Pictures

Here are some pictures from my trip to Jordan and Egypt:

http://s48.photobucket.com/albums/f231/hp123987/?albumview=slideshow

Last Day

Today is my last day in Jordan. There are a lot of people I'm going to miss and it's not easy saying goodbye, but I'm really glad to be going back to America. Jordan is a good place to study abroad for a semester, but I'm certainly not ready to live here. Being here has really made me appreciate the US more.

Anyway, if you don't know: I'm going to be going to China for three weeks in June (my visa just came through earlier this week), plus there are still a lot of thing about Jordan that I haven't written about, so I'll be continuing this blog. Thanks for reading.

The king stay the king.

One interesting thing about living in Jordan is the fact that this is a real monarchy. It doesn't quite have the history behind it that some European royal families have (but it's also a legit monarchy and not just a relic). It's hard to escape the presence of the king. There are pictures of King Abdullah everywhere. Every business is required to have at least one picture of him up. There's not just one picture though. There are shots of him with his family, in his army uniform, carrying an M16, even riding a scooter. In Egypt there are almost no pictures of Hosni anywhere and an inversely proportionate number of uniformed police/army with machine guns.

I'm not sure if it's related, but people here generally don't talk about domestic politics. Maybe it's because they don't have a very loud voice. If politics does come up, it's always about Israel or Obama. It's probably good that they don't have democracy here, since most of the population are Palestinian refugees, and Palestinians haven't exactly proven themselves as stewards of Thomas Jefferson. Plus the king seems to be a pretty good one.

One of the worst things about living in Jordan is the call to prayer. It goes off every few hours throughout the day, and lasts about two minutes. The earliest is the wake up call just before 4:00 and then the first call at around 4:15. It's probably one of the most irritating sounds you can imagine and it wakes me up about half the time. Since it's right next door earplugs don't really help either. Much to their chagrin, this is not the seventh century and people can buy alarm clocks if they insist on getting up that early to prey. It's pretty obnoxious.

In case you couldn't tell, I'm definitely ready to go home. I will be back at this time next week (insha'allah). Sorry about the lack of updates recently. I've had a bunch of papers due in the last few weeks and have also been sick this last week.

SB '09 Reflections

Perhaps the best thing to come out of this trip was a renewed appreciation for Jordan and America. I was feeling a little down on Amman in the weeks leading up to Spring Break, but every problem here seems insignificant by comparison to Egypt. The most obvious thing to notice about Egypt is how hot it is. Unlike the dry heat throughout Jordan, the Nile adds the component of humidity, which makes things awful and sweaty. And this was in early April, I can’t imagine what summer must be like there. Also enhancing the heat is the pollution. Amman is not good in that regard. I walk home from school along a busy road a few times a week and have begun to feel it in my lungs, but Cairo is so much worse. The buildings are all caked with brown grime. When you wash your face or blow your nose, all this black stuff comes out. It’s pretty bad.

The traffic in Cairo is also the worst I’ve ever seen. There’s gridlock all day. Every block is choked with traffic during peak hours, and it can take ten minutes to go two blocks. It was a little better on the weekends, but still not great. Amman traffic can get pretty bad during rush hour, but it at least still moves, albeit very slowly. Crossing streets in Cairo is a lot more dangerous than in Amman (which is really dangerous to begin with). There are traffic lights on every block, but noone obeys them unless there is a traffic cop there to enforce them.

None of these problems is quite as bad in Luxor, but the people were. In Egypt people always want money from you. Whenever people come up to you on the street, it’s almost always to ask for money or to get you to do something that’ll give them money. If you ask for directions, people will lead you into a store or restaurant where they’ll get a commission. Taxis have no meter, so you have to negotiate every ride, which can be awful. Everything’s dirt cheap in Egypt, but the micro-transactions that come from this “baksheesh” really add up. Even at the pyramids, the police officers would try to sell you stuff. It was all very dirty and degrading.

Speaking of money, the Egpytian coinage might be the worst in the world. There are about five Egyptian Pounds to one dollar (and about eight to the Jordanian Dinar) and converting all the time was a hassle. The worst part though, was that nobody uses coins. There are twenty-five piaster (about a nickel) notes that are completely useless. The money also gets really nasty from being constantly handled and sweated on in the 95-degree weather. It’s a major change from Jordan’s currency, which is valuable, nice, and easy to handle. Anyway, just about everything in Egypt was a hassle.

