Thursday, January 20, 2011

Chillax

I got this gem in my inbox from A.Word.A.Day.
 
Think of it during your next episode of lateness-induced stress and just chillax.
 
It ought to be plain / how little you gain / by getting excited / and vexed. / You'll always be late / for the previous train, / and always in time / for the next. -Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)
 
 

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Proceed without Caution

When I found out that I would receive a complimentary rental car during my time in Jordan, I was equal parts thrilled and horrified. Thrilled not to have to depend on public transportation, but horrified by all of the potential pitfalls of driving in a foreign country -- what would I do if I got in an accident or got lost? What would the traffic be like? Which side of the road do they even drive on?  I needn't have worried ... mostly. Driving in Jordan is easy ... mostly. I'll provide some tips for those situations not mostly covered.
 
For today's tip we'll start with an easy one: lanes. There really aren't any. Yes, there are often some faded lines painted on the road surface that you might occassionally feel compelled to pay attention to. But basically a road is as wide as the number of cars that can squeeze into it. So if the paint says there are two lanes, there's really probably three or four. Now you might think that coming from the U.S. where lanes are respected that this would be frustrating to deal with and for some drivers I'm sure that's the case. For me, I find it freeing. The trick is to not fight it, just embrace it and use the lack of adherence to lane division to your advantage to manuever your way through the traffic. The car in front of you has left space on the shoulder? Go on, squeeze on by. Looking for a store and not sure  it's on the right or left? Easy, just drive down the middle.  Basically it's like you are constantly driving as if you have just left a toll plaza, in the big expanse of space before the road pares down to marked lanes again, trying to keep tabs on cars coming from all sides while jockeying for position.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Metaphorical Sailing

Hopefully when you were in high school your English teacher made you read Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters. Spoon River is a collection of poems that are epitaphs of denizens of a fictional Midwestern small town. I enjoyed reading it in high school and still do. I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty depressing, but it just sucks you in like an early 20th century version of 'Jersey Shore'. But in between some sad lines, I have found glimpses of inspiration. One in fact, was the inspiration for the blog title - the epitaph of George Gray. Here's his story...

"I HAVE studied many times
The marble which was chiseled for me--
A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.
In truth it pictures not my destination
But my life.
For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;
Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;
Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.
Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.
And now I know that we must lift the sail
And catch the winds of destiny
Wherever they drive the boat.
To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire--
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid."

So here I am, sails unfurled, leaving behind restlessness and vague desire, catching the winds wherever they drive the boat....

...although ironically I'm not a big fan of sailing. But I still love this poem. I suppose I can just be a fan of metaphorical sailing, so there's that.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

This doesn't exist in Jordan: Make-up holidays

You know how if Christmas falls on a Saturday, like this year, you get Friday off? Not so here in Jordan. When holidays fall over the weekend you just get screwed out of them. There is no make-up! No make-up? How can they do this to people?! I am not a fan.

One thing I am a fan of however are all of the unexpected holidays. I'll just be sitting in my office and one of my coworkers will say, "you know that this Thursday is a holiday, right?". Oh what joy, what bliss, I did not know that it was a holiday. It's like a snow day without the snow! In the U.S., one knows all the holidays and when to expect them. Sometimes the minor bank holidays (I'm talking to you, Columbus Day) creep up on you but usually it's a countdown to that auspicious day, with the pleasure of anticipation for special plans made to take advantage of the three-day weekend. (But then of course there's the pain of waiting for the next one to come around; President's Day is the worst, because you know it will be 3.5 long months until Memorial Day!)

The dark side of this new-holiday-feeling however is that it comes at the expense of the usual holidays. Thanksgiving? Nixed. MLK Day? No way. Can't I just have both, pretty please?

I love animals ... they're delicious!

I can't take sexy food pix but trust me it was delish.
Oh maaaaan did I make some good lamb chops the other day. I'd never made lamb chops before, but I had a bunch of fresh mint I had to use up. And what goes better with lamb than mint? Not much. And what goes better with lamb chops and mint than good company? Not much. So I invited a couple friends over and we delightfully chopped, marinated, sauteed, and boiled away our Thursday evening. End result: lamb chops marinated with garlic, thyme and rosemary then seared and roasted; (storebought) gnocchi with (homemade, hand-chopped) mint-basil pesto; and sauteed swiss chard with onions. Mmm boy! (There was also a chocolate-date pudding but let's not talk about that ... not good, too datey.)

