zondag 6 september 2015

Finally, my trip is going to start!

My trip is to Jordan is finally going to start!! I met Bregje and Jara at the train station of Groningen and together we went to Schiphol. We talked a lot about the Summer school and before we knew it, we were already at the airport.  We waited there for the others and together we went to the check in, customs, and boarding.  The mood of the group was very good right away. In the beginning I was a bit nervous about whether we would get along because we knew each other barely and it was a group with different nationalities, backgrounds and cultures.
A concept related to that is ‘The Tourist Gaze’ of John Urry. This concept highlights that every person senses the world with different presets (ideas, desires and expectations). These presets, also called filters, depend on who you are and where you are from and whether you are, for example, framed by social class, gender, nationality, age and education. So, according to Urry, looking is a taught ability and the pure and innocent eye is a myth.1 One’s eye is framed socio-culturally and there are various ‘ways of seeing’.1  This is an interesting concept and I am curious if I will see this back in our international group and in other tourist with different backgrounds. To be continued!
After a good flight with magnificent views we arrived around 11 p.m. at Amman airport. We were all tired so we wanted to go to our hotel as soon as possible, and we arrived at midnight. It was a pretty good hotel for eight euros and after sending a message home I fell asleep fast. The next day we went to the accommodation we would stay for the rest of the week. That day was filled with lectures and recovering from our flight in order to get totally prepared for a fully scheduled week!


1 Urry, J. (2011) The tourist gaze, Chapter 1. SAGE Publications

Our airplane!

One of the countless views I had during our flight: a beautiful sunset

View from our hostel: ACOR in Amman



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