Taxis

So here's a lovely story of how we got home from school today.

Normally we take the bus home from school, but we're leaving for a weekend trip down south this weekend, so we needed to go to the bank across the street from school to exchange money before we left, so eight of us decided to just go there and then take taxis home. Taxis are usually easy, so no big.

So first, we need to get a taxi. Traffic is insane here, what with there being no actual lanes and such, and every taxi that passed us was full, until we finally got one.

Total time so far: 30 minutes

So there's four of us in this cab, and in Jordan women DO NOT sit in the front of the taxi unless necessary. But we decided that it'd be fine, although honestly this was the first time I'd seen any women in the front of  taxi. So I sit in the front of the cab, and he refuses to look at me, which is the polite thing to do here, but it's strange to be in the front of the cab with a driver who refuses to talk to or look at you. But that's respectful here, so no big.

We drive a little bit, but trafffic is insane. His 3dad, or meter, isn't very fast though, so it's okay. Some meters here are by time, not distance, so traffic is  problem. But that wasn't in this cab, so we were good. We get to a standstill, and he turns to my side and calls through the window to another cab driver beside us for a lighter. Everyone smokes here, so it's guaranteed he has one. And when I mean everyone, I don't literally mean everyone, but just about. But that's what I love about Jordan, the fact that the other driver tossed me a lighter, my driver lit his cigarette, and then we handed it back. But they refused to touch my hand in this process, and so there's that whole magical barrier around women again. I guess that's just here, and it's nice sometimes.

After getting to the area of Amman where two of the girls live, and having their host mom give the driver directions for the rest of the way, they got home, leaving two of us in the cab.

Total time: 1 hour 30 minutes.

So then we tell the driver that we need to get to the hospital across the street from our house, and he nods and takes off.

Half an hour later, we get to  traffic circle, and he points out the window and says that the hospital is right over there, and we can get out there. So we do, and he leaves. The hospital wasn't right there. There was nothyer one there, but we didn't actually need a hospital.

So all in all, we waited by that traffic circle for another fourty minutes, and when we did get a cab we had to pay extra so he'd take us and not the six other people all trying to get the cab.

Total time to get home, which would be a ten minute cab ride: 3 hours.

I love Amman.