We arrived home this afternoon after a 14 hour flight from Amman to Chicago and an overnight in Chicago to break up the trip.

The contrast between the security (and crowds) at the Amman airport and the airports in Egypt was dramatic. In Egypt there was cursory security screening at the airports - no pat downs, no problems with liquids or anything else, almost no scrutiny at all - if the metal detector beeped nobody made a move, you just walked through. At all the sights in Egypt you entered through an inactive metal detector.

Jordan was a different story. Royal Jordanian has a dedicated check in area for business class before you get into the terminal. Once you get your boarding cards and luggage tags you go to a dedicated immigration window and then on to the xray belt and metal detector. All women must get a pat down behind a curtain before proceeding.

Once you arrive at the gate you first go through the xray/metal detector/pat down again and then all your carry-on is thoroughly searched - again segregated by sex - a woman went through my backpack and a man literally dissected Brad's stuff, made him take his camera battery out of his camera and inquired about a lot of items, particularly those little metal camels he bought or our grand nephews.

It was also interesting to fly a Middle Eastern airline (Royal Jordanian). Our plane was fine with a nice business class cabin, but the service was different from anything we have experienced. For the lunch and dinner service they didn't take an order, but rolled a cart with the items on it and served everyone from that. We were in the last row in business, row 4, so by the time they got to us everything was either gone or cold. There was no beverage service - they came by with a large bottle of water first and then with a bottle of wine - red or white - they never returned to offer a refill or anything else. After the lunch meal they delivered a small bottle of water and then we didn't see them until about 8 hours later when they repeated the process for dinner. I wondered whether they also had to do everything in the coach cabin. They spent a lot of time picking up around passengers seats, for instance the plastic from your pillow cover and quilt and anything else.

Chicago was a zoo when we arrived around 5 PM - the line for immigration was backed up into the hallways, something we have never seen in all the years we have flown into OHare. Security there this morning was nuts too, taking over 1/2 hour even though we were in the Priority Access line.

Great trip but glad to be home!