Mar 132011
 
Air Asia, proud sponsor of the Oakland Raiders!  That's puzzling to most people because american football isn't remotely popular in Malaysia, and they don't even fly to the U.S.

One of the big challenges about traveling are the things you miss, and watching my Jets in the playoffs was certainly one of them. I was excited to learn that my NY Jets playoff run took them all the way to the AFC Championship game.  Unfortunately, I was set to arrive in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, one day before the game. It’s a region of the world without any NFL fans. None!  It’s a major city so my plan was to investigate if there’s any tiny sports bar that might have it (there’s not). So I was thinking it would be a challenge, but imagine my reaction as we landed right next to this:

Air Asia, proud sponsor of the Oakland Raiders! That's puzzling to most people because american football isn't remotely popular in Malaysia, and they don't even fly to the U.S.

 

 

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Feb 122011
 
Welcome to Queen Alia International Airport in Jordan - the least helpful international airport

Welcome to Queen Alia International Airport in Amman, Jordan – the least helpful international airport I’ve been in.  The tourist “information” booth didn’t have any information.  His English was quite good, but he couldn’t answer ANY of my questions, which were rather basic.  This is the biggest airport in Jordan, and their only non-Arabic map they had was in Russian.

Welcome to Queen Alia International Airport in Jordan - the least helpful international airport

Welcome to Queen Alia International Airport - the least helpful international airport

Also, I had booked a rent-a-car through the Budget Rent-a-Car airport office, which didn’t actually exist. The guy at the information booth had no idea what I was talking about when I asked about it. One of the vendors said he knew them but that  he hadn’t seen the Budget guy since the morning, so my best route is to just wait and hope he comes back.  Apparently they don’t have an office; it’s a guy with a clipboard, credit card machine, and keys. I finally found the guy and after filling out some paperwork he took me to the car. They leave the car in long-term parking; he said the guard knows him and wouldn’t charge me, but that wasn’t the case. The security guard said he knows the Budget guy, but the new renter always pays the bill. So your total cost is actually dependent on how long ago the guy before you left the car.

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