Bullshit

Snow?  Bullshit.

I'm calling bullshit on this one.  It's garbage.  Almost unbelievable.  I'm not happy.  It's got nothing to do with the program, or the food, or the family here.  Nothing to do with being inundated in Arabic.  It's the weather.  This is a desert.  There's not supposed to be rain.  Yet we've had three straight days of rain.  It's been raining cats and dogs.  Rivers running through the streets.  Water dripping down the walls of our room.  Puddles everywhere.  Even the house itself has been leaking.  And it's been cold.  Seriously?  If I wanted it to be cold, I could have stayed in New England.  And to cap it all off, it snowed last night.  Not a lot, but snow nonetheless.  Bullshit.

Language Pledge

Otherwise, things are great!  I took the language pledge last Wednesday, and it's hard to keep but I'm working hard at it.  I'm getting quite good at sign language, but it's hard.  It's frustrating on three levels.  First, I'm not used to the speed of speech here, which was to be expected, but is still frustrating.  That will come with time.  Second, it feels like what I've learned over the last two and a half years is useless.  It's not completely useless, but a ton of the words we use here are completely different.  Oh well.  Third, it's nearly impossible to express myself, which might be the most frustrating at all.  There are things I want to say, but I just don't know the words.  Quite frustrating.

That hasn't stopped the fun though!  After orientation ended on Wednesday, we went to a pretty cool restaurant called Hashem in Wast-al-balad, or the city center.  It was pretty good.  Falafel and hummus are everywhere, and I couldn't be happier about that.  We wandered around a bit afterwards, and found a cool DVD/CD place where Tyler (my roommate) got some CDs.  I'm super excited for those because the language pledge theoretically extends to music as well, so I'm trying to cut back on listening to American music (I haven't really used my iPod since I got here).  Then we went to Rainbow Street and walked around a little more, and got a great view of the rest of Amman.  Our Jordanian friends from the University were with us, and they're fun and awesome to hang around with!.

DVD Hamudeh!

Thursday, I decided to find a gym.  There's one within a half hour (walking) of our house, and it's in the Medina Ryadiah (sports city).  It's a huge complex, with a few soccer fields, the national stadium, tennis courts, pools... really every type of sport imaginable.  However, like I said, it's gigantic.  After asking for directions, I walked directly past the gym and wandered around for about an hour before finding the gym, right next to where I had entered.  Whoops!  The best thing about the gym is that they have showers, and plenty of hot water.  In all seriousness, I'll probably go work out just so that I can shower afterwards.  There's also a sauna which I'm definitely going to make use of.  I met a kid from Amherst there (small world again), who I'm sure I'll see again.  That night a few of us had dinner together, and then stopped by a hookah bar where my friends smoked hookah and I played backgammon (we taught our friends, too).

View from Rainbow Street

Yesterday was a family day.  Sharaf (the daughter) came by for the day with her husband, Said.  We had breakfast and dinner together, and Bego made something delicious involving rice, onions, and lamb or some sort of meat.  So good.  Before dinner, I showed Jamal and Bego the pictures of my family I had brought from home.  They liked them a lot, and then we spent about 45 minutes going through some of Jamal's photos, which was really cool!  He was quite important in the military, and has pictures with dignitaries such as the Emperor of Japan, President of France, various Kuwaiti/Saudi/Qatari sheiks and princes... you get the idea.  We also saw pictures of Jamal and Bego's extended family, wedding, and various family vacations.  I think we bonded, which was really good!  There's definitely still a significant language barrier, though, which will be worn down as time goes on!

Class starts tomorrow.  OH NO!  It'll be tough to get back into the school mindset, but I guess I'll have to shake the dust off my Arabic books and start the semester.

Until next time, Inshallah!