My thoughts are that if I tell you the stuff that's about to come on my blog, I'll actually do it (let alone remember what that stuff should be!!)
Thanksgiving weekend; big Thursday night dinner, Friday excursion to the desert castles then to Harry Potter at night, can't remember what happened that Saturday...
Uninteresting week, full of the same old, same old. Worked on my big research paper.
Had a nice night out at Rainbow street on Wednesday, spent Thursday night in dealing with my cold with a hot water bottle and tea, went out on Friday night to see a movie with my friend Phil after spending the day studying at Starbucks (Yes, Starbucks.), and Saturday I stayed in again; family came over for the St. Barbara celebrations (which isn't a big holiday here, just a nice excuse to make a signature dessert--which was gross, by the way!!--and to see people). Sunday was an awesome Hannukah/"Every Jew food we could make" dinner.
So details to follow...unless that summary will suffice???? Hah, comments welcome, of course.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
Eid al-Adha in Turkey and Cyprus!
Ohhhhh goodness. I'm trying to muster up the motivation to write this post, but there is so much to say! Our vacation was so incredible, I wish you I could share it with you in movie form or something. But I guess my mundane words will have to suffice, so please bear with me!
I ended up staying overnight at Alyssa's apartment so that the morning taxi to the airport would be a piece of cake. That evening we went out with Noor, Hayder, and Senan since they were dying to see us and didn't want to have to wait another 10 days before we got back to Amman. We just walked around "Walk-a-lot" Street (Wakalat), had a hookah, and got some schwarma.
The next morning, Chris, Alyssa, and I met up at our waiting moumayaz taxi to get to the airport; it was so awesome seeing so many CIEE folk on their way to Beirut, Cairo, some places in Europe... At our gate there were probably 8 others going to Istanbul.
Okay, because this is taking so long for me to get to, I'm going to abandon this post and just list the basic activities that we did, towns we went to, etc, and not put in too much detail. That way, you'll have something to ask me about in person! :-P
Istanbul: Stayed there for three nights in the Istanbul Sydney Hostel (don't ask me why there's the reference to Australia, I forgot to ask them!), which was right behind the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia. We dashed there from the airport via metro and tram, and the first night Alyssa and I went to the Turkish Baths while Chris was busy with a phone interview--during our vacation, can you believe Delloit?? Next day was a bunch of bazaar scouting and walking through the streets: we had a reservation with a place to do a Turkish cooking class, but not enough people signed up, so it was canceled. Ended up being okay because we definitely took every minute that day checking out the beautiful souks and artwork around us. That night we went to Taksim square for dinner (avoiding big gatherings of police!! *reference to the news from a few weeks ago...) and checked out the nightlife. The following day we did the tourist thing: went to the Tokapi Palace and its Harem, then to the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque.
We hopped the tram to the old city wall, and it was slightly creepy: there was no one around except for a few random lone dudes, so after some photos we hightailed it home in time for dinner at a cute nearby restaurant. Let me tell you that the Turks definitely have mastered the hookah way better than the Arabs!
We had an early morning to catch the ferry across the Marmara to Bursa, which cut out some major bus hours around the bay. Took the bus to Troy, which was slightly disappointing (in fact, "anticlimactic" was our word of that day!!):
Loooong bus ride to Goreme in Cappadocia that night, and stayed that a Backpacker's hostel that was actually built into the funky rocks that are characteristic of the area. The following day, we went to Derinkuyu to one of the ancient underground cities, previously used by Christians to hide from the armies of Islam and Rome. The tunnels were small and cramped, but the stone was so soft, and the cities so intricate (some of the tunnels were miles long, and connected neighboring cities).
We came back to Goreme to have lunch, and then went to hike through the Rose Canyon, among the fairy chimneys, where you could see rooms and tunnels built into the rock. We wanted to do a balloon ride, but it was extremely expensive per person. After that we went back to the hostel to chill for a bit before we went to our "Turkish Night", set up through the hostel, which included a ride to and from the restaurant, a whirling dervish show, folk dances, a bonfire, a belly dancer, a full meal, and unlimited alcohol. Needless to say it was a fun time! Headed back to the hostel for a quick sleep before an early morning bus to Alanya, where we had planned to catch the ferry to Kyrenia in Cyprus. We encountered some problems though with scheduling, so we had to make our way along the coast to Tasucu instead. The three additional folks in our group took a plane from Antalya because their flight back to Amman was a day before ours so they had to really rush to get to Cyprus, but we took a bus to Tasucu and spent the evening in a cute little hostel, where our balcony looked over the 20ft to the water :)
The next morning we took a leisurely breakfast and hopped the ferry to Kyrenia. We arrived around 2pm, and had time to go visit the town's old fort, splurge on a nice fish dinner around the port, and sit around a very lovely hookah before catching a taxi which would take us across the border into Larnaca in Greek Cyprus. The taxi only took about an hour and a half or so, and crossing the border was fine and easy. We got into Larnaca, had an obligatory cup of tea with the owner of the hotel, and then went to peruse the shops and restaurants along the beachfront. We settled at a cafe to have a drink, and then went back to the hotel to rearrange our bags for the flight the next day (we got so many souvenirs--correction, it was mostly Alyssa's!!--that was needed another suitcase, and had to make sure the fragile ceramics would make it through the traveling alright!
Next morning we went to the beach, just for a half hour or so to put our feet in the Mediterranean, and then found a breakfast where the first thing we asked for was BACON.
Went to the airport and caught our flight no problem; it was funny how, when going through security, the official looking at my passport asked "You were in the occupied territories?" (referring to Turkish Cyprus). But besides than and a few comments from the taxi driver, we didn't hear much about the tension there.
We went straight from the airport to Alyssa's apartment to rearrange our bags once again to reclaim our things, but not before staging a photo in front of the building looking depressed and exhausted after the trip (depressed at having to return to boring old Amman!!). If this Internet was not being stupid, I'd post it!!
Overall it was a great trip, but not without its glitches. From what we heard, everyone had their fair share of travel frustrations; that's just what happens when a) we're young students that people like to take advantage of, b) there's plenty of language barriers, c) the intention of going and "winging" it only works to a certain degree before it starts hindering!!
Sorry about the very rushed and not very detailed account; it's now two weeks after our return, so I really just wanted to get SOMETHING up. Hope to share pictures with those of you I'll see back home in three weeks!!
I ended up staying overnight at Alyssa's apartment so that the morning taxi to the airport would be a piece of cake. That evening we went out with Noor, Hayder, and Senan since they were dying to see us and didn't want to have to wait another 10 days before we got back to Amman. We just walked around "Walk-a-lot" Street (Wakalat), had a hookah, and got some schwarma.
The next morning, Chris, Alyssa, and I met up at our waiting moumayaz taxi to get to the airport; it was so awesome seeing so many CIEE folk on their way to Beirut, Cairo, some places in Europe... At our gate there were probably 8 others going to Istanbul.
