Springtime stroll

First fantastic Spring day. It’s 25 degrees Celsius, clear skies, light breeze, and I just walked around the block for my lunch break. From my office neighbourhood, mainly consisting of villas and luxury apartment buildings, I crossed the busy street into the commercial district of Sweifiyeh. The base of Sweifiyeh is a block grid of 5-floor apartment buildings. Add long galleries instead of sidewalks, for the necessary shade. Then add a bunch of tiny shops with local brands. Let that simmer for a while. Then, add a lot, and I mean a lot, of chaotically placed signs indicating shop names, owner names, cars for sale, and traffic signs. As coup de grace, add two table spoons of extremely chaotic traffic, triple double parking and a pinch of honking. There you have it. Bon appetite! It’s a dish that may need some getting used to, but once you take a bite, you’re hooked.

Furthermore, I’m sad to say that my wireless connection at home is absolute bollocks. It started out fine, it was fast, it was promising. The problem is that whenever there is a problem, it takes ages to fix and a lot of calls to the landlord, who in turn has to call some shop. So consequently, I haven’t had an Internet connection at home for a week now. So please, again forgive me my slow updates, but be aware that they’re in the pipeline.

Time to return to my work! I’ve got a thesis that’s 38 pages already, and I’m working on the last bit of literary review. At this stage, I’m traveling around Amman a lot to meet with experts on the subject of Corporate Social Responsibility. I’m using their thoughts and critiques to enhance my own view on the concept of CSR. I’m happy to report that it’s all going quite well!

 

Night time highlights

Work hard, play hard.

Every weekday begins with an 8 hour working day, followed by an evening packed (19:00 - 00:00) with social activities. It’s a blast though. I’ve been traveling around the city a lot in order to see all the different hang outs, such as Nai (world famous, Oriental, royal, luxurious lounge club), Vinaigrette (a wonderful restaurant in the penthouse of the Howard Johnson hotel in Shmeisani, with an amazing view over Amman), Blue Fig (a very original restaurant/club in Abdoun), Starbucks (for those of you who know me, this makes absolute sense), Books@Cafe (great cappuccino and wifi, guaranteed easy Saturday morning), Fakhr el Din (luxurious restaurant with great Arabic dishes) and Kanabaye (gayest salsa club in town, serving a very mediocre amount of whiskey in a lemonade glass). All great hang outs with their own taste in music and clientele.

The bad thing is that a lot of the upper class clubs require early reservations for a table, because everything is based on the fact that you would really really want to sit down – and enjoy the narguila, the hubbly bubbly. Everything here is loungy. I haven’t been to a club yet that only had just a bar, a DJ booth and a dance floor.

Tomorrow is weekend. Let’s have a drink and dance. I’ll make the reservations!

 

Arrival, part 2

I’ve added some pictures from my phone, click on the Flickr link on the right hand side of the screen. Once I get the chance to head out for some proper photography in the weekends, look for better stuff!

So, after having loved those sheep brains, I went to work the following morning. It was absolutely pouring down rain and of course I couldn’t explain to the taxi driver where exactly the office would be. The problem with taxi drivers in Amman is that they only know the landmarks, and very very few street names. On top of that, street names have the strange habit of changing every year.

I told the taxi to stop and I got out, calling the office. I took shelter in someone’s carpark for a few, when it turned out that I had actually gotten within 50 meters of the office: I could see Imad Marji, financial and administrative manager, waving at me from afar. I ran down to the office dodging deep pools of water in treacherous holes in the road, and got there right on time. Nine o’clock sharp.

I met everybody gradually during the day, while I was settled in the office of Faisal Hakki, my supervisor. At 4 I attended a short meeting where I saw everybody together and I got a proper introduction. Fun exciting day! I headed home, and went to bed early. Monday consisted of more meetings and talks with people in the office. Everybody has been very friendly and helpful, so I couldn’t have wished for anything better.

Oh, and on Tuesday, the girls from the embassy prepared a superb hutspot dinner, followed by wine, Old Amsterdam cheese and dropveters. Mmmm. Almost as good as sheep brains. I met Ala’a (because everybody called him Allah, he decided his nickname would be Alexander or Alex), a Jordan-Canadian and his cousin Osama. I also met Francisco, an Italian who had studied in Enschede at my university, and believe it or not, had actually lived next to me for half a year in 2001. Small world, huh?

Finally, yesterday night was football night. Holland played Russia so we went down to the Champion bar near the Kemplinsky hotel, but sadly we were too late. Some English fans had already requested the England - Spain match on the big screen. So we headed down to the Bristol Hotel, which turned out to be absolutely shady and smelling of toilet refreshener. Nevertheless, a 4-1 victory for the boys in orange did me good. Oranje boven!

 

“Welcome to Jordan!”

So, here I am. Finally with a decent Internet connection at the office. I landed safely on Saturday morning, and was immediately introduced to that Jordan way I had heard so much about. I was waiting at the luggage belt for my 2 sets of luggage, and only 1 arrived. So, bummed out of course, I headed over the the luggage service desk, where I filled in some forms. I was instructed to call and see tomorrow. Then as I turned, a maintenance guy asked me what the colour was, and then dove into the LUGGAGE BELT HOLE to see if he could find it. Eh voila. Crazily enough, out popped the green bag. Strange first impression!

I’ll update tomorrow with stories I’ll write tonight and some pictures. Still don’t have a connection at my appartment, but I hope that will change in the next two weeks.