Vodka Martinis in Amman

When you prepare to come study in the Middle East, you have your last drink the weekend before you leave your friends and you then resign yourself to three months of not drinking because how do you drink without friends? Also - Greencastle doesn't really help you build an imagination of what drinking in the adult world could look like so whatever. Alcohol really only exists to make frat parties bearable. But then… you chance upon Rainbow Street and it’s even better than the articles and the books and the Must Visits you’ve read so far in your background research. And come the first real weekend you have free and your entire program lands up on Shareea El- Rinbo at various different places on this long street and finally after a couple of beers at a café (pre-gaming as we would call it at a campus party) and about a couple of hours with the argeelleyh (the one and only constant love of any self respecting Jordanian – better known to the world as either the hookah or the shisha), you all descend on the same lounge and in true American style commandeer an entire floor and set up base camp, under the aegis of the really cool, dreadlock sporting manager. From there, start rolling the orders, the Long Island Ice Teas and the beers dominate with the occasional Vodka Martini and Sex on the Beach thrown in for the sake for diversity. A bartender is requisitioned off to cater to your needs and the manager himself personally checks in on you, clearing up more tables and chairs for you, your every wish is their command. Other patrons stop by, our high spirits having caught their attention, and we’re soon making friends and spreading out all over the lounge, taking it over slowly, one table at a time, one drink at a time. And as the evening rolls along and more people land up and you progressively get louder and more exuberant, you realize that Amman caught you off guard again. You’d made a pact with yourself, you’d thrown back that last shot and proudly said that you were done for the next three months but there you are, in your strappy top, sipping your Vodka Martini, laughing at a ridiculous drivers license picture stolen from the wallet of one of your fellow compatriots and probably having more fun than you ever did at a sweaty, overcrowded frat party on campus. That’s when you realize that the world was created to catch you off guard. And all you can do is kick back and refuse to be fazed. Laugh and clap your hands when the manager sends over free shots for your friend’s birthday and then toss back a couple just coz they’re probably the best cocktail shots you’ve ever had. The knowledge that you’re totally pushing the limits of your 12 o’clock curfew can only make them taste better. Sigh in absolute resignation as one of your fellow students kicks up a ruckus true drunken style with other obnoxiously drunk American students you have suddenly chanced upon. (We will find each other, we drunk American students – it is a bond stronger than that between identical twins, of that I am now sure.) Make a quick run for the nearest cab, now the designated getaway car, as the argument starts to look ugly and leave still laughing at the last joke of the night. It is vitally important that you leave still laughing. Don’t let the night get the better of you. Always leave laughing. That’s the only way to throw the world into disarray similar to what it threw you into it. You gotta win sometime right?

And as you finally wind down, and are about to get into bed, just take a minute to realize that you really aren’t all that drunk despite the generous dosage of vodka in your drink. The night was fun because you weren’t expecting it to be, because you hadn’t planned it and because the world caught you off guard. The first of many nights out with this myriad collection of souls in Amman, a city of surprises, a city that makes the best cocktail shots ever, a city that reminds you that you can have fun wherever and with whoever, you just need to look hard enough.