November 28th: Goodbye, Dubai...Hello, Jordan!

The next morning, Mark and I woke up, finished packing...

...and said goodbye to this view and goodbye to Rupert. It would have been nice to stay longer, but we had more plans for our time off!

We had a bit of free time before our flight, so we went to The Farm for breakfast with Megan and Marcus. You wouldn't know this was in a desert country with this view!

It was nice to squeeze in a bit more time with them over breakfast. We eventually finished up, rode to the airport, and said goodbye to Megan and Marcus. It had been nice to see them again, and the next time we wind up visiting them, it will probably be in New Zealand!

Check in and security both went very smoothly, and we had time to hang out with some coffee before boarding our flight.

I had plenty of time to enjoy this view before we pushed back; there was a huuuuuge Indian tour group on our flight and everyone was sitting in the wrong seats. It took a while to get everyone sorted out, but we did eventually push back, taxi out, and take off.

Goodbye, Dubai...I'll see you again someday!

The food on the flight was pretty good; I think this was some kind of lamb stew. Not bad for a three-ish hour flight!

I spent most of the rest of the time checking out the scenery. I love deserts, and the Middle East certainly doesn't disappoint.

A little while later, we started our final descent into Amman. You could see the Dead Sea in the distance.

The scenery was incredible; we flew over miles and miles of small, light colored buildings.

I pulled up the front-facing camera as we came in to land, and managed to grab this picture just before we touched down. Honestly, 'touched' might be the wrong word; 'slammed' is more appropriate. It seemed like the pilot completely forgot about the part of landing where you level out to stop the descent, then flare to touch down gently. It was certainly an arrival (and honestly one of the worst airline landings I've ever had - it was BAD).

Customs, baggage claim, and sorting out our visas went pretty smoothly, then we went outside to find a taxi to take us to our hotel. The taxi ride was hilariously...interesting. We weren't five minutes out of the airport when our taxi driver pulled wildly over to the side of the road, where a man appeared from a building carrying a tray. Our taxi driver ordered coffee, then we sat there while the coffee was made. (He did ask us if we wanted any; when we both said 'no, thanks', he got us some water bottles instead.) When the coffee was eventually sorted out, we got back on the highway, where the driver promptly called what I'm guessing was a relative and got in a fairly heated discussion with them in Arabic, all while weaving over all the lanes of the road (and in a few spots, making his own lanes). We did eventually get to the hotel in one piece, but the ride there was certainly an adventure!

Our hotel was really nice, and the rooftop terrace looked out over the city. We wandered around, checking everything out, before heading downstairs for some dinner.

There was a restaurant with good reviews attached to our hotel, so we decided to give it a try. Those reviews were spot on...everything was delicious! This was only part of what we ate; at one point, the table seemed almost covered with dishes of amazing things. We stuffed ourselves and still had leftovers.

At the end of the meal, our waiter brought over this giant plate of fruit so we could each pick something as a dessert of sorts, which I thought was pretty cool. We eventually finished dinner and made our way back upstairs with our leftovers.

We wrapped up the night with some room service wine in the room. I spent some time sorting through pictures on my computer, and we watched a couple Italian game shows on TV before heading to bed. We had more fun things planned for the next day!