The Michigan Difference

So. . . we ended up cutting our backpacking trip a little short and are now back in Alexandria.
Why exactly??
Well. . .let me tell you!

So we took a bus from Petra to Amman- actually we took a taxi from Petra to Maan, and then a mini bus from Maan to Amman. This mini bus was old and in order for it to start, some of the passengers had to get out and push to get it rollling (kind of like in the movie "Little Miss Sunshine) before it would start. But we made it safe and sound. We spent a day in Amman and had some great food and sweets from the restaurant called Jerusalem restaurant. It was a good thing that we both read Arabic because the waiters definitely did not want to have to translate the menu for us. That being said, we were still kind of guessing at what we were ordering, not understanding the menu 100%. But it was delicious.
The next day we got and went to the Citadel on top of a high hill in the middle of the city. There were some great ruins there and we also got an awesome view of all around the city. Then we took a bus to Irbid, a city in Northern Jordan, so we could take a service taxi to Syria the next day.
Once in Irbid we were searching for a hotel in the guide book called the Omayyad hotel. Two separate taxi drivers dropped us off at the wrong hotel- the Omayya hotel. We ended up staying there because we couldn't find the hotel in the guide book. It ended up working out ok. We took a taxi to the area near the University because the book mentioned lots of good places to eat there. We ate a small sandwhich at a cafe and then wandered around. A little while later we decided we were still hungry and had happened upon the "American" part of town- Pizza hut, Burger King, KFC, and a few others. We decided that we were both missing home and were craving some good pizza- so we were "those people" and went to pizza hut for dinner. It didn't disappoint!
After dinner we took a quick trip to a convient store to load up on something for breakfast and snacks for our anticipated wait at the Syrian border. We walked around the store grabbing at goodies like chocolate mild, oreos, nestle cereal, peanut butter, and dried apricots. After our quick trip into the store we started walking outside again and passed a delicious looking sweet shop and stepped in.
We ordered some baklava and went upstairs to sit as we waited for the waitress to bring it up. While we were waiting we looked at a menu and decided we should order some icecream as well. We saw an absolutely delicious looking picture of a banana split so when the waitress came over, I pointed at it to oder.
"Cheesecake??" she asked.
I wasn't really sure if there was a word for banana split, so I just explained that we wanted what was in the picture- icecream and chocolate syrup on top of the bananas. She looked at me like I was crazy. After a few more minutes of conversation, we figured out that while it was pictured on the menu, they didn't actually have a banana split and settled for a dish of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry icecream instead. It was all delicious along with the baklava. We went back to the hotel and rested up for the next day. . . Syria.
We got up and took a taxi to the bus station and hopped on a mini bus which I thought was bound for a town on the Syria border. Turns out the bus was actually bound for another bus station from which we had to take a service taxi into Syria. Securing this service taxi was truly a challenge to my Arabic skills. I had to explain that while we were looking to go to Syria, we hadn't obtained a visa yet, and were going to have to wait at the border. The other two people in the taxi were protesting our getting in: apparently they were supposed to be in Lebanon by 3:30 (a time they weren't going to make whether we were in the car or not). The driver finally agreed that he would wait a little while at the border with us before leaving and continuing on. So we departed.
We stopped at the Jordanian border and paid our departure tax while our driver and the other two passengers hit the duty free store. Then we crossed out of Jordan and stopped at the duty free store on the other side. Our cab driver bought enough cigarettes to last months- well, maybe not at the rate most men seem to smoke here. We went in the passport controll building to get the visa process started. When we explained that we didn't have a visa and needed one- the border guard promptly told us to go to the building next door and photocopy our passport. So we went to the building next door- it was a rest room. Next building: tourism office= they sent us to the next building. This was another passport office- one more building over was where we needed to be. So, we proceeded to cross the border into Syria to have our passports copied, and then cross back to continue the visa process. We submitted our passports and were told the information would be faxed to Damascus and we'd have to wait.
