One week later, and I'm still alive

I just had to get a picture with the Chelsea soccer team

I survived my first week in Amman. The jet lag wasn't too bad. The first couple days I woke up at about 5 am, all on my own. It meant I got to hear the call to prayer, which I personally think is a pretty nice thing to wake up and hear, but I guess it is more of an acquired taste. 

Dil, the program director, and his wife, LB, took us on a walking tour of Amman. Not the whole city, just the parts we were going to become familiar with. We did this for two days. These two days also were for us to get adjusted, set up our apartments, and get ready for classes. ***Classes are actually Sunday-Thursday, since in Islam Friday is the equivalent to the Christian's Sunday***  

Every day I have 3 hours of class. I have an Issues class, which is from 10am-12, and is taught by one of the professors at Qasid (the institute where I'm studying) in arabic, from 12-1pm I have what's called the "Dil Class", which is taught in english, by Dil. In the issues class, we talk about current issues (political or other) in the Middle East or the world in general. In the Dil class, we talk about culture, any announcements, or about homework. Every day our homework is as follows: minimum 2 hours of speaking arabic with a native, 5 news articles (4 extensive, where we don't know all the words, and have to use context to answer questions, and one intensive, where we know all the words and are working on translation. We get a new intensive every day, but are still supposed to keep learning the old one for a week, when we should know it inside and out. So by the end of the week we will have 10 articles, 5 extensive and 5 intensive), which we are supposed to spend about 2 hrs on. On top of that we have 3 speaking appointments with a professor each week, where we will give a 3-5 minute presentation (which we record), receive feedback, make corrections, and record it again. We also have 2 writing appointments each week, where we have a pre-assigned topic and write a 1/2-1 page report on it, a professor will then go through and make corrections and explain them to us. 

Oh, the appointments don't start until this week, so my work load just got upped.....like, a lot.

It'll be good though.....at least I hope so.

The view from my apartment

My kitchen

  Our huge living room with a ton of couches

Alright, I have 3 roommates, Stefanie, Lindsey, and Mary. And we have an awesome apartment. It is huge, and just really nice. We're on level 4, the top one. Although, I guess it really is level five, but the ground floor is "Level 0". The water here is hard, and smells a bit like sulfur. We also have to conserve it as much as possible (ie no long showers) otherwise we'll run out.    

I'll be honest and say that the first couple days here were hard. I didn't understand much of what was being said (even though I've been studying arabic for 2 years), but it's getting better. Aside from the language things are so different here. I can't walk alone most places, I can't make eye contact with guys, I pretty much can't interact with guys outside of the study abroad group. Walking down the street, I'll hear an almost hissing noise, and it's the equivalent of a cat-call. After dark, I'm not allowed out alone, and whenever I walk with the guys, it feels like they're more like bodyguards. It is just weird, and sometimes a bit disconcerting. 

But, there are times when it's worth it, when I remember why I wanted to come. One night, I met a 9 yr old girl and talked to her for 15 minutes, she was peeking at me from the inside of a shop. Or the night I saw two girls, with long, curly, black hair, and big brown eyes, look out the back window of a car and shyly wave at me, and then get a big smile on their faces when I waved back. Once, I saw a boy drop some water bottles, and I helped pick them up, a man walked by and said "Yes, very good, good job". Or the people who patiently listen to me, and then actually respond. Or when I go to church, and the people there are so warm, and welcoming, even though I am butchering their language. 

Now, it hasn't been all work and no play. Last night I went out to a restaurant and learned how (or rather how not to) eat mansef. It's a rice and meat dish with a cheese sauce, and you're supposed to use your hand to mix it together and make it into a ball. You can imagine how well that went. Let's just say that "watching the Americans try to eat" was last night's entertainment for the other patrons. And tomorrow, I get to go to the Dead Sea.

Yup, mansef definitely is a finger food

Our table after we left

There are some negative things, I'm not going to lie about that. But there are some good things too, and those are the things we don't hear about, they are my reason for being here, those are the things I''m going to/already do love.

Good Morning Amman!

 I safely arrived at my apartment at the wonderful hour of midnight. After almost 24hrs of flying, I pretty much just fell onto my bed, I was so exhausted.  

The first leg of my trip was great. I took a 10-hr flight from Seattle to Amsterdam and while it was long, it still was pretty nice. After arriving in Amsterdam I had an 8-hr layover. So, my friends, David, Stefanie, and Sarah, and I got on a train and went into the Amsterdam. 

On the train ride, we met two people (we never learned their names) who were really nice. They knew we were American and talked to us for the 10min ride. They recommended going to the Red Light District (which we didn't do) and helped us find our way from the station to the city. We wandered around a lot, and took pictures of all the different buildings, and just had a bunch of fun. 

Once we got back to the airport, we ran into a snag. My friends and I had rented a locker to put our carry-on things in, which seems super smart, right? Well, it turns out that to get our boarding pass for the flight from Amsterdam to Amman, we had to show the sticker you get when you check-in, that shows that your checked back has been checked all the way through. Anyway, the aforementioned sticker was super important, and every one's was in the lockers.....except mine. I took my backpack with me to the city, and had put a bunch of stuff in it, and I happened to have my sticker, so I was able to get my boarding pass just fine. You'd think it wouldn't be that big of a deal to go down a floor to get to the lockers, but we had to go through security again to get to where the lockers were, which we couldn't do without a boarding pass. So I end up going through, get the sticker from the locker, and am then supposed to find my way back to where my friends were waiting. Only problem with that is the fact that I have an incredible gift when it comes to getting lost. Long story short, I was lost, wandering around the airport for 20-30 minutes before I figured out how to get back to my friends. It was exhausting (since this was running on 5 hours of sleep and had gone through a bunch of time zone changes and my body was playing 'catch-up'), and I was just grumpy by the time everything got worked out. 

The flight to Jordan was great, very uneventful and relaxing....even though I didn't get any sleep. 

So, I get to my apartment at midnight, zonk out right away, and then my eyes popped open at about 5:30am, and I couldn't fall back asleep. We had an orientation meeting, and then were taken on a walking tour of parts of Amman (the walking tour happening, of course, during the hottest part of the day), which has resulted in even more exhaustion, dirty feet, and possibly some blisters. 

Classes start on Tuesday, so things are just going to start getting crazier and harder. I don't want to think about that just yet, so right now, I'm off to take a much needed nap. 

Today is the day!!!

 I'll keep this short. My parents and I are leaving for Seattle in about an hour and from there I'll take a 10-hr flight to Amsterdam, have an 8-hr layover then a 5 hr flight to Jordan. So, this is the next big step in my adventure....actually getting there. More to come later (probably with pictures).
-Chels