We're Ba-ack

These were my observations traveling back to Jordan this week:

Walking through the Detroit airport, my roll-y suitcase and I stopped in our tracks when I saw some bright lights flickering down a small hallway. This is what I saw:

iPod vending machine? Yes. It is.

14 hours later, I was enjoying the cool desert air in our early morning drive from the airport to the city. And this is what I saw:

Making adjustments on the satellite to get the Disney Channel?

{So, I had to borrow this photo from the internet because my camera was packed away}

But, along the airport road next to some of the wealthiest houses in Jordan are Bedouin tents interspersed through the desert. And outside most the tents were propped up satellite dishes.

Conclusion: Each society has its own way of dealing with technology addictions!

A Little Bit of West in the East

As you know, we live in the Middle EAST.

As you know, Thanksgiving was last week.

As you know, that is a 100% WESTERN holiday.

As you know, we couldn't let a holiday pass like that being un-celebrated.

So, this is how you pull off a WESTERN holiday in the Middle EAST.

{WARNING: it is not easy}

Step 1: You get very nervous that no turkeys are showing up in the local grocery stores leading up to Thanksgiving. You block out a day near Thanksgiving to drive 4 hours up and 4 hours back to the capital to buy a turkey OR you put a friend in the capital on stand-by to buy a cooler, buy a turkey, and send it on the bus down to you. But, you rejoice when you get text messages from every foreigner you know in town the day turkeys arrive to the local grocery store. You run to the store and pay $65 for an 18 lb BUTTERBALL turkey. Then you come home and try to figure out how to squeeze a frozen 18 lb turkey into your tiny freezer.

Step 2: You google a lot of really strange things.

Google Search: can I freeze celery {because celery only shows up every once in a great while at the veggie man and if you don't grab it when he has it, your celery recipes will, well, lack celery}

Google Search: what is cream corn {because your Aunt Dena's cream corn recipe needs cream corn, so if you have to 'fabricate' it you wonder if you just dump regular corn in the blender to make cream corn}

Google Search: how do you cook a pumpkin {because, gasp, there are no cans of Libby's Pumpkin Pie mix to be found this year, so, gasp, you have to get pumpkin from A PUMPKIN to home make all the pumpkin recipes}

Step 3: You have to field funny questions from your neighbors. {In our last apartment, we received a knock on the door as the turkey was cooking. The smell was apparently wafting through the entire building. The knocker was designated by the other neighbors to come and ask if we were cooking pork. No, we said. It was our Thanksgiving turkey. He explained he had never smelled either. Then asked if his family could join us for Thanksgiving. The more the merrier!}

 

Step 4: You have to look for hidden treasures in the ingredients. {It seems that all the flour here is laced with bugs. Yum. So, not only do you have to MAKE the cornbread {no Jiffy Mix} for the corn casserole, MAKE the spice cake for the pumpkin pie cake {no Betty Crocker}, and MAKE dinner rolls {no Great Harvest Bread Co}, you have to SIFT ALL THE DRY INGREDIENTS in case there are hidden treasures. I only found a few this time around.}

Step 5: You invite people over that have become your family away from family. You eat till you can't eat no more. You all crash in the living room in a food coma. Then you play reruns of Charlie Brown and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. That's what we did. {And since it was 90 degrees out the 'kid table' got to be outside.}

Step 6: You eat tons of leftovers for days and days with no microwave to heat them up in because it was an knock-off Chinese thing that caught on fire a while back and you never bothered to replace it for fear of a second more disastrous fire.

And that, my dear blogging friends is how you bring a Western holiday to the East. 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Now I'm off to figure out Christmas!

Differences...

You know I love celebrating culture. One aspect of culture I love to observe is the differences in how people live from one part of the world to another. Now that I am nearly over jet lag {I am now able to at least talk in complete sentences} I made a little list-y of what I have observed these past few days.

1. There is a lot of water in the toilets. My kids were very loud in announcing this fact in the airport bathroom when we arrived in Chicago. So, now a lot of people know that there is a lot of water in the toilets in America!

2. My son noticed this one...and I quote: "Why does that little man just sit in the gas station store? Why won't he come out and put gas in our car for us? What is wrong with him?" My son was feeling very offended for my poor husband who actually had to get out of the car and pump his own gas.

3. The grocery stores are the size of a small village. Literally. My family could live in a grocery store and we would have more amenities there then we would in the small villages I am referring to. We could sleep in the bedding section. Enjoy Starbucks for breakfast. Visit our pets in the aquarium section. Enjoy entertainment in the electronics section. Send the kids to school in the book section. Visit the doctor in the pharmacy. And get some fresh air in the garden section. Oh, and there is so much food too.

4.Speaking of food. When you buy a dozen eggs here...you get a dozen eggs. No poop. No feathers. No rotten eggs. No cracked eggs laced with salmonella. Just eggs. Kind of shocking.

5. I don't have to say a little prayer every time I plug something in.

6. The water that comes out of the faucet. It's clean! AND...the cold water is cold and the hot water is hot.

7. People obey the traffic laws. And they even use turn signals!

We are enjoying the differences! Especially the fact that last night the weather was 50 degrees cooler than the average temperature we were used to. I need a snow suit. Gotta run out to the small village {I mean grocery store} to grab one.

Two Simple Questions

We live in a pork free country. It's not halal and all.

1. So who brought a Piggly Wiggly grocery store here?

2. And by changing the 'p' to a 'b'...does that make it all better?

{We have discussed this problem here before...and here.}

Yesterday, I wanted a bunch of Apricots...

so I could throw them.

Let me explain.

I went to the grocery store to 'grab a few things.' I could do a post a day about grocery store stories. But, I don't, because they would all be heavily focused on complaining, and that is not what this blog is for. This blog is about seeing the humor in the situations I encounter everyday and therefore enjoying the differences. I currently see no humor in anything to do with my stinky, dirty, unorganized, low stocked grocery store. (that was not a string of complaints, by the way, just a few facts).

I was particularly surprised about the nice selection of fruits and veggies that day. I even found sweet potatoes! I was actually a little happy at the grocery store. A feeling I am not really familiar with.

I even got a chuckle at the guy in front of me at the veggie check out (you have to have your veggies weighed in the dept before you go to the check out) because he had just come from the check out where his apples were priced at 40 dinar (about $60!) Poor guy!

After loading up my cart, I get in line and all my items get scanned and bagged. I hand over my credit card and she swipes it. She waits, she waits, she waits, and reports that the card won't go through. She tries the credit card machine at the register next to her. She waits, she waits, she waits, the line grows and grows, she waits, and reports the credit card won't go through. I tell her I don't have enough cash with me. (I am an American, for Petes sake. I don't carry cash with me. I use my credit card because then I get miles and can therefore visit my homeland for free! Good deal!)

So, I take my full grocery cart up to the managers desk, tell him what is going on and ask him to run my credit card again. He does and waits and waits and waits. No go. The machine reports an error with the phone line.

I tell him I have to leave my groceries, run home, get cash and come back to pay. He keeps my cart for me. I run home, grab cash, and run back. When I arrive, the receipt that tells how much I have to pay has been lost. So, they send me back to the line, take all my items out of the bag, re-scan everything...and low and behold...the total is different than before. So, they scan everything again...and another total comes up. Some quick math is done and a 2 dinar item is scanned again to get the total from before, before. I pay my cold hard cash and come home. AGAIN.

Later that day when I was on Facebook, I found this posted by a few friends:




Okay, I get the message. This guy knows how to enjoy his apricots today.

I will too. And my sweet potatoes too!