The Learning Journey

I arrived at Amman's (Queen Alia's airport) at 8:00 PM. George & Karim were waiting there with a sign carrying, not my name, but rather “Ruby on Rails” - all in red .


As they haven't seen me in person, they figured out that a RoR sign will get them a real smile or a nice wave and it sure did. Nice plan G&K.

On our 30 minutes drive from the airport, we discussed a lot of topics regarding Jordan, the ICT industry, our journeys, the economy. I had a good time. From what we discussed; Jordan is a melting pot with lots of people coming from all around. Palestine, Iraq, the Gulf, Egypt, and others. Jordan has no real natural resources, and hence, the economy is based on services, and seemingly few industries. According to G&K and from what I saw, a good deal of money is being invested in the real estate business, with construction sites all over Amman (with some mega projects). I later also learnt from Ahmed that it is one of the fastest growing cities in the world.

I checked into the Radisson SAS hotel (very nice with cosy rooms, courtesy of toot) - placed my bags - and headed with G&K for a nice dinner. G&K were so kind to tour-guide me, but I was having a traffic information overload - I thought I needed a map, but guess it wouldn't have helped !. We arrived at Faroujna, ordered a wonderful barbeque dinner with lots of apetizers and salads (Tabboula, Fattoush, Thomeyya) and digged in.

We held off the talk in business plans, but we warmed up with a wide array of discussions; itoot, the team, the web, Basecamp, Java, languages, Olivoice, AJAX, education, culture, business, Bibliotheca Alexandria, you name it.

Today felt more of a drum roll, with all the anticipation and enthusiasm. Tomorrow we'll have our first meeting at SYNTAX digital where I'll meet (Almost) all the members. I hope tomorrow would be a good day. UPDATE: It sure was.

After boarding the Royal Jordanian (RJ) plane heading for Amman, and while waiting for the take-off we were asked by the stewardess to hand in all what we have of, not knives, not nail clippers, not sprays, not cork screws, not shoes, but rather hand in all of our Guavas!

Some people have boarded the plane with some guava seeds, and as per RJ, the Guava aroma causes irritation to the Pilot. I have to agree that it doesn't feel right taking food on board of planes, especially smelly one. The aroma was so daunting that some passengers started to sneeze themselves. Yet, this was the strangest of all air travel etiquette I've ever experienced.

Anyways, RJ was kind enough to hand the passengers their guavas once we landed. So, for all those guava lovers who can't part with their favourite fruit - don't fly Jordanian

Technorati Tags: guava, royal jordanian, jordan

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I'm off to Amman, Jordan, to meet the team behind iToot.  We'll be mostly talking RoR, the web, and whatever we'll come up with.

I first came to know itoot from their posting on jobs.rubynow where they announced a need for a RoRailer. We started corresponding back in April, but things didn't materialize except in the last couple of weeks.

Despite the fact that I'm a bit worried (you know: uncharted territory, people I don't know in person, leaving family, etc…), yet, something has been pushing me to go. I think it's the team's prespective about the web, its power, and what seems to be big plans for the future.

So, wish me luck and keep me in your prayers.

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