The good: there are a lot of amazing and beautiful things to see and so much history. Cairo is also a lot more cosmopolitan than Amman. It’s a lot like going from a small city like Harrisburg to New York. Despite how awful a place it is, a week really isn’t enough to see everything and I would like to go back. Alexandria is a beautiful city and is free of most of the problems in Cairo. The people there are a lot nicer and more willing to be helpful and talk to you . They also seem less interested in ripping you off. I’d like to spend more time there. We also didn’t get to see some of the cooler sights in the desert, like the monasteries, oases, or Mt. Sinai. I also have heard really good things about Aswan.

Anyway, even though a lot of annoying things happened, this was a really good trip. It wasn’t very relaxing, but I can safely say that it was the best vacation I’ve ever been on (not that it has all that much competition).

SB '09 Part 2

Monday was the third day of our trip. We were staying in a decent hotel in Cairo called the Luna. It was in an old building and all the rooms were around this big, twisting hallway. Our rooms had a great view of the busy street below. We got up early to go see Coptic Cairo. We saw a bunch of churches from early Christianity, plus Egypt’s first synagogue. We also went inside of Egypt’s first mosque, which was just down the street.

Later in the day we went to the Egyptian museum. It was big and had a lot of cool stuff in it, though there really weren’t any labels anywhere, which made it harder to navigate. The mummy room was pretty cool. After the museum we took a taxi to Al-Azhar Park, which is located inland from the Nile, close to the citadel and Islamic Cairo. The park was relaxing, a nice change of pace from the rest of the city. Afterwards we tried to walk towards Islamic Cairo, but ended up at the Necropolis. It probably wasn’t a good idea to walk through there, since a lot of bums call it home, so we took a taxi back to the market where we went the day before. We walked around and had dinner before heading to catch the train for Luxor.
We didn’t get a sleeping car, so the eight-hour ride was pretty uncomfortable. When we arrived we took a taxi to our hotel and slept for a few hours before walking to Karnak Temple. The temple was pretty awesome. The coolest part was the Hypostyle, which had over 100 huge columns. Afterwards we headed back and saw Luxor Temple at sunset. That was cool because it was lit up.

Luxor was brutally hot. It was at least in the upper 90s and very humid all the time. There was a breeze off of the Nile, so it made things somewhat bearable. The next day we went to the West Bank with a group of people from our hotel. First we saw the Valley of the Kings, then a couple of palaces and the Colossus of Memnes before heading back. It took most of the day. It was nice having a guide to take us around, even though her English wasn’t very good. We tried to nap afterwards, but someone was on the street banging on some metal, which was really annoying. That night we ate at a place on the Nile waterfront and went to bed early since we had a 7:00 flight back to Cairo the next morning.

After arriving in Cairo, we wanted to take a day trip to Alexandria. It was easier said than done, however. The first train we wanted to take was sold out, so we tried to get a bus. After walking around Ramses Station for about fifteen minutes, we thought we had found the place. A guy took us to this back alley where these vans were being loaded, but they only came every fifteen minutes, and there were a lot of people waiting. After awhile we decided to go back and get a later train. It left a little after noon, but we didn’t get into Alexandria until almost three. First we went to the new library, which was really cool. It was a nice change from all the ancient stuff that we had been looking at. Next we went to a seafood restaurant in this side alley. The food was good, but the presentation was lacking. Afterwards we walked along the Corniche and stopped at a café before taking the train back. The next day we flew back to Amman.

SB '09 Part 1

I just got back from Egypt this evening, so I thought I would share the experience. We left last Thursday after classes on a Jet bus bound for Aqaba. The trip was off to a good start as we got the front seat on the upper deck, so we got a really good view (though it was nighttime in the desert, so there really wasn’t much to see).

We got in around 11:00, so we really didn’t do anything but eat dinner at this place called Rover’s Revenge. We started our first day of Spring Break by walking along the “Boardwalk” to Aqaba’s Mamluk fort. The Boardwalk in Aqaba is nothing like the one’s on the east coast back home. It’s basically a string of street vendors selling swim trunks and some other beach gear. The Mamluk fort was pretty cool. There was a herd of cats living there though, and it subsequently smelled like cat. Afterwards we went to the beach, which was sort of a mixed bag. There was little sand and a lot of rocks and coral. It was pretty painful to walk on, but beautiful to watch with the snorkels we bought. Afterwards we went to a really good Chinese restaurant and a café.

