Week 1 Recap. Ish.

So we've been here a little over a week now and it feels like we've been here forever. Quick recap:

Friday we went to lunch at a Yemeni restaurant and spoke Arabic. Fun stuff. I had no idea what I actually ordered, but it was tasty. And authentic, because there were definitely no utensils. You had to use bread and/or your hands. Nom nom nom. (It's hard when you're eating rice.) More orientating. Friday night we went to Souk Jara, a flea market-type-thing run by the residents' association. Not a lot of traditional stuff, but fun to look at. And they have tasty food. Watermelon juice, cookies, pancakes covered in chocolate and strawberries... mmm. After that I went with Morgan and Emily to a restaurant on Rainbow Street where we got hummus (yum!) and some other stuff I don't know the names of. And while we were there a wedding party came in. It was pretty cool. They were playing instruments and singing loudly and the women were making this yodelly noise that women do here. Fun to watch.

Saturday was orientation at Qasid, the place where we're taking our classes. After Qasid I went and joined a gym. Woo. Super expensive and pretty small, but all of this is by American standards of course, and I think it's actually one of the cheaper ones around? Sounds like it anyway. But they gave us money for the summer so I don't feel too bad about it. If nothing else the price is assurance that I will go, if only to justify it. Went to a cheap, tasty restaurant across the street from Qasid. Large falafel sandwich and 1.5 liter bottle of water for 1 JD? Yes please!

Classes started on Sunday. Our Sunday-Thursday schedule looks like this:
8am - 12:30 pm = class. 5-7pm = Various required activities. 7-8(ish)pm = dinner. From 8am-3pm we can only speak Arabic, as well as during activities and dinner. And when we go on weekend trips those are all-Arabic too. From 3:20-3:40 I have an appointment with my speaking partner as well. Sunday and Monday we work on amiyya (Jordanian dialect) and Tuesday and Wednesday we work on MSA. This time is horribly in convenient in terms of my getting to the gym, but we didn't get to pick so yeah. Thursday from 4-5 we have weekly quizzes. Yesterday's didn't go as well as I'd expected. Not horribly, but I wasn't expecting it to be in the format it was in and we had an essay question that came out of left field that we all struggled with. Stuff happens.

Last night I went with a few people to get ice cream downtown. It was a little expensive, but tasty. Nutella ice cream ftw. Then we joined just about everyone at a movie that was part of the week-long Franco-Arab Film Festival. It was pretty good. After that a group of us wound up walking like 45 minutes from downtown to Rainbow Street. Up and down hills, up epic staircases of death, through a random restaurant... it was so special. And kind of awesome. Amman is really pretty at night. And in the distance we could see some of the Roman ruins. I have to get there eventually. Our group ran into some other CLS people who'd wisely taken taxis to Rainbow Street and we all splintered. My group wound up on the roof of a restaurant where we got pizza and shisha/hookah/argileh/whatever you want to call it. It was cold, but fun. On the taxi ride back, a car jumped the median and we saw it driving in the left lane, going the wrong way on our side of the street, only on its two left wheels. It was ridiculous. Luckily there were no cars driving in that lane or there would have been a horrific accident. As we drove by there was a cloud of dust/smoke and small debris. But the driver got control of the car not long after and I'm pretty sure he got out of the car and walked around. (Our taxi driver had pulled over and was watching to see what happened. As crazy as they drive around here, if there's an accident pretty much everyone just stops their cars in the middle of the street and runs over to help.)

Today Morgan and Rebecca got their hair done at a salon and Morgen and I went along for the ride. Afterward I went with Morgan and Morgen to a souk, then to lunch, then downtown where we were looking for another souk in Morgen's guidebook (which she'd forgotten to bring. Which is usually what happens with guidebooks). Wandered around a lot in the same area we walked through last night. It was pretty uncomfortable because we were surrounded by men. The streets were super super crowded. And it was different from being in crowded areas like Moroccan medinas because at least there there are lots of tourists and there are other women. Here we were obviously out of our element. Sexual harassment is so much fun. So much. Anyway, Morgen eventually called Emily (our sort-of RA who is our go-to for questions about where to go and what to see) to find out where this thing was, and it turns out it's on Rainbow Street right next to Souk Jara. Whoops. We wandered in there for a little bit and came home. I took a nap unintentionally; I'd gone into my room to get my phone and somehow wound up sleeping for three hours even though my bed was covered in stuff. I am awesome. Woke up, went downstairs, went to McDonald's with people. It wasn't bad. It wasn't stellar, but not bad. The fries were good. And now I don't have to worry about getting there again to fulfill my... tradition? I don't know. But I've been to a McDonald's in every country I've been to since Spring 09. It wasn't intentional when it started, but now I'm continuing it, I guess. I'm weird, I know.

I'd planned on writing a lot more about what Amman is actually like and whatever, but it's midnight now and I have to go to bed. We're all operating on a chronic lack of sleep right now, I think. Between jet lag and crazy schedules and now 8am classes with lots of homework, it's really hard to catch up. You have to go to bed between 9 and 10 at night to get a full night's sleep, and there's just no time for that. And during the week there's not time to do much of anything. But we have a scavenger hunt in the morning, so it's bedtime for kitty so she isn't super grumpy. If I have time tomorrow I'll try to write more. And post photos. I've not taken many yet but I'll try to get them up soon.