Okay, because this is taking so long for me to get to, I'm going to abandon this post and just list the basic activities that we did, towns we went to, etc, and not put in too much detail. That way, you'll have something to ask me about in person! :-P
Istanbul: Stayed there for three nights in the Istanbul Sydney Hostel (don't ask me why there's the reference to Australia, I forgot to ask them!), which was right behind the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia. We dashed there from the airport via metro and tram, and the first night Alyssa and I went to the Turkish Baths while Chris was busy with a phone interview--during our vacation, can you believe Delloit?? Next day was a bunch of bazaar scouting and walking through the streets: we had a reservation with a place to do a Turkish cooking class, but not enough people signed up, so it was canceled. Ended up being okay because we definitely took every minute that day checking out the beautiful souks and artwork around us. That night we went to Taksim square for dinner (avoiding big gatherings of police!! *reference to the news from a few weeks ago...) and checked out the nightlife. The following day we did the tourist thing: went to the Tokapi Palace and its Harem, then to the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque.
We had an early morning to catch the ferry across the Marmara to Bursa, which cut out some major bus hours around the bay. Took the bus to Troy, which was slightly disappointing (in fact, "anticlimactic" was our word of that day!!):
From Troy we headed 5 hours to Izmir, which I believe is the third largest city in Turkey. It's all modern since it had been destroyed by Greeks at some point in history, so we didn't plan to see much of the city beyond what we saw that night we lodged there.
The next morning we set out for Ephesus, which is supposed to be some of the most complete remnants of a Roman town on the Mediterranean. It was a lot of fun--FULL of tourists--and they even had a silly little show every ten minutes with a "Caesar" and "Cleopatra", a bit of dancing and a very well-choreographed gladiator fight (I'm pretty sure Cleopatra never got anywhere close to Turkey, but what do I know?). Took a lot of fun photos among the ruins there.
From there we went to Pamukkale, which is a site of a large mountain of calcium from the natural hot springs there. We had a nice lunch and then trekked around this hill:
We came back to Goreme to have lunch, and then went to hike through the Rose Canyon, among the fairy chimneys, where you could see rooms and tunnels built into the rock. We wanted to do a balloon ride, but it was extremely expensive per person. After that we went back to the hostel to chill for a bit before we went to our "Turkish Night", set up through the hostel, which included a ride to and from the restaurant, a whirling dervish show, folk dances, a bonfire, a belly dancer, a full meal, and unlimited alcohol. Needless to say it was a fun time! Headed back to the hostel for a quick sleep before an early morning bus to Alanya, where we had planned to catch the ferry to Kyrenia in Cyprus. We encountered some problems though with scheduling, so we had to make our way along the coast to Tasucu instead. The three additional folks in our group took a plane from Antalya because their flight back to Amman was a day before ours so they had to really rush to get to Cyprus, but we took a bus to Tasucu and spent the evening in a cute little hostel, where our balcony looked over the 20ft to the water :)
The next morning we took a leisurely breakfast and hopped the ferry to Kyrenia. We arrived around 2pm, and had time to go visit the town's old fort, splurge on a nice fish dinner around the port, and sit around a very lovely hookah before catching a taxi which would take us across the border into Larnaca in Greek Cyprus. The taxi only took about an hour and a half or so, and crossing the border was fine and easy. We got into Larnaca, had an obligatory cup of tea with the owner of the hotel, and then went to peruse the shops and restaurants along the beachfront. We settled at a cafe to have a drink, and then went back to the hotel to rearrange our bags for the flight the next day (we got so many souvenirs--correction, it was mostly Alyssa's!!--that was needed another suitcase, and had to make sure the fragile ceramics would make it through the traveling alright!
Next morning we went to the beach, just for a half hour or so to put our feet in the Mediterranean, and then found a breakfast where the first thing we asked for was BACON.
Went to the airport and caught our flight no problem; it was funny how, when going through security, the official looking at my passport asked "You were in the occupied territories?" (referring to Turkish Cyprus). But besides than and a few comments from the taxi driver, we didn't hear much about the tension there.
We went straight from the airport to Alyssa's apartment to rearrange our bags once again to reclaim our things, but not before staging a photo in front of the building looking depressed and exhausted after the trip (depressed at having to return to boring old Amman!!). If this Internet was not being stupid, I'd post it!!
Overall it was a great trip, but not without its glitches. From what we heard, everyone had their fair share of travel frustrations; that's just what happens when a) we're young students that people like to take advantage of, b) there's plenty of language barriers, c) the intention of going and "winging" it only works to a certain degree before it starts hindering!!
Sorry about the very rushed and not very detailed account; it's now two weeks after our return, so I really just wanted to get SOMETHING up. Hope to share pictures with those of you I'll see back home in three weeks!!
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Leaving for Eid!
This might be a record...11 days since my last post? And it will be another while before I post again: leaving tomorrow morning for our Eid Al-Adha break until November 20th, and I'm sure the long lists of what we end up doing in Turkey and Cyprus will daunt me to the point of putting off that post for at least another week or so!! Don't worry, I'm planning on taking notes every day of what we do (let alone how much i spend...), so I'll be sure to remember what happened when I finally get around to writing about it to you!
Nothing of extreme interest happened in the last 11 days, besides midterms last week (By the way, A on Fusha, A on Amiyya, and A- on Alternative Perspectives - don't you just hate it when all the teacher notes is some check marks on ever paragraph but points magically go missing for no apparent reason?). There were also elections this past week for the parliament; apparently there's just one seat for a Christian representative, and grandpa Alber's second cousin was running. He didn't win, but Rita and Eddie were pleased about the guy who did. It was very exciting...we had no school on Tuesday, as it was declared a national holiday to encourage voter turn-out, and we all received emails from both CIEE and the Embassy about potential demonstrations and protests, and were discouraged from going out. Apparently someone died down in Aqaba due to some tribal tensions once the results were announced! Much more exciting atmosphere here than in the States, it seems!! I went out that night, with my blondish hair covered in a scarf out of paranoia, and went to Alyssa's apartment where we made a rather delicious Mexican meal with fried bananas and ice cream for dessert.
The Saturday before all this was our CIEE day trip to Ajlun. It was...nice. We went first to the Ajlun Nature reserve, which actually was a surprising amount of green. We had breakfast at the visitor center and then took an hour long hike around the hill; had some good views, and made me sort of nostalgic for South Africa: walking in single file through trees, having the species pointed out to us, looking off the hill at the amazing views, and having our leader shout at us to walk more quietly so as not to scare away the wildlife (aka birds and some lizards...).
After this lovely jaunt through the greenery, we headed off to Ajlun Castle; once again, you could probably get more information by looking it up on Wikipedia.
(insert adorable picture here as soon as this Internet allows me to...)