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Road Rage

Why is it that traffic is so incredibly soul-crushing? Maybe it's the uncertainty regarding the cause of the issue and how long one's trip will now take. Perhaps it is the monotony of sitting and waiting, then moving forward by inches. Or it could be the frustration of the time that is being wasted. Whatever it is, I can't handle it. Traffic is my nemesis and one of my biggest fears. This is the reason I chose an apartment so close to my office. When the weather is nicer, if I can make myself get up early, I can even walk there. It takes me 5 minutes to get to work in the morning and 10 minutes to get back. But last night, it took me FIFTY MINUTES. Apparently there was a rally or protest of some kind outside of Parliament and so they rerouted the traffic. Unfortunately, I live a stone's throw away from the Parliament building. Basically I wanted to be on the wadi road and got rerouted to the jebel road, so I was perched above looking down to where I wanted to be. It was torture. In retrospect I guess it wasn't too bad --- I got home at 5pm instead of 4:10 -- that's still 1.5 hours earlier than I would ever get home in the U.S.! But seriously, traffic is the devil.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Money, it's a gas....

You might think this is a 20 JD note .... but it's not.
The larger grocery stores and some other businesses in Amman have a black light at the checkout. When you give them a bill of 20 JD or larger, they scan it under the black light. It's the equivalent of those brown pens they use sometimes at stores in the U.S., but perhaps more prevalent. I had noticed this before but didn't think much of it until New Year's Eve. I went to the store to purchase some beverages for the evening and my 20 JD note was REJECTED. Further observation showed it to be COUNTERFEIT. It is slightly smaller than the real note, but you can only tell if you hold it up to a real one. Also the color was off, but only so much that it looked like a worn bill, not a fake one. When you put the bill under the black light, a silver security strip glows in the middle of the bill. Mine was revealed to lack the silver strip - it was painted on! When examined, it looked like shiny silver nail polish - totally fake. I can't be sure, but I'm almost positive I got the bad bill when I used a 50 JD note to pay for gasoline earlier in the day. Twenty JD is about 28 USD so this is no small loss --- an interesting but expensive novelty at the New Year's Party I attended later! You can be sure that I will check my change better in the future.

UPDATE: Turns out apparently I can take the counterfeit bill to the Central Bank and they will give me a new one. I have to report where I got the counterfeit bill and then they will send an auditor to check it out. 

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

This doesn't exist in Jordan: Safety and emissions tests

Sometimes here in Jordan I realize that something very commonplace in America just doesn't exist here. This happened once when I was sitting in traffic while driving home from work one day. I realized that vehicle and safety emissions tests do not exist in Jordan. (Most of my epiphanies happen whilst sitting in traffic, but coincidentally this one was actually driving-related.)

Since 2008, I have had to register my car twice - first in DC and then when I moved to Virginia. Both were horrible experiences, mainly due to my driver's side window which would not reliably go up and down on demand, resulting in trips back and forth between the mechanic and inspection stations. If the DMV existed in the 14th century, Dante would surely have included it as one of the rings of hell. If I were in Jordan however, I would have never had these issues, because as far as I can tell, any and all vehicles are acceptable for driving here.

In DC/Virginia and other U.S. states, vehicles must meet certain safety and emissions standards to be considered road-worthy. No so here in Jordan! I see vans without brake and taillights, trucks trailed by sooty fumes, and clunkers that look like they will crumble into 1,000 pieces at the next sudden stop. The public surveece buses are some of the worst offenders - chugging out thick, black smoke so bad you need to close your windows then clean your windshield. I even saw a taxi once with no trunk - he must've been rear-ended because the back was folded up like an accordion - but he was just going about his business, picking up passengers.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Tips for America from Jordan

I am an American living in Amman, Jordan. In these situations, there is often an expatriate inclination towards comparison between one's place of residence and one's birthplace. On occassion I experience something that makes me think "America could really learn from Jordan by [fill in blank]". I had one of these moments not long after arriving while still learning my way around. In general, finding places here is a complicated affair, as no one knows street names and directions are given by landmark, BUT once you make it to the right street, identifying a building is a breeze. All of the buildings, commercial and residential, have large blue street numbers. Aesthetically speaking of course, I will concede that this is not particularly attractive. But this is easily outweighed by the convenience. America: Learn from Jordan! Put big blue street numbers on all of your buildings and houses! That is all.