- When you land at Queen Alia Airport: need to queue to exchange some money, because nobody tells you that you need 10 JD/per person to queue to get the visa; then you queue with immigration... and finally you queue to show your passport... Don't you just love it??
- If you are to be resident you have the whole blood test/police station thing - which I am sure must be a pain in the butt (excuse my french) should you miss one tiny piece of paper... I wonder when we will get ours. Nobody can really say how long it takes, I guess it all depends if Bob's employer pushes for it or not. And then to get your things out of the port of Aqaba, should you have send some, is probably very interesting as well! We have somebody from the hotel doing it for us, otherwise it is a drive to Aqaba (about 4hours with a baby) and some lengthy talks with somebody who goes through every single thing that you wish to bring into the country and one to pay import fees. I know somebody who was asked to pay 2000JD to get their stuff, they bargained it down to 800JD, still to get your own used things...
- Our dishwasher has arrived! Youpi! well it is still in the middle of the kitchen because it wasn't the right tap, and though the tap has been fitted now, well I don't really know when the guys who should get it up and running, are going to make a reappearance!
- When we moved in 3 days ago the heating was still not quite working, we were told it could take some time because the floors are so cold - good thing we are in Jordan and not northern Europe! The central heating button was on, but one day, two days went past and the floors remained stubbornly cold! So this morning an engineer from the hotel came and... the valves were not open. And as you can see there are a lot of valves. I guess there is one for every room/bathroom/cupboard in the apartment!
- We have a little red light that shows that the water level is low in the building. Well it as been on since we moved in... and last night no more water! So we call our favourite handy-man (and yes the guy-without-a-name will get his own post soon, he really deserves it) and up he comes, Bobs shows the tap: goes no water?? and he bla bla bla in Arabic (Mr Handy-man not Bobs)... Off he goes and 5 minutes later he is back and so is the water. Well apparently the tank was closed! Why don't know?!? And there is just so much one can understand when taking with the hands.
And finally this has nothing to do with the administration, or the apartment... When you are going grocery shopping: 2 things... First don't assume that because a supermarket had something last week that they will have it next week: if you like it, buy it!! and... people just randomly stops in an random aisle and speak with random people (no ok they probably know the persons they stop and talk to): so there you are heading for the tomatoes and suddenly you have these 2 guys chatting away about random things in front of your tomatoes...
Patience, patience is a key word in Jordan!
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