The day before my birthday I bid farewell to Kelly, and spent the afternoon in London having a leisurely lunch and treated myself to a pedicure (the Camino has officially claimed half a nail. Not bad). Then a long train ride to the airport where I immediately see my flight is already delayed. Oh no! One more thing!! Normally it wouldn’t bother me at all, except I ended up booking my tickets to Jordan and back with a different airline than I was arriving with in Cairo. And I read online that I may have to go out and back in through security because they are in different terminals. And I don’t know how that would work getting rebooked for a missed flight in a different airline, and I couldn’t relax knowing I would have to run around on immediate arrival. Could nothing be easy?!
Then the ju ju changed.

Kindness # 1 was a woman who happened to be sitting at the counter next to the (unmanned) EgyptAir counter, for Air Ethiopia or something,
who three separate times called down for me and talked me through it.
#2 Was just a random woman offering samples of something for the duty free who looked me in the eyes, could tell I was upset, and asked me if I was alright. I don’t think you get that level of sincerity from strangers often and it woke me up.
#3 was the service guy at the EgyptAir counter who took control of my situation upon arrival in Cairo, sped-walked me down somewhere and called a VIP van to take me all the way across the airport to Terminal 1. The driver and I had a nice chat in our separate languages about how sprawling the airport is.

There I was ushered into an open glass room with a metal detector and 3 guys in white shirts smoking cigarettes. One of them took my passport after asking a few questions in rough English and walked away. A family that was already sitting in the room told me I had better sit down and wait because they had been waiting since midnight and were basically missing their flight as we spoke. They were English-speaking but not Americans; I don’t know if that made a difference.

#4 Not even 10 minutes later the guy with my passport walks back in, followed by a guy waving a ticket and asking “Amman?” Yes! Me! He handed my passport and ticket and said “Send my regards to Mr. Obama!” I laughed, told him I will, and away I went, to arrive at the gate 20 minutes before boarding.

I arrived in Amman and went through the process of getting my visa which went smoothly, and then got on the bus to the city.
#5 On the bus a Kuwaiti engineer started chatting with me in English, asked where I was going, if I had been here before, etc. The entire bus started giving recommendations, through him, on where I should go, which bus to take, what the taxi should cost, etc etc. Right off the bat I felt completely safe and welcomed. The engineer ended up haggling with a taxi driver for me and shared the cab, basically he felt he needed to escort me. It was very sweet.

I met Jonathan at the hotel he had booked for us, and we spent the afternoon walking around the old city, got lunch on Rainbow Road, and watched the sun set from the wall of the citadel, perched above the city. We timed it to experience the evening call to prayer echoing around us. All of the minarets are lighted in green and it was beautiful to look across the city, dressed in yellow and pink light and shadows.

Today we aren’t sure where will go, making our way to either Petra or the Dead Sea depending on the bus or taxi that we find. I feel relaxed here, after a lazy morning of talking about our travels and having breakfast at the roof top cafe. Wherever we go it will be good. I am not worried.