On first impressions, the traffic was nowhere near as crazy as in Al Khobar, though we did manage to pass 4 separate incidents of minor bingles on the 40 minute drive from the airport to the hotel.
On the front steps of The Radisson, we were met by yet another International Traders rep who greeted us warmly and introduced himself as Mr. Mohammed. Certainly can’t fault them for being attentive, friendly or on the ball! He breezed us through hotel registration, amended the vouchers to reflect the correct details (demonstrating how efficiently he had caught the baton from Mr. Allal’aiyah) and had us seated in the lobby to discuss trip details, hand us our brochure and map show-bag and answer any questions.
While we were perched on the edge of 2 riskily luxurious tub chairs, a drinks waiter approached. Thought a Perrier water might be good seeing as it was now 3.30 pm and we still hadn’t had any food or drink since 3 AM! The Perrier was great and went down well – but the bill for same certainly didn’t! It came to over 6 JOD for 2 small glasses (not bottles) Thought that was just a tad expensive and somewhat over the top really – so made a mental note not to do that again in a hurry, as visions of mass budget-blowouts manifested before the eyes.
Made a move to head upstairs and reached over to take our bags, when suddenly from nowhere the bell boy sprang out and wrested them back. We went up in one lift and the bell-boy leapt into the other one next to it, and he ended up meeting us on the bend in the hall right before the door of our room, coming from the opposite direction. Felt a bit like impromptu actors in bad French farce, all doors and darkened hallways – and with a laugh handed him the tip he deserved for the comedic relief he provided and his navigational ingenuity :)
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| Room at The Radisson SAS Amman |
As it was only 3.40 pm and not even close to the Ramadan iftar hour, we had little other option than to order room service before we fainted from lack of food. LOTS to choose from but went with the steak sandwich for TheBoy at JOD6 and the Halloumi sandwich at JOD 5.
When it came 20 minutes later, it was not snack-sized at all .. massive serves accompanied by one, possibly two, large handfuls of Jordanian black olives, very plump, very good and somewhat reminiscent of Kalamatas. Sufficiently recovered from imminent starvation, we felt almost strong enough to go out to experience the general ambience of downtown peak hour Amman.
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