Travels with a Humble Narcissist

Where does one start . . .?

I’ll start with what it took to get here.

11 hour flight from Dulles to Amman, Jordan.

1 1/2 hour cab ride from Amman to cross between Jordan and Israel (plus time making small talk eating a falafel breakfast with our cab driver in downtown Amman and him stopping on a deserted road so I could go to an ATM hoping he doesn’t kill us – btw he didn’t and he was very nice).

A chaotic border crossing from Jordan to Israel across the Allenby bridge where at one point:

• Our passports disappeared
• Everyone just walked around the metal detector
• My daughter wanted to smuggle a cat out of Jordan
• Me asking questions in rapid-fire English and being met with blank stares
• An inordinate amount of waiting, being confused and moving our bags and selves to different nondescript buildings

In Israel, the border guard asked such probing questions as:

• If I was visiting family
• If I had a Palestinian passport
• My father’s first name
• Why my daughter’s backpack was meowing

Finally, I had to bring up my Irish Jewish roots to let them know I was. . . desperate. Shockingly, they let us in anyway.

And then the cab from the border to Jerusalem. . .

I now what the French felt like negotiating their surrender to the Germans in 1940.

The guidebooks have great advice about how to save money with shared cabs, etc that have no relationship to the events on the ground when there is all of one cab, no competition and a war going on.

Needless to say, the cab driver drove triumphantly through Paris at my expense.

Viva la Cabbie!!