A day of planes, trains, and automobiles. Started with a Bolt Bus ride from Baltimore to NYC. After arriving in the city, April and I took the uptown bound E train to JFK. 1st subway train ride post Hurricane Sandy and just as I thought, no different. New York is strong and if they can bounce back after 911 than they can recover from a hurricane too.
Got to JFK around 9pm, ate a quick bite and boarded on Turkish Airlines. Very nice plane, pretty similar to the times I've flown Quantas; goodie bag with eye mask, ear plugs, lip balm, and slipper socks; 2 choices of dinner (had the ground beef with I couldn't totally enjoy since I was trying to sleep and we had already eaten dinner); snacks (roasted hazelnuts, cheese and crackers); and breakfast (eggs, veggies, & cheese). Watched "Crazy, Stupid Love" and attempted to watch "Dream Girls" but wasn't into it. Also tried to watch "Eragon" since I was curious about the movie version of the book, but similarly to the book, I couldn't really get into that either, so I ended up watching 3/4th of Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" before falling asleep. Highlight of the flight was definitely the free booze. They offered m ea drink and when I asked how much the wine was, the flight attendant gave me a crazy look. Awesome!
Upon arrival in Istanbul, Turkey we waited several hours before even getting our gate number. Pretty uneventful. Tried to use the wifi with no success and just sat and waited. About 15mins before our flight was due to leave all the flight attendant said was "Amman?" and everyone jumped up. No order, or anything. Again with Turkish Airline and the plane was nice and accommodating. April and I sat next to each other both times because because the guy at JFK hooked us up. He even gave us the emergency row from Istanbul to Amman.
When we finally landed in Amman, about 10:30pm, local time, we met a representative from our tour group, Classic Adventures. We were all pretty tired and the guy wasn't very organized so tempers were short. We handed over our passports and went to pick up our checked baggage (wait, did I just give a random customs guy my passport and walk way? Don't they make movies about this?!). Got my bag fine, April on the other hand was not so lucky. I felt bad for her since she says this tends to happen to her, plus it is her first time out of the country so she was already a little nervous. She made her claim and then we were off to the hotel, Imperial Palace Hotel. All good, passed our bags through xray and checked into the room. 1 double bed, shower, toilet and bidet. By now it was 2am, and April needed to check in with her mom. Unfortunately you had to pay for 1hour min and it was 5JD (1USD is 0.76 Jordainian Dinar) so not really worth it. BUT the business center computer let her use it for free, magically.
Got to bed by 2:30 for a 7am wake up call to be to the lobby by 8:30am.
Definitely not enough sleep, but what can you do. Got things to see and do!
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