The next day we were set to take a ferry to Nuweiba in Egypt. Things did not get off on the right foot. We arrived at the port around 10:00 in the morning, with plenty of time to spare before a noon departure. First, we had to go upstairs in the office to buy tickets. Next, we had to go back downstairs to buy the departure stamp. After that, we had to go back upstairs to get the stamp put on our passports. Then we had to go back downstairs to wait for a shuttle, which took us to the ferry. We finally had made it to the ferry, but it wasn’t until 1:30 that we left. Two hours later we arrived in Nuweiba, but had to wait on the ferry for another half hour before we could get off. When we did get off, we found ourselves in this awful port, filled with semis. We had to walk across the port and wait at this dank, smelly, crowded office to get our arrival stamp and then walk to another office to get the stamp put on and retrieve our passports. Another interesting wrinkle: when we first got on the ferry they took our passports, and the only thing we got in return was this slip of paper with a little scribble on it. After finally getting our passports we had to go through security, which was a warehouse filled with garbage. Finally, we went to the East Delta bus office next door to buy bus tickets for the next day and took a van to our hotel. All this was made worse by the fact that it was about 95 degrees and muggy. It’s hard to describe what an awful and frustrating afternoon this was. Welcome to Egypt.

The hotel (the Ciao) was much better. We started off by having dinner at the hotel restaurant, which was pretty good. After that we went down to the beach on the Red Sea, where one of us hooked up our iPod to some speakers and had a mini-dance party with the eight of us as the moon was rising over Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel.

The next day we took an eight-hour bus ride across the Sinai desert to Cairo. About as exciting as it sounds. It was kind of a culture shock arriving in Cairo. Our hotel was in downtown, which is a lot more crowded and cosmopolitan than Amman. That night we spent getting tickets for the train to Luxor and getting lost at Ramses Train Station. We went to bed early in preparation for our tour of the pyramids the next day. The pyramids were pretty awesome, as expected. We took camels and horses around Giza, then took pictures of the Step Pyramid from the road. About 45 minutes south of Cairo is the Red Pyramid, which was cool because you could go inside of it. There really wasn’t anything to see there, and it was really hot and smelled like ammonia, but it was cool simply for the fact of being inside of a pyramid.

The surprising thing about Giza is how close the pyramids are to the city of Giza. You can easily see the city and there are people and archaeological debris all over the place. It’s surprisingly similar to what a lot of other historical sites are in that regard, though still spectacular. After we got back we napped, since it was nearly 100 degrees and very humid. In the evening we went to Cairo’s old downtown where there were a lot of crowded shops with cool stuff for sale. We ate in this little alley at a dingy but delicious Kosheree (Egypt’s national dish) place.

I should probably mention that I was traveling with three other people, one guy and two girls, from our program. There was also another group of four girls that we were with some of the way because they had a similar itinerary. Ours was a really good group to travel with because we all were interested in having a similar trip. Anyway, more to come in the coming days.

Money

Apparently, Amman is the second most expensive city in the region, behind only Dubai. I guess expensive is relative, though. It’s pretty amazing how cheap some stuff is here. Jordan’s currency is the dinar (JD) and one dollar is about equal to about .7 dinars. The cent here is called the piaster or kirsh. One interesting thing is that there is a vestigial decimal to indicate the fil, which is 1/1000 of a dinar, so something that is 35 piaster is listed as .350 JD. Sales tax here is a lot higher though.

Food here is by far cheaper than in America. The exception to that is American fast food places, which are about the same, if not a little more than they are back home. There’s a Subway a couple blocks down from our apartment, which I've gone to a few times. A foot-long sub there comes out to about six dollars. Luckily they were passing out discount cards at the university and I grabbed a bunch, though the employees there seem to think it’s more like a VIP card so they never collect them. Hopefully they’ll accept them back home, since I eat at Subway a lot. The cheapest food is the bread, a pound of which can be bought for twenty-five piaster. The markets are really cheap too. Some really nice clothes and shoes can be had for less than ten dinar, though they are often used.

Consequently, change is a lot more valuable here than in America. To make using the change a bit easier, Jordanian coins are much bigger and sturdier than American coins. Dimes are bigger than nickels, and there’s a half-dinar coin. Best of all, nobody uses pennies, though I have gotten a few from our local supermarket.

Tomorrow I will be leaving for Egypt and may not have internet access until the 19th.

Midway

This week is the halfway point of the semester. Things have been going really well thus far. My Arabic is progressing. Our Standard Arabic (or Fusha) teacher Ghadeer is pretty cool. I did really well on our midterms last week. Colloquial isn’t going quite as well, because it’s not nearly as interesting to me and I really don’t speak it very much. My area studies classes aren’t too bad either.

Living here really isn’t that different than living back home. I haven’t been cooking very much, so most nights I go out. My favorite food here is shwerma, which is basically shavings from a big hunk of slowly-barbequing chicken in a wrap with mayonnaise and sometimes other things. They’re served in little snack shops which are pretty ubiquitous throughout the city. The best place I’ve tried is this small shop by the university, which puts lemon in it and is one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. There’s also one by our house (the Gazelle Restaurant) that puts cheese on it, which is really good too. As far as traditional Middle Eastern foods go, I also eat a lot of falafel, which is some type of fried vegetable meal. Of course there’s a lot of pita, hummus, and babaganoush as well. For American food, I eat at Subway and a couple decent pizza places on a regular basis. The restaurants here are laid out differently than in America. Usually the food is prepared in front of you on the ground floor and then the dining room is upstairs. Occasionally the upstairs will be reserved for families only. The food here has been pretty good, though the flavors really aren’t all that much different than they are back home.

Spring break is coming up in a couple weeks. I’m going to be going to Egypt with three other kids from the program. Right now our plan is to take a ferry from Aqaba to Nuweibah in Egypt, then a bus to Cairo where we will spend a few days. We’ll also be taking the train down to Luxor and possibly getting to Alexandria before flying back to Amman. I’m a little wary because I’ve heard nothing but terrible things about Egypt, especially Cairo. It has essentially been described as hell on Earth: dirty, smelly, loud, and unfriendly. Egyptians in the Middle East are a lot like Mexicans in America (or Poles in Britain, Turks in Germany, etc.). It’s perhaps a bit more defined here though, because Arabs absolutely look down on manual labor and are also unashamed about racism.

Until spring break, things should be a little calmer. Hopefully I will have a little more time to write.

PS: No offense to any Egyptians who may be reading. >.>

Wadi Rum

This weekend our program took an overnight trip down to Wadi Rum, one of the most beautiful places on Earth and also the setting for the hit film, Lawrence of Arabia. We left Friday morning at about 8:30 in two busses. It was about a five hour drive, including a rest stop. The drive south of Amman was not particularly interesting, though it was my first time truly in the desert.

We didn’t arrive until the early afternoon, when we were dropped off in the middle of the desert. There we all hopped into the back of a bunch of pick-up trucks for a tour of Wadi Rum. We stopped off at a bunch of cool rock formations and climbed up this really big dune. In the end we watched a sunset off of another rock formation. Finally at about 7:00 we came to our campsite. We had a buffet dinner, which was really good and satisfying. Everyone hung around the campground for the rest of the night. Some people danced, others sat around a bonfire. I ended up playing rummy and then strolling through the desert with a few other people. On Saturday we got to ride across the desert on a big herd of camels. That was pretty cool. Camels are really interesting animals with a lot of personality. We got back Saturday night. Definitely a memorable experience.

The temperature was surprisingly cool for the desert. During the camel ride, there was a brisk wind and I got cold; but I also had forgotten my keffiyeh and got sunburned. When you're on foot or camelback in the desert, it's hard to tell how far away anything is. You can see something in the distance for hours before actually arriving there. Wadi Rum is an impressive place. The scale is just so big. It’s hard to describe without seeing it in person. Wadi Rum used to be underwater, but as the water retreated it took the sandstone with it, so now all that’s left are the towers of rock. Eventually, in tens of millions of years, all the rock will erode until eventually there’s nothing left.

Long Weekend

This past weekend was pretty eventful. A lot of people on our program went traveling to such exotic places as Aqaba, Beirut, and Damascus because Monday is the Prophet’s birthday, giving themselves a four-day weekend (though there is class Sunday). I was not feeling that and stayed around Amman.

Friday morning I went to the Friday market (“sook”) in Abdali bus station with the Year-long student across the hall. We were both looking for new shoes, though I ended up not finding anything. There was an interesting array of items for sale there. The shoes were for the most part slightly soiled, but they had some really interesting pairs that would sell for a lot of money new back in America. The same can be said for the rows upon rows of clothing that were available, though there were a lot of really cheap things and knockoffs drowning it out. In addition to clothes, there was also a lot of random housewares for sale, and for some reason a lot of stuffed animals as well.

After leaving the market I went to a soccer match. We met up at this Jordanian's house where we took taxis to the game. There were seven of us in all. The game was being played in Amman International Stadium, which is the biggest in the country. Unfortunately, we got split up and ended up sitting on opposite sides of the field.

The match was being played between Faisaly and Wahdat, the Celtics and Lakers of Jordanian soccer. Also, Faisaly is considered to be a Jordanian team, while Wahdat is considered Palestinian, though both teams are based in Amman. Our group was in the Faisaly cheering section. I’m pretty sure this was part of the Middle Eastern version of Europe’s Champions League, but I never got a clear answer on that. Anyway, Faisaly needed a win to continue on and had just apparently come off of a bad loss. They came out playing pretty badly though, and all the fans in our section were pretty bummed out.

Towards the end though, things started to get more exciting. In extra time one of the Faisaly players managed to weave through the defense and score. The crowd in our section went nuts. People started running around and hugging each other. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera, but this Youtube video of another Philadelphia team (fun fact: Amman was called Philadelphia during Roman and Byzantine times) pulling out an important victory in the final seconds sort of sums up what happened: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk8onB6Lm64.

Afterwards we went to a hookah place and played a game called “Turnab”, which is like a simpler version of bridge. I left early though, since I had signed up for a CIEE trip early the next day. We were going to Lake Ziglab, which isn’t really much of a lake, more of a small reservoir. It was about a two-hour drive through the Jordan Valley to get there. Once we arrived we paddled across in inflatable boats. Then we followed the stream that fed the reservoir up through the mountains. We ate lunch at this waterfall and then hiked back.

Sunday wasn’t quite as interesting. I went to classes in the morning and then did some work in the afternoon. On the holiday I went to Jerash, the best-preserved Roman city in the Middle East. While there, I got to watch the show at the hippodrome that they put on. It included a demonstration of Roman military and gladiatorial techniques, as well as a chariot race. The city itself was really cool. It was nice to see actual Roman ruins after reading and studying so much about them in school. I got back in the evening and ended up going to bed pretty early since I had an 8:00 class Tuesday morning. That was my weekend.

Snow Day

Sorry it's been so long since the last entry. Ironically enough, classes were canceled yesterday because of snow. The weather this weekend has been really bad: cold, wet, and windy. It didn’t really snow today aside for briefly in the morning, and there was no accumulation at our apartment, but I guess the threat was enough to close things down.

On Saturday I went to the Dead Sea with my roommates and a few other people. Because of the weather, it may not have been the best day to go. It was cold and rainy in Amman and cloudy and very windy at the Dead Sea, though probably about five or so degrees warmer. Nevertheless, it was still a good experience.

We left at around one in the afternoon and took a cab to a bus station near downtown. We then boarded a bus bound for the Dead Sea. It was only about a forty-five minute ride, and that was with several stops. We were dropped off along the side of the road near the Dead Sea. There we met a Japanese student named Kira who was traveling across Asia. He decided to join up with us. After walking for a bit we came across this empty playground. We decided at that point to turn off the road and go toward the sea.

We then proceeded to walk down the coast for a few kilometers. It was slow going because the mud was really thick. It ended up caked all over my shoes. Along the way we came across a guy on a horse who offered us rides. Unfortunately, it ended up costing ten dinar. After a bit longer we came across some guys in a truck who offered to take us to Amman Beach, which was our initial destination but it would have cost an extra dinar each to get there on the bus.

There was a long and fruitless discussion with them about logistics, but we ended up going to the road and hitchhiking. We wound up in the back of a mostly empty delivery truck, but the driver apparently didn’t understand where we wanted to go and dropped us off about 10 kilometers too far. Another van took us to Amman Beach, but by that time we were all really tired and weren’t going to swim so one of the shuttles took us back to Amman.

Amman Beach felt like it has a similar atmosphere to the beach in America. There were resorts, hotels, and restaurants. It was empty, however, either because of the weather or maybe it’s out of season. It really felt just like the ocean, not the lowest point in the world or the Holy Land. This also marked the first time I had been outside of Amman since arrival. It was fun just improvising. That’s not really something I’ve had a chance to do in my limited past travels. Hopefully this is the last weekend that is rained out and from now on we'll be able to enjoy all that this country has to offer.

The Rain

Today it’s raining. Dealing with rain here is a major hassle. Drainage is not very good, which is forgivable considering it only rains a few inches every year in the winter. The uneven terrain doesn’t help either and some of the stairways and streets can turn into rivers. Even our street, which is in a relatively flat area, has a foot of standing water in it. The streets and sidewalks here are also paved differently, so they get really slippery when wet, like when it’s slushy back home. Just last week I fell down a small flight of stairs in the rain. Thus getting around is not fun. Even though it might not be good for us, there has been very little rain this winter. They’ve been praying for the rain at mosques and so all the locals are pretty happy about this.

Happy Birthday

This week was my birthday, among other things. I’m not sure if it was because of that, or if it was a coincidence, but on Wednesday one of the students who works for CIEE and her home-stay came over to our apartment to cook dinner. They made something called “Upside Down”, which is thus named because it gets flipped over before serving. The dish was basically chicken and rice, with cinnamon and some other spices mixed in. There was also an eggplant and tomato salad, and a chocolate cake. It was nice to have a home cooked meal, as most of the stuff I have been eating is either at restaurants or involves putting things on pita bread.

Really, aside from that the rest of the week was not particularly interesting. Classes are pretty intense, especially Arabic, and I’ve spent most of my free time studying or reading. On Sunday and Tuesday my class has four straight hours, which is completely exhausting. I’m usually in bed by 10:00, which is a sharp change from home. We did get internet in our apartment last weekend, however, so that has made things a bit easier. Anyway, things have been going pretty well.

Classes

I feel that the quality of the last two posts wasn’t that great, since I had written them almost a week before I posted them and then retroactively tried to update them. I’ll be sure to do better in the future.

Anyway…today marks the end of the first week of classes. Everyday I have at least an hour and a half of Arabic, and four on Sundays and Tuesdays (on those days there’s an hour of lab, and on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday we have a one hour colloquial Jordanian lesson). It can be intense and a bit overwhelming at times, and it’s hard to keep up with the huge amount of new vocabulary, but our teacher is really good and keeps the class engaged.

In addition to Arabic, I’m also taking two area studies classes. One is Intro to Islamic Civilization, a history class. The other is titled “Archaeological and Historical Survey of Jordan and Palestine”. So far we’ve only really been going over background stuff and introductions, but both have been really interesting and have good professors.

The University of Jordan is where we’re taking classes. I’m definitely surprised by how big it is. There are about 30,000 students there, so it’s a bit smaller than Penn State. It seems really big in terms of acreage, but that may be because there aren’t a lot of good sight lines. The university is built on the side of a hill in an old forest, so there are lots of trees everywhere. The buildings are also a lot more spread out than in University Park.

My classes are in the Faculty of Education and the Faculty of Engineering, which are pretty much on opposite ends of the campus. Both buildings are labyrinthine and difficult to get around. They’re also not in the best shape. There are roof tiles missing, stickers and graffiti on the walls and the chairs, chunks of stuff missing, lockers with no doors on them, etc. They’re basically reminiscent of a stereotypical ghetto high school. The bathrooms are really bad, too. I’m not really sure how often they clean them, if ever, and there’s no soap or toilets available, just holes in the floor. I made the mistake of using one a couple days ago, one that I’ll be sure not to repeat.

That being said, the students there are known to really take pride in the university. At first, this seemed kind of surprising, but then I thought about what aspects of Penn State I’m proud of. It’s not the impressive new construction, the sleek landscaping, or the bridge in the IT building; it’s things like Schreyer’s, the graduation rate of our athletes, and the high quality of my professors. The University of Jordan is one of the best universities in the Middle East, and even though there’s not a smart board or a computer in every room, the facilities get the job done. It would be nice to have toilets and soap in the bathrooms, though.

Let me upgrade you...

Last Friday we moved out of the Al Manar Hotel and into our apartments. I have two roommates. Our apartment is fairly close to the University of Jordan. It's within walking distance, though it certainly isn't a very fun walk with all of the traffic.

Our apartment is really, really nice. It’s nicer than any student housing I’ve ever seen. In fact, it’s nicer than my house. The rooms are really large and spacious. Everything is bright and the furniture is nice and new. We have a kitchen with all the necessary equipment. However, to remind us we’re in Jordan, we have a gas stove with the gas tank right next to it. Starting it up is kind of intimidating, especially the oven. We can only keep the heat on for a couple hours a day, since we only have a limited supply. Luckily it’s pretty warm here, so it’s not a very big deal.

The bathrooms are also really clean, and also a bit different than those back home. Water is an important commodity in Jordan, and the sewage system is apparently very antiquated. You don’t flush toilet paper, you throw it in the wastebasket. All the bathrooms, even a lot of public ones, have bidets (if you don’t know…wikipedia). The shower’s are also really low flow, but ours are very clean. Public bathrooms are another matter, however. They’re for the most part really disgusting and to be avoided, even the ones at the University of Jordan. We haven't figured out how to use the hot water yet, so showering has been unpleasant.

In Jordan

I know it’s been over a week since my first entry, but I have not forgotten about this. The hotel where everyone in our group stayed during orientation is the Al-Manar. They had wireless in the lobby, but it was excruciatingly slow and eventually stopped working with my computer. Also, this website is in Arabic so it was difficult to navigate. Most of last week was spent at orientation, nothing very exciting.

I arrived last Friday, January 30th after a ten hour flight from JFK. It’s only the second time I’ve ever flown and was not a great experience. It was hard to sleep and a bit bumpy. Luckily it was mostly empty so there was plenty of room. The Amman airport is surprisingly far from the city and is pretty much in the middle of the desert. It was about a forty-five minute drive to the hotel. Once we arrived we had dinner and then I went to bed.

Orientation week was generally not very noteworthy. We had a lot of information sessions, most of which were redundant and uninteresting. Some of the highlights included (on Saturday) a train ride where we ended up at a Bedouin tent where we got a presentation on the indigenous way of life. On Monday there was a scavenger hunt. Our group had to go find the South Bus Station and Bennigans (which apparently is pretty coutoure in Jordan, complete with valet). It was about an hour bus ride to get to South Station, which is located in a pretty shady part of Amman. From there it took another hour to find the Bennigans, since nobody knew where it was. When we finally returned to the hotel where we were having dinner and making presentations, we were over an hour and a half late. For our troubles my partner and I got a pocket Arabic dictionary.

On Tuesday we had our Arabic placement tests. Since they were for people from all levels and I had only had two semester, I was able to answer next to nothing. It was very distressing. Apparently I did well enough to place into Intermediate I, which was exactly where I wanted to be. Hopefully it’s where I belong. We generally spent a lot of time at the University of Jordan, which is the Harvard of Jordan and one of the best universities in the Middle East. The campus is pretty nice, though it looks a bit outdated compared to a lot of American universities.

The most striking thing about Amman so far is just how sprawling it is. Imagine being in the rolling hills of the northeast, except instead of trees, fields, and a few houses, it’s nothing but white, cube-shaped buildings as far as the eye can see. In reality, the city only has about 2,000,000 people living here and when you look on a map you realize that it isn’t all that big. In person, however, it’s discombobulating.

Hey.  For anyone who might not know, this spring I am going to be studying abroad in Amman, Jordan.  In fact, I am leaving on Thursday.  Since I will in all likelihood not have internet access wherever I'm staying and international calling is prohibitively expensive, I figured this would be a good way to tell anyone who might be interested about my experience.

The flight is nearly twelve hours, which is a little imposing.  I am not a big fan of airplanes.  Upon arrival Friday afternoon local time I'll be staying at a hotel for a few days for an orientation.  Not really sure what that entails.  The hotel does have wifi in the lobby, so maybe I'll update at some point.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a good spring and for anybody who might not be able to live without me, don't fear for I'll be back on May 23rd.  Hang in there.