Expecting the Unexpected

On the 21st of August 2015 I found myself on an outbound flight from Hamburg Airport heading towards the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in the Middle East, a region I have not visited before, a culture I just knew about from the news, documentaries or similar sources. I am a well-travelled person, have had a lot of first times, but this one was truly special as this region in particular is topic to many important meetings, publicly and secretly – even more recently, due to the emergence of the IS and the formation of the military intervention against it, in which Jordan plays a significant part. This blog will contain entries with a twofold aim; namely documenting the journey but more importantly reflect – critically, if necessary – on the experiences I have made and people I have met. The publications that will be used to understand and explain these experiences include papers on the tourist gaze, interaction between tourist and natives, emotions and feelings and photography. I will elaborate more thoroughly on them in the particular blog entries. In contrast to most of the group my journey contained a solo travel part, as I arrived a couple of days before the programme started. I can – and will – therefore undertake a comparison of the experiences I have made while being alone and while being with a group. It is impossible to address all the topics without informing you, as the reader, about the historical background of this region and of Jordan specifically. If appropriate I will therefore include information, aimed to make the entries more accessible for you.
After a three hours layover in Vienna, followed by another three and something hours flight, the plane touched the ground. Here I was, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, a country just waiting to fill up my upcoming ten days with stories, new friends and much more.
LLM
Boarding the plane at the Vienna Airport View from the plane on Amman, Jordan