Jordanian address. Now, you need to know that if you want to send something, you should have a P.O. Box here as otherwise there is a high probability that you will not receive anything. That's why I ask people to send me things to my office address as this always worked so far. Even a post card from LA arrived! Thanks and a bid hug to NF and RS! I'm sure you guys enjoyed the US!
Ok, anyway, back to the story. I forgot about my card and that the card should have arrived the next day. All the sudden (over two weeks later!!) a colleague of me at work approaches me and asks if I ordered something from back home. I said "No, not to my knowledge... What is it?" "I don't know" he said. "It is one unit, is 100 grams and has a value of 54.000 €. "WHAT!?" If I ordered something so expensive I would remember it, I tell you... He asks me carefully: "Did your wife maybe...?" "I hope not!" I thought... I asked him to show me the papers and I was indeed the contact person and the sender was a company that I never heard before in my life but was not far from where we lived. I thought that this was too much coincidence. So I googled the company and found out that the company produces security cards, security equipment and tokken and such stuff. While reading this it just came back to my mind that they told me that they wanted to send me my credit card some two weeks ago! Unfortunately the person at the parcel company had ticked the box "Good" instead of "Documents" the reason why it ended in the Jordanian customs, where somebody on top of it mixed up an invoice which all the sudden made my credit card become a good with a value of 54000 Euros ! If you want to clear such a good you have to pay VAT which is around 20% here :-) make your own math. It would have been an insane expensive credit card! So I had to contact people to help me to get the card out of customs and the bank as well jumped in and helped to unblock the situation. The really bad thing was that once the bank sent the card, they blocked the old one. So I was hanging there without credit card. Finally the guy from the parcel service calls me and tells me that the card will arrive "Bukra, Insh' Allah!" I told him that I'd need the card by end of the week the very latest. Next day of course nothing happened. The next day I started to call in until they told me that everything was set and they would bring it at 1400. At 1400 nobody showed up. I called in at 1405. "Where are you?" ""Small delay...we will bring it today...later..." What later? What does later mean...?! Around 1900 tonight. “But we will deliver to your place.” We live in an area which many people don't know and street names do not really help and sometimes drivers do not speak very good English and my Arabic is, let's say still very limited. So I pushed the guy so hard, that he really showed up at 1620 the same day on Thursday! And now why I have the impression of already being conditioned: It did not bother me! I was expecting something like this from the beginning and I was happy when I finally received my card. For me this is already somehow normal! ;-)
This weekend we had very nice people at our place. Thursday evening a very nice couple (both locals) and Friday again another very nice couple of expats. We had very nice lunch and they left both early (around 2200ish). Katja and I were tired too and before we went to bed we were standing in the kitchen and cleaning up when all the sudden I had the impression of smelling something like smoke... not the thing you want to smell I tell you.... we both started to walk around trying to locate the source (I am sure that it would have looked really funny if somebody would have watched us, as Katja and I were running around sniffing with the nose in the air like dogs... ;-) we found the source pretty quickly, especially as during the evening the fuse jumped twice. We have on the ceiling of the kitchen a second sealing with indirect light in it. Unfortunately they just laid the neons on the wood without any suspension and the wires (live wires!!) lay on the neons which of course get hot. Hot neon together with live wire laying on it = short circuit as the plastic around the wires melt... :-( on top of it the neons are covered with at least 2 mm dust! This provokes a very funny smell if you keep them on for a longer time... Result: no indirect light until the electrician showed up and fixed this... lucky enough we were there and realized it. But again, things are just different here. I am sure that somebody will come and fix it. We already spoke to somebody who knows a specialist and he will show up tomorrow....really, he promised it ;-)
After the smoke experience I went to the bathroom, grabbed my toothbrush and wanted to open the window to allow air to get in and cool down the room. We have sliding windows. Sliding widows have a little part where you can put your fingers in to pull or push the window to the direction you want. If you use it accordingly nothing will ever happen. Some people think that they don't need to follow the instructions (usually men, the present writer included) and push back the window by just putting the fingers on the window. Don't ask me how, but my ring finger got between the window which is fix and the one which slides...AAAAHHHH! I didn't know that my heart is in the fingernail... in any case it felt like my heart was there as I felt every single heartbeat in my nail (and there were many!!!). I cooled it down with an icepack which eased the pain... I went to bed and today the finger looks a bit swollen but I was lucky and it is not broken and the nail is still where it should be. For all who will come and visit us: There will be a mandatory Health and Safety training to be attended before you can move in ;-) Will be held at arrival ;-)
Finally something about the weather: we were really happy last week as it started to cool down a bit. The temperature started to be at night half of the temperature of during the day. During the day it still gets up to over 30 but at night it really cools down and we had to put sweaters on when we were sitting outside on the terrace. Katja who suffers from the heat was all happy that finally the temperatures dropped. "Unfortunately" the summer is not over yet as today temperature climbed up again to the high 30is. But there is a lovely wind and we don't feel the temperature. It is really nice now.
Katja and I can't wait to see family and friends who will start to come to Jordan starting end of this month. It feels like when you were a child and you were counting the days until Christmas Eve. This is really something we miss. Family and friends... and of course all the things you never thought about when you were back home and you even were laughing when you heard stories of people that brought typical things from home abroad. This is for all those back home: believe it or not, but we bought two bottles of AROMAT when we went back home... ;-) I never ate Ragusa Chocolate back home...here I miss it. Katja bought one and unfortunately it is already gone. Sound funny but it is like this. As soon things are not available anymore you start to miss them...
That's it for this week folks. Another week in Jordan with many impressions, new experiences and new adventures is over. Katja and I are both good, enjoy being here and hope to welcome you all very soon to this beautiful country!
Take care wherever you are in this world! A big hug from Amman!
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