After explore the castle for an excessive amount of time, we went to another reserve where "the King's private herd of deer" was protected...? This was a legitimate large enclosure for deer (unsure of the real name) that are becoming rare in the area. They like the jabal-tops because of the cooler atmosphere. So we went there, with the exclusive access from our Challenger Team chaperones--it's not open to the public--and got to feel the little guys some rather wobbly cucumbers. Good times were had by all. After this we headed to the same restaurant in Gerash that we ate at for that trip a few weekends ago, and then headed home.
So that is pretty much all of note that happened this week. It occurred to me that I haven't really been talking about cultural things as much as I should; all the funny little instances that happen to me at odd times (such as the little old taxi driver the other night who was trying to speak to me in very broken English and Arabic, then noticed a car ahead of him that was driving rather crazily and gestured toward it with a rather well-pronounced "F***!"; or like the bus that passed me as I was waiting for a taxi, where all the men were hanging out the window and shouted a chorus of heavily accented "Hello"s and "I love you"s at me). It is my goal in the final weeks that I'm here, after my return from Eid break, to keep my little notebook on me at all times and mark down such awesome occurrences that I would rather remember years from now when I read this again. At the end of my blogs I'll be sure to share them with you :)
Anyway, at this point, I'm to finish packing at head to Alyssa's where I'm staying the night before she, Chris, and I head off to the airport in the morn'. Our plan is 3 days in Istanbul, 3 days traveling through the country on our way to the southern coast, hitting up Troy and Cappadocia on the way, and then ferrying over to Cyprus for 2 nights. Yes, it sounds rushed, and it will be a whirlwind of sightseeing and blurry views from bus windows, but, just like when I travel anywhere else, I much prefer the ability to just be in a new country and breath in the atmosphere, and just be there. It wasn't our intention from the get-go to spend the full week in Istanbul and see everything there is to see there...we just want to get the general taste of Turkey (hehe, right before Thanksgiving, eh??). Other folks are spending Eid in Egypt, Palestine/Israel, Lebanon, Dubai...But we figured that, hey, we're studying Arabic, we WILL get back to this region and see those places at some point. We banked more on going somewhere a little out of the way that's a little more unlikely to see us again (though insha'allah it will!!).
I hope y'all have a great week and I'll get back to you in a few days!
Nothing of extreme interest happened in the last 11 days, besides midterms last week (By the way, A on Fusha, A on Amiyya, and A- on Alternative Perspectives - don't you just hate it when all the teacher notes is some check marks on ever paragraph but points magically go missing for no apparent reason?). There were also elections this past week for the parliament; apparently there's just one seat for a Christian representative, and grandpa Alber's second cousin was running. He didn't win, but Rita and Eddie were pleased about the guy who did. It was very exciting...we had no school on Tuesday, as it was declared a national holiday to encourage voter turn-out, and we all received emails from both CIEE and the Embassy about potential demonstrations and protests, and were discouraged from going out. Apparently someone died down in Aqaba due to some tribal tensions once the results were announced! Much more exciting atmosphere here than in the States, it seems!! I went out that night, with my blondish hair covered in a scarf out of paranoia, and went to Alyssa's apartment where we made a rather delicious Mexican meal with fried bananas and ice cream for dessert.
The Saturday before all this was our CIEE day trip to Ajlun. It was...nice. We went first to the Ajlun Nature reserve, which actually was a surprising amount of green. We had breakfast at the visitor center and then took an hour long hike around the hill; had some good views, and made me sort of nostalgic for South Africa: walking in single file through trees, having the species pointed out to us, looking off the hill at the amazing views, and having our leader shout at us to walk more quietly so as not to scare away the wildlife (aka birds and some lizards...).
After this lovely jaunt through the greenery, we headed off to Ajlun Castle; once again, you could probably get more information by looking it up on Wikipedia.
(insert adorable picture here as soon as this Internet allows me to...)
After explore the castle for an excessive amount of time, we went to another reserve where "the King's private herd of deer" was protected...? This was a legitimate large enclosure for deer (unsure of the real name) that are becoming rare in the area. They like the jabal-tops because of the cooler atmosphere. So we went there, with the exclusive access from our Challenger Team chaperones--it's not open to the public--and got to feel the little guys some rather wobbly cucumbers. Good times were had by all. After this we headed to the same restaurant in Gerash that we ate at for that trip a few weekends ago, and then headed home.
So that is pretty much all of note that happened this week. It occurred to me that I haven't really been talking about cultural things as much as I should; all the funny little instances that happen to me at odd times (such as the little old taxi driver the other night who was trying to speak to me in very broken English and Arabic, then noticed a car ahead of him that was driving rather crazily and gestured toward it with a rather well-pronounced "F***!"; or like the bus that passed me as I was waiting for a taxi, where all the men were hanging out the window and shouted a chorus of heavily accented "Hello"s and "I love you"s at me). It is my goal in the final weeks that I'm here, after my return from Eid break, to keep my little notebook on me at all times and mark down such awesome occurrences that I would rather remember years from now when I read this again. At the end of my blogs I'll be sure to share them with you :)
Anyway, at this point, I'm to finish packing at head to Alyssa's where I'm staying the night before she, Chris, and I head off to the airport in the morn'. Our plan is 3 days in Istanbul, 3 days traveling through the country on our way to the southern coast, hitting up Troy and Cappadocia on the way, and then ferrying over to Cyprus for 2 nights. Yes, it sounds rushed, and it will be a whirlwind of sightseeing and blurry views from bus windows, but, just like when I travel anywhere else, I much prefer the ability to just be in a new country and breath in the atmosphere, and just be there. It wasn't our intention from the get-go to spend the full week in Istanbul and see everything there is to see there...we just want to get the general taste of Turkey (hehe, right before Thanksgiving, eh??). Other folks are spending Eid in Egypt, Palestine/Israel, Lebanon, Dubai...But we figured that, hey, we're studying Arabic, we WILL get back to this region and see those places at some point. We banked more on going somewhere a little out of the way that's a little more unlikely to see us again (though insha'allah it will!!).
I hope y'all have a great week and I'll get back to you in a few days!
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Ketchup
Alright, finally sitting down to this gigantic task of catching up on the last...2 weeks? I'll focus on weekends since that's what most of the more interesting things happen. Sunday-Thursday is typically just school, and my either spending the evening in the house or going to the grocery story, meeting folks at a hookah lounge, etc. Classes are going well, feeling fully comfortable in Advanced One Arabic and have completely caught up through the chapters I had to skip. Not sure if i mentioned this before, but i'm in the same class as the other two girls from IU, Jamie and Ella, both of whom have had the equivalent of 2 years of Arabic, whereas I've had one. If I may gloat a little, i think I have a bit of a knack for this Arrrr-bick thing!
