Summer lovin..
Thursday, August 09, 2007
I hate rush hour in Amman.
Seeing that I come from a city of roughly 13 million people, and that I had a 20 minute commute to university daily, which often translated into an hour, I should have become resilient and adaptable.
But Amman is a totally different ballgame.
Firstly, the city is flooded with tourists from the Gulf countries over the summer - which means that the streets are deluged with 4 wheel drives
Secondly, there appears to be a shortage of cabs in this city. Seriously.
A few days ago..
Oksana and I leave a business meeting after a kickass meeting (I met the woman I want to be when I grow up. ) It is mid afternoon in Amman - around 35 degrees Celsius..
Oks and I stand for 20 minutes looking for a free cab. There appears to be none.
We decide to start walking, and get to the main intersection
Oks: I think we're going to have to walk home
Me (thinking in my head): She can't be serious. We'll find a cab before it comes to that. Home isn't anywhere close to here
Oks and I keep walking. .
..and walking..
..we try to flag empty taxis, but they pretend we are apparitions..
Helped greatly by the fact that I'm wearing a suit and heels, and Oks and I are both carrying laptops..and have no water to drink, we keep walking. While I feel bad that she has to go through this with me, I'm glad for the company and the fact that we can both bitch about how bad the transportation system has gotten.
30 minutes later, we find a bus that Oksana realizes is headed for a stop 10 minutes away from home.
We get into the bus, have a very brief respite from walking as the bus drops us off 2 minutes later at the stop.
We resume walking, get water, and head home.
Oks heads to her second meeting (God bless her soul!) and I fall asleep only to wake up extremely disoriented four hours later, wondering if we actually walked for 45 minutes straight, or got home 1 hour and 30 minutes after we ended our meeting..
Summer lovin', indeed.
Seeing that I come from a city of roughly 13 million people, and that I had a 20 minute commute to university daily, which often translated into an hour, I should have become resilient and adaptable.
But Amman is a totally different ballgame.
Firstly, the city is flooded with tourists from the Gulf countries over the summer - which means that the streets are deluged with 4 wheel drives
Secondly, there appears to be a shortage of cabs in this city. Seriously.
A few days ago..
Oksana and I leave a business meeting after a kickass meeting (I met the woman I want to be when I grow up. ) It is mid afternoon in Amman - around 35 degrees Celsius..
Oks and I stand for 20 minutes looking for a free cab. There appears to be none.
We decide to start walking, and get to the main intersection
Oks: I think we're going to have to walk home
Me (thinking in my head): She can't be serious. We'll find a cab before it comes to that. Home isn't anywhere close to here
Oks and I keep walking. .
..and walking..
..we try to flag empty taxis, but they pretend we are apparitions..
Helped greatly by the fact that I'm wearing a suit and heels, and Oks and I are both carrying laptops..and have no water to drink, we keep walking. While I feel bad that she has to go through this with me, I'm glad for the company and the fact that we can both bitch about how bad the transportation system has gotten.
30 minutes later, we find a bus that Oksana realizes is headed for a stop 10 minutes away from home.
We get into the bus, have a very brief respite from walking as the bus drops us off 2 minutes later at the stop.
We resume walking, get water, and head home.
Oks heads to her second meeting (God bless her soul!) and I fall asleep only to wake up extremely disoriented four hours later, wondering if we actually walked for 45 minutes straight, or got home 1 hour and 30 minutes after we ended our meeting..
Summer lovin', indeed.
Labels: jordan journal
posted by saba at 6:55 PM, | 
3 Comments:
emad stop sounding like her dad.
man scary thought- emad as a dad, that kid better win the noble prize if he knows what's good for him.
saba, if you're not singing songs from the grease OST with this little story, you don't know what you're missing.
man scary thought- emad as a dad, that kid better win the noble prize if he knows what's good for him.
saba, if you're not singing songs from the grease OST with this little story, you don't know what you're missing.
emad: very funny.
dhruv: my dad doesn't sound like that! though, i am currently on a mission to get emad to adopt me as a daughter/niece when he has tons of money so i can live off him.
dhruv: my dad doesn't sound like that! though, i am currently on a mission to get emad to adopt me as a daughter/niece when he has tons of money so i can live off him.
smoking isnt.