So we sat down next to two guys who looked like they had been waiting a while, and who also looked American. Turns out they were two students from Ohio State who had been waiting since 10am (it was about 12:30pm at this time). They were both doing an Arabic language program in Jordan for the summer. We talked about being Arabic students, their views of Jordan, and joked with eachother about the upcoming football season. Then we all pulled out some books and began to pass the time. I took up reading the first Harry Potter book in Arabic.
Hours passed. Then more passed. Then some more. Before we knew it, it was 6 oclock and we hadn't heard a word on our visas. The conclusion: we'd have to spend the night.
Brent and I decided that we had had enough of being in transit places. We had spent more time trying to get anywhere than actually being anywhere. This was the final straw- we decided to head back into Jordan. Easier said than done we found out.
The Syrian border guards refused to give us back our passports until we produced a driver who was going to drive us back into Jordan. For the first time in my life in the Middle East- we couldn't find a cab when we needed one. Finally, one cab driver agreed that he had extra space for 2 in his car to the border and the driver asked another man to do the same. The man reluctantly agreed, stating that it was going to cost us each 500 lira a piece. We agreed- didn't really have much choice. So we showed the driver to the guards and got our passports back, and they gave us one piece of paper for all four of us to show the border guards in order to pass back into Jordan since they weren't stamping our passports.
We agreed that that OSU guys were going with the taxi driver and they took the paper with them. We followed the second man who we thought was another taxi driver to his car. It turns out he was not a taxi driver- just some random man coming back from Lebanon with his family. They moved an assortment of produce to the trunk of the S class mercedes to make room for us in the back. We hopped in and hoped for the best. We waited in the line of cars and made small talk with our driver and his cousin. They were pleasantly surprised to learn that we spoke Arabic. When we finally got to the border, the guards demanded the paper that the other car had and made us pull over for a few minutes until they straightened it out- the other car had already gone through and left the paper with the guards. We were relieved to be back on the Jordanian side and were sure that the man, who's name we would learn in Muhammad, was going to kick us out of his car. Instead, he followed us inside to make sure that we got our exit stamp canceled and could get back into Jordan ok. No problems there.
When I presented our passports to the guard and told him we had tried to get into Syria and we could not, so we wanted to return to Jordan, he gave me a big smile and said "ahlan wa sahlan." "Welcome to Jordan." I think this happens more often than we know.
When we were arriving at the passport building, we saw the two OSU guys across the way- apparently kicked out of their taxi, heading for the duty free shop.
After we got all of that straightened out, Muhammad directed us back to his car. I was a little confused, because I was pretty sure this is where we would need to get a taxi back to Irbid. But he gave us bananas and lemonade- so I wasn't arguing too much. Eventually Muhammad's cousin and his sister or another cousing got in the car and we continued. The woman in the car argued with Muhammad a bit about us being in there, asking how much he was charging us for the ride and when we was going to let us out. At this point I was hoping it wasn't any time soon since he had driven us through the border check and now we were essentially in the middle of nowhere. Muhammad instead waved off her protests and I heard him tell her he was taking us all the way back to Irbid. He then told her we understood Arabic.
She turned around and began to talk to us. I told her I was a student in Alexandria studying Arabic. She was pleased. She made a comment about us trying to learn Arabic while they were trying to learn English. Overall, as the conversation continued, she seemed to warm up to us.
Muhammad not only drove us all the way back to Irbid, but even dropped us off right at our hotel. When I tried to pay him for the ride, he refused- saying that we were friends now.
I simply couldn't believe the generousity from this man. It was amazing. How many people in the US do you know that would give complete strangers a lift to the nearest bus station, let along carry them across an international border and drop them off at a town some 30 minutes away from there. Amazing.

As we checked into the hotel, exhausted and truly glad to be back in Jordan we came to this conclusion:
Two Ohio State students pay 500 lira a piece to ride in a taxi literally a kilometer across an international border.
Two University of Michigan students managed to hitch a ride in a 100 thousand dollar mercedes to the nearest town, pay nothing and make friends. That's the Michigan Difference.