In amiyya class we've been going over different social contexts and the vocabulary involved. In "Alternative Perspectives of the Middle East", we've been reading some essays, as well as watching the movie Salt of this Sea, and just having discussions about our reactions to these different views on aspects of life in the Middle East. And Intro to Islam, having a grand ol' time listening to our Sheikh professor ramble on about God Amighty and talk about how he hates music because it creates unrealistic fantasies, which he says is sinful.
Anywho...last last weekend, spent Thursday night chilling with my girlfriends; we ended up going to a dance club at a hotel to let off some steam from the week, and met some interesting characters!! The next morning I ventured out to Rainbow Street to check out the Souk Jara, a Friday craft and knick-knack market. Found a couple cute things, but it was very small, and I hope sometime to go to the Souk Juma'a (Friday Souk), which is a big flea market (that sounds nasty, but it's a lot of new things too, at extremely low prices). That afternoon, I hit up the gym, and then spent the evening in working, or pretending to work, on some homework. Saturday morning I woke up and went to Makkah Mall to meet with my peer tutor, Farah. She's super sweet, and tries hard to communicate in Araglish (hehe get it?). We wandered around and ended up in a donut shop where she treated me to some scrumptious treats ("ahlan wa sahlan! please please!"). We discussed some of the grammar questions I had, and then we just chatted about cultural stuff for a while.
Can't remember what I did that night, blast! Perhaps the soiree at Jafra?
Week goes by, mish mushkila (no problem)...Thursday night we were supposed to go with Noor to a club thingy at the same hotel as the previous weekend, but that fell through. Luckily, I was invited to go to an engagement party with this girl we'd met at Jafra, Rania (no,not the Queen!!), who is some distant cousin-thingy of Noor's. She'd lived in the states for a while, so her English was spot on. Anyway, the engagement party was for her best friend's engagement. It was so elaborate!! It was basically like a giant prom: dj, lights everywhere, hotel ballroom tables set up with centerpieces and crazy placesettings...I suppose a better analogy would be a high-class Bar Mitzvah, but let's avoid the Hebrew this semester!! This was a Muslim family, although all the dancing was mixed-gender; no alcohol though. All of the women looked absolutely amazing--lots were wearing bedazzled hijabs. So Ali, Julie, and I arrive, and stand awkwardly just inside the door, having just met our friend one time (and we expected she'd be dolled up way beyond our recognition), and we didn't know the bride or groom. After looking for a few moments, Mama approaches, looking absolutely magestic for a large older woman, and just starts welcoming us in, herding us to a table...We're trying to shout "Na'arif Rania! We know Rania", but not like it mattered, which definitely got us girls planning on heading to a random hotel sometime, asking for the engagement/wedding party, saying we know "rasha" and get welcomed in to dance! Not sure that will come to pass though.
Anywho, we ended up dancing and having a good time. Found Rania, but didn't want to take her away from her friend too much so we just hung back and observed. I was sitting next to three girls in hijabs who weren't dancing, so i asked (shouted) why they weren't dancing; their reply was that they couldn't because their fathers and brothers were there. That was kind of interesting, reminded me of my dad not being able to attend his former school's (where he taught) dance recitals because seeing the girls dance would be totally unorthodox.
Good time overall, definitely a cultural experience, and I'm super glad I went. Next day I went to get pancakes with Alyssa, Chris, and Danielle...there was also a marathon/10k around the city, which I totally would have participated in with other friends but apparently I didn't register in time, so carbed out instead :)
After breakfast we headed downtown with the intention of visiting the Citadel, or the ruins of a Roman temple on one of the highest hills in the city, looking over downtown. It took us a while though; we got distracted by the shops and the fruit smoothie stalls...and thennnn we headed up to the Citadel. It was interesting, and there were some nice views of the city. To be perfectly honest though, I'm kind of over Roman ruins!!
Stayed in that night since I had to get up early on Saturday for our program day trip to Northern Jordan. CIEE offers three day trips, apart from the weekend excursion to Petra, Wadi Rum, and Aqaba, of which we get to choose two. This was the first one; I'd also signed up for the trip to Ajloun to see the desert castles, and opted out of Biblical Jordan (which would have gone to Madaba, which I've already visited, Mount Nebo, where the church on top is supposedly closed, and the baptism site). We started out around 9am and drove two hours to Um Quais which is a hill chock full of, guess what!, Roman Ruins! It was fun, a lot of us just kind of chilled in the Amphitheater and enjoyed the views. I also got a bit of henna on my hand, done by two girls our age who came along with us. After this, we hit the road for Gerash, where we stopped at this massive site of ruins, which was actually super interesting because it was practically a whole city. There was a giant forum surrouned by an arcade of collumns, which fed into a long avenue flanked on either side by [what Rita said was] one thousand columns. There was also the steps of Artemis (leading to a temple), and a few more interesting facades.
After this we did a hurried browse through the tourist shops (will probably come back for an afternoon of less hurried browsing, as by this point we're only like 45 minutes outside Amman), and then we were taken to a restaurant for a rather extensive meal, and then headed home.
This last week has been pretty smooth; on Wednesday we went to Chris' apartment (no girls allowed in boys' apartments, shhhh!!) to make dinner. Ended up making cheeseburgers with sauteed peppers/zucchini/beans with sweet potato fries. Dessert was an apple crisp; good times were had by all! This weekend was spent studying for the midterms I have this coming week, except for a lovely little dinner out at a Chinese joint--which I'd been craving so hardcore!! Was definitely a nice choice. Everyone was doing things for halloween this year, but i'd kind of grown content with the knowledge that I was just missing it this year, and I'll celebrate it next year with a vengeance! Wish me luck on my midterms on Monday and Tuesday!
In amiyya class we've been going over different social contexts and the vocabulary involved. In "Alternative Perspectives of the Middle East", we've been reading some essays, as well as watching the movie Salt of this Sea, and just having discussions about our reactions to these different views on aspects of life in the Middle East. And Intro to Islam, having a grand ol' time listening to our Sheikh professor ramble on about God Amighty and talk about how he hates music because it creates unrealistic fantasies, which he says is sinful.
Anywho...last last weekend, spent Thursday night chilling with my girlfriends; we ended up going to a dance club at a hotel to let off some steam from the week, and met some interesting characters!! The next morning I ventured out to Rainbow Street to check out the Souk Jara, a Friday craft and knick-knack market. Found a couple cute things, but it was very small, and I hope sometime to go to the Souk Juma'a (Friday Souk), which is a big flea market (that sounds nasty, but it's a lot of new things too, at extremely low prices). That afternoon, I hit up the gym, and then spent the evening in working, or pretending to work, on some homework. Saturday morning I woke up and went to Makkah Mall to meet with my peer tutor, Farah. She's super sweet, and tries hard to communicate in Araglish (hehe get it?). We wandered around and ended up in a donut shop where she treated me to some scrumptious treats ("ahlan wa sahlan! please please!"). We discussed some of the grammar questions I had, and then we just chatted about cultural stuff for a while.
