Then I went to a football match...

Tuesday night Jordan played Australia in the Asian qualifier round for the World Cup in Brasil. Since the match was going to be held locally in a stadium not too far away from where we were staying, some of us decided to go to it. 

We were at the stadium about two hours before the game was to start and it was already filling up quickly and by the time we had oriented ourselves enough to by tickets from the scalpers surrounding the stadium the doors were crowded with fans trying to get in. 

We soon realized being foreigners in this situation was a huge benefit. At one point we found ourselves stuck in a pit outside the gate we were waiting to get into and the police led us out of it and placed us against the wall making sure that no one could get to us and then sent in a SWAT team of sorts to chase all the other people away leaving a path for us to be hurried into the stadium before they closed the door again on the returning crowd.

Once inside the stadium things were a little calmer. I think we were placed in a section that was unofficially called the "Family and Foreigners Area". I was a little worried that this might mean that people wouldn't be quite as engaged in the match but luckily this turned out not to be true. Jordanians are very passionate about their sport. 

Since Jordan was playing Australia no one really expected Jordan to win and the Australian keeper had already been quoted as saying that the trip to Jordan was basically a vacation for him. However, the Jordan team was wonderful! And they ended up winning the game 2-1! Which means that Jordan actually has a chance of making it to the World Cup! 

The BYU students proudly showing off the Jordan paraphernalia and pride.

Waiting for the game to start.

Sunset over the stadium.

Kind of sad I missed the Jordanian shopping spree for these t-shirts but I did buy a Jordanian scarf to sport later on.

Winning the match was amazing and of course the excitement in the stadium was almost tangible. It was a pretty historic day for Jordan (I even have a reading assignment about it for my homework since it was on the front page of the newspapers the next day). Fireworks were going off and people were cheering and giving random people hugs. We'd made friends with some of the people around us and they all wanted pictures of us and then the random people around that we hadn't talked to wanted pictures too so at this point we kind of started feeling like celebrities. When we finally began to leave the stadium the police came again and helped us out. They lead us a little away from the crowd and then made us wait until everyone else had cleared the stadium so that it would be clear for us to leave. 

I've always been afraid of policemen but after this experience I have really come to love the policemen here in Jordan.

The Jordanian policemen, or gendarmerie...

Once we left the stadium things started getting crazy. At first we stopped when people asked for pictures, trying to be polite and laughing at how ridiculously fascinated people were about the little group of Americans (and one random Norwegian) leaving the stadium. Then they started getting a little too fascinated. We tried to keep moving but at one time we found ourselves completely surrounded. Then some nice Arabs escorted us into a nearby bakery and closed the door. We were then quarantined for about 20 minutes while the streets calmed down a little. Then the police came and escorted us into a van and drove us home. They were very nice. 

Us and the nice bakery people!

The end.

PS. Sorry for freaking people out. I am alive and well. And happy. Wohoo!