Around The World

After waking to the sound of the alarm at 6:15 am this morning, we got ourselves organised, and headed off to an early breakfast. The rain was falling this morning, so we managed to get pretty wet on the way to breakfast. We had a quick (and not very photogenic) breakfast so that we could get back to the room and arrange to get our luggage transported to the lobby.

After a frustrating 15-minute walk in the rain to get back to the hotel’s reception area to check out, we got into a waiting car to take us to Amman’s Queen Alia Airport. After a drive of just under an hour, we arrived at the airport. Once inside the airport doors, our luggage was scanned. We endured a somewhat comical analysis of the medication we were carrying, which was made even more amusing by none of the airport security staff being able to speak English.

After getting the all-clear on the medication, we checked in and proceeded to immigration. Our hand luggage was scanned again but this time the issue wasn’t the medicine; rather, it was an item in the camera bag that caught the attention of the security staff. It’s not unusual to have the camera bag manually inspected, given the amount of gear in it. But was different this time was that the item that apparently warranted closer inspection was a small air-blower (used to blow dust off the camera sensor). This item is literally just a small rubber balloon with a plastic nozzle on it, that is squeezed to make air come out of it. We assumed that it would take about five seconds to look at it, and then we’d move on. But nearly 20 minutes later, with five security staff and an airport policemen inspecting it while engaging in animated discussion (in Arabic), we were starting to wonder whether we were going to be added to the Jordan no-fly list! But, without any explanation, the air blower was suddenly handed back to us, and we were free to go. We didn’t hang around to ask for an explanation!

We still had plenty of time before our flight was due to depart, so we headed to the lounge and relaxed. Andrea was especially impressed with the Royal Jordanian lounge because it had an ice-cream machine!

We departed on time at 12:00 pm and settled in for what should have been a five-hour flight. But the weather and air traffic at Heathrow resulted in us holding outside London for nearly an hour, meaning that we landed around 4:30 pm in London (two hours behind Jordan) instead of at 3:20 pm. Since we were meeting our dear friends Simon and Mags for dinner at 6:30 pm, this put us under a bit of pressure to get out of the airport as efficiently as possible.

We got our luggage pretty quickly, jumped into a cab, and headed for the Ham Yard Hotel in Soho. The London traffic wasn’t too bad, and we got to the hotel around 6:00 pm. We checked in and went straight to our room to shower and change for dinner.

At 6:30 pm, we raced downstairs to meet Simon and Mags in the hotel’s restaurant.

It was great to catch up with Simon and Mags and enjoy a lovely dinner together again. The time went too quickly, and before we knew it, we were saying goodbye.

We have no specific plans for tomorrow in London, so we’ll just see what the day brings.