Can't remember what I did that night, blast! Perhaps the soiree at Jafra?
Week goes by, mish mushkila (no problem)...Thursday night we were supposed to go with Noor to a club thingy at the same hotel as the previous weekend, but that fell through. Luckily, I was invited to go to an engagement party with this girl we'd met at Jafra, Rania (no,not the Queen!!), who is some distant cousin-thingy of Noor's. She'd lived in the states for a while, so her English was spot on. Anyway, the engagement party was for her best friend's engagement. It was so elaborate!! It was basically like a giant prom: dj, lights everywhere, hotel ballroom tables set up with centerpieces and crazy placesettings...I suppose a better analogy would be a high-class Bar Mitzvah, but let's avoid the Hebrew this semester!! This was a Muslim family, although all the dancing was mixed-gender; no alcohol though. All of the women looked absolutely amazing--lots were wearing bedazzled hijabs. So Ali, Julie, and I arrive, and stand awkwardly just inside the door, having just met our friend one time (and we expected she'd be dolled up way beyond our recognition), and we didn't know the bride or groom. After looking for a few moments, Mama approaches, looking absolutely magestic for a large older woman, and just starts welcoming us in, herding us to a table...We're trying to shout "Na'arif Rania! We know Rania", but not like it mattered, which definitely got us girls planning on heading to a random hotel sometime, asking for the engagement/wedding party, saying we know "rasha" and get welcomed in to dance! Not sure that will come to pass though.
Anywho, we ended up dancing and having a good time. Found Rania, but didn't want to take her away from her friend too much so we just hung back and observed. I was sitting next to three girls in hijabs who weren't dancing, so i asked (shouted) why they weren't dancing; their reply was that they couldn't because their fathers and brothers were there. That was kind of interesting, reminded me of my dad not being able to attend his former school's (where he taught) dance recitals because seeing the girls dance would be totally unorthodox.
After breakfast we headed downtown with the intention of visiting the Citadel, or the ruins of a Roman temple on one of the highest hills in the city, looking over downtown. It took us a while though; we got distracted by the shops and the fruit smoothie stalls...and thennnn we headed up to the Citadel. It was interesting, and there were some nice views of the city. To be perfectly honest though, I'm kind of over Roman ruins!!
This last week has been pretty smooth; on Wednesday we went to Chris' apartment (no girls allowed in boys' apartments, shhhh!!) to make dinner. Ended up making cheeseburgers with sauteed peppers/zucchini/beans with sweet potato fries. Dessert was an apple crisp; good times were had by all! This weekend was spent studying for the midterms I have this coming week, except for a lovely little dinner out at a Chinese joint--which I'd been craving so hardcore!! Was definitely a nice choice. Everyone was doing things for halloween this year, but i'd kind of grown content with the knowledge that I was just missing it this year, and I'll celebrate it next year with a vengeance! Wish me luck on my midterms on Monday and Tuesday!
Monday, October 18, 2010
Weekend in Beirut
Yes, I know that I'm skipping over a week at school...but as you well know, I'm far, far behind, and would rather get to the juicy details of Beirut, Lebanon and skip over the blah blah details of the school week.
So Thursday, after school and work, we all met by the main gate of the university to catch the service taxi to the airport. By "we all" I mean Alyssa, Chris, Pam, and me. There were about ten others who went to Beirut last weekend, and we definitely ended up meeting to go out together, but the four of us traveled together and shared the hotel room.
Alyssa and Chris (Alyssa's on the left, Chris, obviously, the only guy..) are also the folks I'm traveling to Turkey/Cyprus with over our fall break, which takes place mid-November during the Muslim holiday of Eid-Al-Adha.
Anyhow, we headed to the airport and caught our flight to Beirut; extremely uneventful, only about a 45-minute flight. Immigration was no problem, fun to have another Middle-Eastern stamp in my passport... Caught the taxi sent by the hotel and rode through the city. It's a raaaahther nice place, cleaner than Amman for the most part, a little more put-together. Not as much Arabic on the signage, probably because of the greater amounts of tourism, and the French language from their influence in the past. It was fun to speak French during the weekend :)
The hotel was nice; though we've come to figure out that the Arab version of a double bed is more like a twin and a half, so we had to get cozy to squeeze four of us into a room! After a wash-up, we headed out to meet the other Americans, most of whom had taken a morning flight (and skipped class!!) and had been exploring the city all day. We met them on Jummeizah Street, which was described to us as the Bourbon Street of Beirut. Not quite as hoppin', but we definitely explored the bars and restaurants up and down the street. It was also a nice vacation from the dress code of Jordan: perhaps because of its more European air, we could wear pretty much anything we wanted, and in most cases we still looked more conservative than some of the locals we encountered!!
The next day was rainy and gross, but of course we ventured out anyway! First stop was to the American University of Beirut, so we could do a little comparison of the universities. This one was definitely much nicer than ours; first, their buildings looked right out over the Mediterranean. I mean, really, c'mon! We don't even get a river! Also, there's not so much of a water problem, so their campus consisted of pretty little pathways surrounded by trees and shrubbery. That, plus the lack of strict dress code, made AUB seem just like home, or more so, at least. We ended up having to buy umbrellas; and made a mad dash down the street to eat at Kebab-ji, a noted Lebanese restaurant, for lunch.
After that, we headed downtown to see if we could check out the Al-Omari mosque, which looked beautiful from the outside, and which we'd seen all lit up during our explorations of the previous evening. They didn't allow us in, because we aren't Muslim, but we got some good photos from the open doorway; absolutely beautiful building. We explored downtown some more, passing by the ruins of a Roman bath, and made our way towards one of the two remaining synagogues in Beirut. It was weird asking for directions, we were afraid to ask the armed policemen for the place directly!
We went back to the hotel and checked out the pool situation. They were closed for icky weather, but it looked pretty darn nice...several pools on a giant deck over the Mediterranean, with a few bars n such. Shame it was so cool and rainy out!!
After dressing up a bit we went out to a mall to meet a friend of Alyssa's who had studied with her in Egypt, like, five summers ago (Alyssa's in her mid-twenties and married). We met him and a friend at a restaurant in the mall that was Italian and Japanese food. I'm sure you can guess which one I went for!!
After that, the friend dropped us off at the hotel, where we prepared further for our night out, and then hailed a taxi to go to a club called iBar, downtown. Our fellow Americans had procured a reservation, and it ended up being super fun; I'm definitely a fan of the dance scene. Alyssa and I left around 1am (party animals, I know), which ended up being a good thing because there was some drama when the rest of the Americans tried leaving and the club threw a ridiculous tab at them and forbade them from leaving until it was paid....I dunno, kind of fit with the general concern of being ripped off fairly often because we look like tourists (taxi drivers claiming to not have change, etc etc). We've learned ways of dealing with it, like insisting that we know the taxi route is always 1.50JD, you can NOT tell me it's 15...things like that.
Saturday morning we woke up, packed our bags and checked out of the hotel before getting onto a bus headed for Byblos, one of the oldest continuously inhabited towns about an hour north of Beirut, along the coast. It's chock full of Roman ruins and interesting little curio shops. Alyssa, Chris, Pam, and I explored the ruins and took an inordinate number of photos, doing the typical tourist thing. Definitely picked up a fez/tarboush, couldn't resist!
It was absolutely beautiful there; we went to a fish restaurant, right off a dock, whose owner was a bit of a tourist attraction himself in the old days, and lots of famous stars came to eat at this place. We definitely decided to splurge on a nice fish lunch, and it was SO worth it!
Hopped on a bus back to Beirut and watched the sun set over the Mediterranean the whole way. Back at the hotel we went onto the pool deck again to get splashed by the rather violent sea waves crashing on the rocks, then got our taxi to the airport. We met up with Ali and Julie at the airport and flew quickly back to Amman.
Overall a super fun, super expensive, weekend! I'd definitely recommend checking out Beirut, or Lebanon in general, if you're ever in this part of the world; It's absolutely beautiful, and a much more European kind of Middle East, which is both fun to see and makes me glad that I"m in a more "traditional" place like Jordan.
So Thursday, after school and work, we all met by the main gate of the university to catch the service taxi to the airport. By "we all" I mean Alyssa, Chris, Pam, and me. There were about ten others who went to Beirut last weekend, and we definitely ended up meeting to go out together, but the four of us traveled together and shared the hotel room.
Anyhow, we headed to the airport and caught our flight to Beirut; extremely uneventful, only about a 45-minute flight. Immigration was no problem, fun to have another Middle-Eastern stamp in my passport... Caught the taxi sent by the hotel and rode through the city. It's a raaaahther nice place, cleaner than Amman for the most part, a little more put-together. Not as much Arabic on the signage, probably because of the greater amounts of tourism, and the French language from their influence in the past. It was fun to speak French during the weekend :)
The hotel was nice; though we've come to figure out that the Arab version of a double bed is more like a twin and a half, so we had to get cozy to squeeze four of us into a room! After a wash-up, we headed out to meet the other Americans, most of whom had taken a morning flight (and skipped class!!) and had been exploring the city all day. We met them on Jummeizah Street, which was described to us as the Bourbon Street of Beirut. Not quite as hoppin', but we definitely explored the bars and restaurants up and down the street. It was also a nice vacation from the dress code of Jordan: perhaps because of its more European air, we could wear pretty much anything we wanted, and in most cases we still looked more conservative than some of the locals we encountered!!
The next day was rainy and gross, but of course we ventured out anyway! First stop was to the American University of Beirut, so we could do a little comparison of the universities. This one was definitely much nicer than ours; first, their buildings looked right out over the Mediterranean. I mean, really, c'mon! We don't even get a river! Also, there's not so much of a water problem, so their campus consisted of pretty little pathways surrounded by trees and shrubbery. That, plus the lack of strict dress code, made AUB seem just like home, or more so, at least. We ended up having to buy umbrellas; and made a mad dash down the street to eat at Kebab-ji, a noted Lebanese restaurant, for lunch.
After that, we headed downtown to see if we could check out the Al-Omari mosque, which looked beautiful from the outside, and which we'd seen all lit up during our explorations of the previous evening. They didn't allow us in, because we aren't Muslim, but we got some good photos from the open doorway; absolutely beautiful building. We explored downtown some more, passing by the ruins of a Roman bath, and made our way towards one of the two remaining synagogues in Beirut. It was weird asking for directions, we were afraid to ask the armed policemen for the place directly!
We went back to the hotel and checked out the pool situation. They were closed for icky weather, but it looked pretty darn nice...several pools on a giant deck over the Mediterranean, with a few bars n such. Shame it was so cool and rainy out!!
After dressing up a bit we went out to a mall to meet a friend of Alyssa's who had studied with her in Egypt, like, five summers ago (Alyssa's in her mid-twenties and married). We met him and a friend at a restaurant in the mall that was Italian and Japanese food. I'm sure you can guess which one I went for!!
After that, the friend dropped us off at the hotel, where we prepared further for our night out, and then hailed a taxi to go to a club called iBar, downtown. Our fellow Americans had procured a reservation, and it ended up being super fun; I'm definitely a fan of the dance scene. Alyssa and I left around 1am (party animals, I know), which ended up being a good thing because there was some drama when the rest of the Americans tried leaving and the club threw a ridiculous tab at them and forbade them from leaving until it was paid....I dunno, kind of fit with the general concern of being ripped off fairly often because we look like tourists (taxi drivers claiming to not have change, etc etc). We've learned ways of dealing with it, like insisting that we know the taxi route is always 1.50JD, you can NOT tell me it's 15...things like that.
Saturday morning we woke up, packed our bags and checked out of the hotel before getting onto a bus headed for Byblos, one of the oldest continuously inhabited towns about an hour north of Beirut, along the coast. It's chock full of Roman ruins and interesting little curio shops. Alyssa, Chris, Pam, and I explored the ruins and took an inordinate number of photos, doing the typical tourist thing. Definitely picked up a fez/tarboush, couldn't resist!
It was absolutely beautiful there; we went to a fish restaurant, right off a dock, whose owner was a bit of a tourist attraction himself in the old days, and lots of famous stars came to eat at this place. We definitely decided to splurge on a nice fish lunch, and it was SO worth it!
Hopped on a bus back to Beirut and watched the sun set over the Mediterranean the whole way. Back at the hotel we went onto the pool deck again to get splashed by the rather violent sea waves crashing on the rocks, then got our taxi to the airport. We met up with Ali and Julie at the airport and flew quickly back to Amman.
Overall a super fun, super expensive, weekend! I'd definitely recommend checking out Beirut, or Lebanon in general, if you're ever in this part of the world; It's absolutely beautiful, and a much more European kind of Middle East, which is both fun to see and makes me glad that I"m in a more "traditional" place like Jordan.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Weekend Excursion to Southern Jordan
Okay, I know this is almost two weeks ago, so I will try to give as much detail as possible but please bear in mind that I'm a terrible blogger and have lots more to catch up on, especially from this past weekend in Beirut!
So Thursday morning all the students met at the University main gates and were loaded into buses. The trip was about three hours or so, and midroute we stopped at a very touristy craft/souvenir shop. Made it the rest of the way to the Wadi Rum Visitor Center; Wadi Rum, just to clarify, is a desert valley thingy, with mountainous sandstone and granite boulders (probs just easier to look it up on Wikipedia for a better illustration). At the visitor center, we ate lunch and then watched a little NatGeo-esque film about the region.
