Jordan: Just one of those Traveler's Days...

What was supposed to be a laid-back day turned out to be a little frustrating. One thing I'm still getting used to is that most of my plans have the opposite outcome. All I had for the day was Arabic in the morning. After chatting with my Jordanian peer tutor for an hour, I ran around the track--my sanctuary. Then I took a nice cold shower ready to go home early to relax before shopping with friends. Since Thursday is the beginning of the weekend, a lot of my friends were off doing their own thing already. I didn't feel like hailing down a taxi by myself so I figured that I should try the bus and figure out the route to take home. In the mornings, I take the #52 bus to the university so the driver told me to look for the same one to take home.

Getting on the bus is difficult. There is no concept of waiting in line here so it's basically first come, first serve with a lot of pushing and shoving involved. I kept telling myself that this is the weekend and I will be home soon to relax. I claimed my seat and took a sigh of relief. "I will be home soon." We were across the street from where I usually wait for the bus in the morning to take to the university. I wasn't in the mood to cross 2 streets crowded with cars so I figured that the bus will turn around up the hill and make it back down on the other side where I can walk through quiet side streets. Because in the mornings as I wait, I see a #52 bus on the other side of the street and a couple minutes later, a #52 bus comes down my street. I assumed wrong about the bus turning up the hill. I learned the hard and long way that #52 buses are several minutes apart from each other on their route so the bus I see across the street and the one that shortly appears down my road are not the same buses.

What was supposed to be a 3o-minute ride, turned out to be 2 hours. We never turned around to go back down my street, but just kept making turns taking me further and further from the place I live. At this point, I was freaking out inside. I got a good dose of Amman that day. Eventually, I was the last one on the bus and there was no way I was going to get off in an area I didn't know existed. Alhamdo lellah that my bus driver was nice and said my situation was not a problem. So I just chilled out in the front seat and talked a little with him about American and Jordan waiting for the bus to fill up.

As extremely annoyed as I was with this turn of events, it's important as a traveler in a foreign country to have a sense of humor and go ahead and be that awkward tourist roaming the streets.

For fun, I'll add some pictures about my daily walking routine to the bus stop: