Alia Amman

A lot has happened since arriving back from Syria around 3am last Sunday morning.

Sunday: I registered for Arabic courses at the French Cultural Center. They begin tomorrow and run Mondays and Wednesdays until the end of November. A nice perk is free range of the FCC's library. The downside...everything is in French. I can still check out the movies though since they have subtitles. I had a lovely skype date at 7pm but I had to cut it a bit short because ...

... 10 Uhr konnte ich dann aber auch nicht mehr im Bett bleiben und gehe runter zum Empfang und bekomme endlich eine Flasche Wasser!!! Und auch gleich noch ein Frühstück, dass im Preis inbegriffen war. Das sollte dann auch gleich mein erster Kontakt mit der lokalen Küche werden. Ein Pita (eine Art Fladenbrot) geviertelt, ein hartgekochtes Ei, etwas Butter, Marmelade und eine Ecke Schmierkäse. Dazu ein Tee. Besser als nix und für umsonst.

Als nächstes mache ich einen Ausflug vor die T ...

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In Amman werden we voor ons gevoel in de middle of nowhere gedropt. Gelukkig wilde de guard van het hotel waar we naast stonden onze host wel even bellen en in het arabisch uitleggen waar we waren, en zo werden we een uurtje later door Rami opgepikt en naar zijn vijf-sterren couch gebracht. De woonsituatie (zoals wij hem langzaam leerden begrijpen): Rami's ouders wonen in een mega huis/appartementencomplex. Rami woont eigenlijk alleen boven, maar omdat dat als ...

... way there was long and I was trying not to nod off. Mostly we were driving through the desert (SaHara in Arabic). I saw horses, donkeys, sheep, goats, and dun dun dun CAMELS! A group of camels was like grazing by the highway and beginning to cross the road. Awesome! Anyone who knows me well knows that I love meeting animals on my travels. My goals for my time in Jordan include but are not limited to petting a donkey, seeing a baby camel, and ...

... ready to go home and to have some real food, as well as planning the next adventure. We split a taxi for 4 heading to the airport, making the cost roughly 6 dinars each - this price varied for many groups depending on the number, but was roughly always 23-25 dinar for the trip. 45 minutes later we were at the airport and began going our separate ways heading home or to the next adventure.

At the airport I was offered a $600 voucher to get on ...

... final dinner. We went to this restaurant in town up where they had traditional food and there just so happened to be a group of people celebrating a birthday. So by the end of the night we were all up and dancing Jordanian style (sort of similar to Greek) dancing with these people who we had never met, we couldn't speak each others language but it didn't matter. We all had a ball and was a great way to celebrate the trip and our last night together as a group.

... for us. We had the first guy from 30 EGP down to 15 EGP, but he was making us mad so we abandoned him for his competitors. They went down to 15 rather quickly, but then we decided we wanted 10 EGP, which was pretty easy to do. They were all mad and insisting we go with this one driver, but we opted for a different one, since they were being a bit too forceful for our tastes. About 20 minutes later, we arrived at the bus station, which was ...

... locals also take great pride in their places and in the location and in fining that perfect spot to make people happy. It's nice.

By then it was about 6:00, closing time for the park, and the crowd had seriously thinned out. Six is when the park closes, but you can stay in as late as you want, though they ask you to leave by sunset for saftey reasons. We strolled back towards the entrance. It's nice to look reasonably fit because then the camel drivers will ...

... products manufactured in Jordan are exported to the USA and Iraq 4) I am 70 miles from Iraq and kinda a bit freaked out by that! All in all I am in a safe place and under lock and key so don't worry about us as we are doing great! Today we went to the ancient site of Jaresh...wow! This is one of the most well preserved Roman style archaeological sites in the world! There was a lot to see and take in. The first ...

Today was back to school and Matt came with me.  He got to help in an Algebra 1 class with Anita, go to French 1 with Middle Schoolers and Spanish with the High Schoolers.  The easy part of the day?  Checking on his emails while I was teaching my American History classs.  Oh, he also got to experience the lovely school lunches that we serve here.  What a treat!   After school ...