After a little rest, playing Frisbee in the courtyard and stocking up on kafiyyahs for the trek, we all went out to the camel herd and boarded! It was such a crazy feeling to sit on top of this huge animal, not to mention the saddle was super uncomfortable. But it was awesome! We set out, led by the handlers walking in front of us...ours was from Sudan, and he invited Ali and me to come back there with him when the season ended :P
We rode for about three hours, stopping two or three times to go climb the rock hills and take photos of the absolutely magnificent landscape.
Ended on a dune to watch the sun set over the desert, then we all made our way down the hill to our first camp. Wasn't a true Bedouin camp, but it was loads of fun. Ali, Julie, and I got a tent together, and there was an awesome dinner with a big bonfire in the middle of the encampment that we ended up dancing around with the musicians. In our evening downtime..we ventured out of the camp into the desert, just far enough that the lights weren't in our faces and we could lay back and enjoy the absolutely fantastic views of the sky and count the shooting stars.
The next morning we had b-fast and then split into groups of six to pack into 4x4s to drive through the desert towards Aqaba. It was cool, not as fun as the camels though, just windy and sandy; I made the mistake of putting on chapstick beforehand and my lips were super sandy after 5 minutes! Our driver was a little nuts, and liked to try to race the other jeeps, but good times all around.
The 4x4s dropped us off at the main road where our buses were waiting to take us the final 10 minutes into the city of Aqaba. It's a nice little port town, looked rather high-end, and we had a snazzy little lunch before going to our yachts (yes, yachts) to go out onto the Red Sea to snorkel. I must be blunt, it's times like these, when we get to strip down to our bathing suits, that are very welcome vacations from the modest of Jordanian dress codes!!
After our evening play on the water, loaded back into buses to head to another camp close to Petra. Some people stayed out in the middle of the encampment to sleep under the stars; I'd already claimed a tent though with some other girl and thought I'd be happy to have the privacy and better sleep. The days were jam-packed with activities, and the final day at Petra would be the longest of all!
Woke up early to get to Petra; the program offered two routes: either take the bus to the Visitor's Center and then hike through the site, or take the "intense" backdoor hike, in which you end up at the far end of the site and would see everything in reverse when headed back to the visitor's center. I took the easy way out, knowing myself, I thought I'd rather not push it, not in that heat.
Let me tell you, there was nothing easy about the easy hike. Granted, it was all level land, no slinking around tight rock ledges or anything like the other one, but boy oh boy...soooo much walking. From the visitor's center, it took about 20 minutes walking through a canyon, through sand, to get to the Treasury, which is typically the main image of Petra, that facade carved into the rock face (again, check out Wikipedia to see everything I saw...still unable to post pictures here, unsure why!!)
From there, more walking, exiting the canyon into the tomb area..lots more smaller facades lining the cliffs. It was a little creepy looking into the doorways!! Passed by the amphitheater, and moved more into the residential area. The homes weren't build into the rocks, and therefore there was nothing really recognizable because of all of the erosion and earthquakes; just a large area of rubble. Up on the hill there was the tent I'd been keeping an eye out for...That was the Petra Chapel, excavated by ACOR, the folks I'm working with, and they had the display of the amazing mosaic floors open to the passing tourists. It was cool to see a completed project by them; and I also saw from afar the Temple of the Winged Lions, a project already completed but poorly so, and I'll be helping with the new organization of the data, making it available to scholars online, etc.
We all had lunch at the one restaurant on the site, and afterwards a few of us decided to brave the heat and climb the 800 stairs (and by stairs i mean terribly eroded, very steep slope that might once have been suitable stairs) to the Monastery. Along the way, the Bedouin people--who are no longer allowed to sleep in Petra but can work there during the day--had stalls set up with jewelry and drinks, and were encouraging us along the way, shouting "Just 10 more minutes! You're halfway there I promise!!" Some were even leading donkeys up that you could pay to ride.
All was well, and we made it, huffing and puffing, rather moist on the forehead... The Monastery looked very much like the Treasury; a similar facade carved into a wall of rock, so we turned our attention to a sign on top of a boulder that said "The Highest View". Yet more climbing (buns of steel, yes?), and made it to this lookout point that seemed to be the highest point in the entire area, and we had some fantastic views of the canyons and surrounding desert. Some guys had a tent up there with souvenirs, and they served tea to us; we asked if they camp out up there, and they bragged about sometimes staying up there overnight! I don't blame them...I wouldn't want that climb every day, no matter how rewarding the view from the office!! All the way back down, it was fun commiserating with the people going up, encouraging them in French, English, and a bit of broken Spanish and German to continue the last 10 minutes, 20 minutes..the view was so worth it. To give you an idea of the distance of our "easy" hike: From the High View, climbing down the mountain, stopping just a hot minute to purchase a necklace or two from the Bedouins, going back through the residential areas, the tomb area, back to the Treasury, and through the canyon to the Visitor's Center, it took us about 1.5 hours of rather hurried walking!! (Had to meet by 3:30 to catch the bus)
Needless to say, everyone passed out in the bus on the way home. Didn't get home til about 9pm, and then had to do my MSA homework!! Took the best shower of my life, and rested up for Sunday's class.
So Thursday morning all the students met at the University main gates and were loaded into buses. The trip was about three hours or so, and midroute we stopped at a very touristy craft/souvenir shop. Made it the rest of the way to the Wadi Rum Visitor Center; Wadi Rum, just to clarify, is a desert valley thingy, with mountainous sandstone and granite boulders (probs just easier to look it up on Wikipedia for a better illustration). At the visitor center, we ate lunch and then watched a little NatGeo-esque film about the region.
After a little rest, playing Frisbee in the courtyard and stocking up on kafiyyahs for the trek, we all went out to the camel herd and boarded! It was such a crazy feeling to sit on top of this huge animal, not to mention the saddle was super uncomfortable. But it was awesome! We set out, led by the handlers walking in front of us...ours was from Sudan, and he invited Ali and me to come back there with him when the season ended :P
We rode for about three hours, stopping two or three times to go climb the rock hills and take photos of the absolutely magnificent landscape.
Ended on a dune to watch the sun set over the desert, then we all made our way down the hill to our first camp. Wasn't a true Bedouin camp, but it was loads of fun. Ali, Julie, and I got a tent together, and there was an awesome dinner with a big bonfire in the middle of the encampment that we ended up dancing around with the musicians. In our evening downtime..we ventured out of the camp into the desert, just far enough that the lights weren't in our faces and we could lay back and enjoy the absolutely fantastic views of the sky and count the shooting stars.
The next morning we had b-fast and then split into groups of six to pack into 4x4s to drive through the desert towards Aqaba. It was cool, not as fun as the camels though, just windy and sandy; I made the mistake of putting on chapstick beforehand and my lips were super sandy after 5 minutes! Our driver was a little nuts, and liked to try to race the other jeeps, but good times all around.
