The terminal... Guest star "Me".

"Hello Adi, I need to talk to you, you need to travel to Ethiopia for a meeting with a potential customer".

Packed and ready, few days later, the day of departure, I opened the demo laptop and Oops,... its the blue screen of death, My flight is in 3 hours, hold on I got email, I got 10 hours...Good.

Prepared another laptop, went to get my ticket... it was not ready yet, The customer promised that my visa is at the airport, waiting for me to come in my shining armor, riding a unicorn and coming for the rescue, "You have to go now... the flight is at 18:00 not 20:00, you will receive an SMS with the ticket No. on the way.

On the road now, TEET TEET, I got it, 2 numbers, no other data, I called the sender, Its Terminal 2 with Gulf Air, got there, and it wasn't terminal 2 and neither Gulf air, disappointed but in a hurry I got to the right place. an ambitious young guy behind the ticket counter looked at me and said:
-Him: you are going to Bahrain!
-Me: I know that
-Him:Where are you continuing afterward
-Me: Addis Ababa"... I answered with a smile, It means "the new flower" the highest city in Africa, with a cool weather and no diseases.

All I had was my passport, an invitation letter and a promised visa, the RJ employee nicely told me that they can't let me on board without a visa, but finally they let me in but after signing a paper indicating that I am traveling upon my own responsibility, I headed to Bahrain with excitement.

I arrived to Bahrain's airport, the plane started to go down over water, scary but promising. After the safe landing and the really strong brake that threw me in the air hanging with a seat belt, I went to get my boarding ticket, " the plane is at 4:15 ... 8 hours from now", I was told to come back at 12:00, I went up to the duty free area; the only slightly entertaining place in any airport.

Seconds passed like hours, hours like days, I did all the required work and it didn't pass 11:00 yet, got medication for my sore throat. At midnight I went back to the ticket counter they told me to come back at 1:00 am, I spent that hour fantasizing about taking off my shoes.

I went down stairs again, the airport representative printed my ticket, "hold on he said, where is your visa?" I explained that I have an Invitation letter and the visa is waiting for me at the airport, they refused, I made calls to Jordan, Lebanon and Ethiopia to put my manager and our partners in the picture, I gave the phone to the person in charge at the airport to talk to my manager after I woke him up it was a short conversation, but still no is a no.

I asked the airport employee to call Ethiopian airlines and ask them whether or not I had a visa, he agreed but kept me waiting for 3 hours , he came back, made me sign a paper that I am traveling on my own responsibility and gave me the ticket, My flight was delayed from 4:15 to 4:45, thank god this happened because I was at the gate at 4:20.

Got on the plane which was not what I would call "Tidy" I never heard of a "very strict economy" airplane ticket, where it is free seating... have you?

Finally I got some sleep, when all of a sudden a really strong light woke me up, it was so intense and so warm, I opened my eyes to see the most amazing view ever, sunrise over and ocean of clouds, it was like the emergence of the obvious truth.

Once we approached Ethiopian airspace the land was like millions of green carpet pieces of all shades of green, with dark black soil than appeared from above in spite of its small size, small rivers emerged from lakes, going distances to merge with other small that finally feeds almost half of the longest river in the world "The Nile" I was so excited to go there and see in closely.

I got to the airport and Voila ... There was no visa, the customer sent someone to solve the issue but he disappeared, my passport was taken from me and I just waited at the terminal for 15 hours, in the first 3 hours I was contacting the other person who arrived to Ethiopia, the airport staff told me they are sending me to Bahrain the same night, If that happened I would wait at the airport for around 18 hours until I go back to Jordan.


I convinced them that I can go to Lebanon and that I can manage from there to go back to Jordan, they approved, but refused to give me back my passport " got it back later but when I was on board".

I kissed my passport ... there is no place like home, things went really smooth at the Lebanese airport and the flight was good as well, I went back by car to Jordan it took less than 5 hours, it was so good to be home but still because I couldn't achieve the mission I went for, I still wish I can go back and give it a retry.

Lesson learned: Travel can be good for weight loss!.

This was Amman!

This was taken from an article in Arabic language written by Ibrahim Jaber Ibrahim, I hope you enjoy this collage of memories about Amman ... please note that i did few changes to the original text to make sure the meaning remains the same ... Enjoy

This is for who knew Amman 40 years ago or maybe more, back then ... our names sounded prettier, Women where more feminine,The smell of cooked Okra used to sneak out from the windows of houses and the "Jovial " watch on the wrist of an old man was the house's newest and most expensive gadget.

Back then , Rain drops were more enriched with water, and the 8:00 pm news were less saturated with blood, the taste of sunshine in our mouths was better and the road to "Al Musdar" was less crowded with Trucks carrying furniture, Back then when school girls hid there femininity on the pages of there science notebooks .

At that time , Sameera tawfik's dimples where the most obscene scene on TV, The bus ride was for only 2 Piasters , Daily magazines used to publish all the names of the students who passed the general high school exam "tawjihi". There was a time in Amman when the gutter used to collect rain water in barrels and story writers used to publish gathered story collections.

Back then when wedding sweets were distributed in thin glass cups called "matbakaniat", and at dawn when the housewife used to pass a glass of tea from behind the door to the garbage man who wiped away the sweat on his forehead and enjoyed the shadow of a nearby wall while sipping the tea.

There was a time when "Northern Shouna" was the end of the world, "Think and Win" was the most important TV competition show, and we never knew that there was a fruit that has the same name of the shoe cleaner "KIWI" we also never imagined that one day we will pull the telephone from its roots and put it in out pockets.

Qdamah - roasted hommous- was given as a prescription for stomach ache and kids used to kiss the hand of their neighbor on the morning of feast.

Back then... when the Chinese soccer shoes where on the top of the wish list of good students, "news of the week" for its owner "Abdulhafeez Mohammed" the most important and the boldest newspaper ever, Germany was the land of dreams and the photo of the singer Sabah on the back of the hand mirror hung against the wall.

When people woke up on the sound of "Mazen al Qubbaj" or "Samra Abdulmajeed" and at noon they heard "Kawthar Nashashibi" ,and waiting impatiently for "Ibraheen Al Samman" in the evening.

The local TV station used to close everyday just like any shop or restaurant , The "Ahli" entertainment city was the place where all rich people used to go to,A trip to Swaileh needed preparation for 2 days and The Jordanian University was a lonely one.

When the red "Bic" pens were the only way to express the burning love emotions before mobile Phone were even invented, when book stores used to sell special paper for letters that had flower drawings and the real flowers were only sold at Jabal Amman, The high class neighborhood , and when passports were made in hand writing.



People used to travel to Syria by train , it was a shame for a man to wear a shirt with short sleeves, Most of houses had Iron baking ovens,where mothers used to bake bread every morning... Hearing the bills of the sheep was the sign that the Shepperd who sells milk is in the neighborhood and the widowed neighbor used to sit all day long against the outside wall carrying her grief with one hand on her cheek.

People used to congratulate and give condolences to each other with a large sac of sugar, mothers used to bathe their kids using plastic gallons and bread sticks was the right gift to bring when visiting an ill person.

Internet was beyond our imagination, If you talked about eye contacts to someone you would be considered an atheist worthy of death, and if you show people you messenger you would have had followers thinking you are some sort of super hero.

There was a time where days were appealing and the cold weather made the kids hands turn red, life was more cold, more poor but it was always green, and we dare too ask ... why do the apples have a different taste?