The 4x4s dropped us off at the main road where our buses were waiting to take us the final 10 minutes into the city of Aqaba. It's a nice little port town, looked rather high-end, and we had a snazzy little lunch before going to our yachts (yes, yachts) to go out onto the Red Sea to snorkel. I must be blunt, it's times like these, when we get to strip down to our bathing suits, that are very welcome vacations from the modest of Jordanian dress codes!!
After our evening play on the water, loaded back into buses to head to another camp close to Petra. Some people stayed out in the middle of the encampment to sleep under the stars; I'd already claimed a tent though with some other girl and thought I'd be happy to have the privacy and better sleep. The days were jam-packed with activities, and the final day at Petra would be the longest of all!
Woke up early to get to Petra; the program offered two routes: either take the bus to the Visitor's Center and then hike through the site, or take the "intense" backdoor hike, in which you end up at the far end of the site and would see everything in reverse when headed back to the visitor's center. I took the easy way out, knowing myself, I thought I'd rather not push it, not in that heat.
Let me tell you, there was nothing easy about the easy hike. Granted, it was all level land, no slinking around tight rock ledges or anything like the other one, but boy oh boy...soooo much walking. From the visitor's center, it took about 20 minutes walking through a canyon, through sand, to get to the Treasury, which is typically the main image of Petra, that facade carved into the rock face (again, check out Wikipedia to see everything I saw...still unable to post pictures here, unsure why!!)
From there, more walking, exiting the canyon into the tomb area..lots more smaller facades lining the cliffs. It was a little creepy looking into the doorways!! Passed by the amphitheater, and moved more into the residential area. The homes weren't build into the rocks, and therefore there was nothing really recognizable because of all of the erosion and earthquakes; just a large area of rubble. Up on the hill there was the tent I'd been keeping an eye out for...That was the Petra Chapel, excavated by ACOR, the folks I'm working with, and they had the display of the amazing mosaic floors open to the passing tourists. It was cool to see a completed project by them; and I also saw from afar the Temple of the Winged Lions, a project already completed but poorly so, and I'll be helping with the new organization of the data, making it available to scholars online, etc.
We all had lunch at the one restaurant on the site, and afterwards a few of us decided to brave the heat and climb the 800 stairs (and by stairs i mean terribly eroded, very steep slope that might once have been suitable stairs) to the Monastery. Along the way, the Bedouin people--who are no longer allowed to sleep in Petra but can work there during the day--had stalls set up with jewelry and drinks, and were encouraging us along the way, shouting "Just 10 more minutes! You're halfway there I promise!!" Some were even leading donkeys up that you could pay to ride.
All was well, and we made it, huffing and puffing, rather moist on the forehead... The Monastery looked very much like the Treasury; a similar facade carved into a wall of rock, so we turned our attention to a sign on top of a boulder that said "The Highest View". Yet more climbing (buns of steel, yes?), and made it to this lookout point that seemed to be the highest point in the entire area, and we had some fantastic views of the canyons and surrounding desert. Some guys had a tent up there with souvenirs, and they served tea to us; we asked if they camp out up there, and they bragged about sometimes staying up there overnight! I don't blame them...I wouldn't want that climb every day, no matter how rewarding the view from the office!! All the way back down, it was fun commiserating with the people going up, encouraging them in French, English, and a bit of broken Spanish and German to continue the last 10 minutes, 20 minutes..the view was so worth it. To give you an idea of the distance of our "easy" hike: From the High View, climbing down the mountain, stopping just a hot minute to purchase a necklace or two from the Bedouins, going back through the residential areas, the tomb area, back to the Treasury, and through the canyon to the Visitor's Center, it took us about 1.5 hours of rather hurried walking!! (Had to meet by 3:30 to catch the bus)
Needless to say, everyone passed out in the bus on the way home. Didn't get home til about 9pm, and then had to do my MSA homework!! Took the best shower of my life, and rested up for Sunday's class.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Week two
Ok definitely going to breeze by this week, since I want to get to the awesomeness that was this past weekend.
Last Saturday was spent in a day of activities with our peer tutors, students from the University of Jordan who are willing to meet with us to discuss culture, homework help, extra language lessons, etc, as well as getting help from us with English.
It took place at a YWCA (yeah...) camp about 30 minutes outside Amman, and it definitely felt like we were back at camp; we weren't warned of what we were going to do, so a lot of us chicks were in our cute clothes to meet our tutors, etc. It was literally about 4 hours of ice breaker activities, and, granted, it was fun commiserating with the other CIEE students and the Jordanians. I collected a few phone numbers of nice girls and a guy or two who were paired with friends of mine in the program, but, wouldn't you know it: my peer tutor didn't even show up. A whole day of breaking ice, for nothing! No, no, it was fun, but for those of you reading this in order to check out the workings of CIEE, this was a small example of their slight disorganization. Some CIEE students weren't even on the attendance list for this event, let alone did they have names of tutors to match up with. There seems to have been a few of these little annoyances and all the students moan, "oh, CIEE's at it again."
Class all week, fine, fine, well and good. For another example of lack of organization: I requested to change my Amiyya professor because he wasn't nearly as engaging or exciting as the other teachers I'd been with during the first week of class distribution. The day before the class was to take place, I asked the woman in charge of class switches if I would get my revised schedule today. She said after their meeting was out, at 4ish, they'd have the schedules in our mailboxes. I was to go to work and wasn't planning on coming back to the office, and she replied "Don't worry, we send out emails so you'll know." Ok, so I left, and by 10pm that night when I hadn't gotten an email, I sent her one, asking whether I'm to be at the old class at 8am or the new one at 9:30...I'd reeeeally like to know. No answer. I decided I'd be at school early enough to know for either class, and just camp out on campus with homework if I was early. By 8am the office still was not open, even though a class was to take place there at 8, and when someone finally did unlock the door, there was nothing in my mailbox. So i booked it to my class, late, of course. Only found out afterwards that I'd in fact been changed, and would have to wait until the following Monday to actually attend it. So there's another example of the disorganization, but, I mean, I wouldn't sweat those things; I'm just a personality who really likes order and knowing where I'm supposed to be, and receiving answers to vital questions like whether or not I get to sleep in for an extra 1.5hours!! :)
Thursday was my first real day of work at ACOR, and since I'd written a lovely diary entry about it (I need to keep one in order to get internship credit towards my Anthropology major), I'll just post it here :D
First real day of internship; Sunday, no one was really around to show me what to do, so I browsed through the library and checked out the ACOR publications on the Petra Papyri, etc. Allison, the director of ACOR had also given me a book on Petra, written by her friend Jane Taylor; she said they typically give the unpaid interns a gift of appreciation at the end of their stints at ACOR, but since the CIEE students are going to see Petra, she decided to jump the gun and hand me this book. I’m looking forward to being the group expert on the history of Petra! She also gave me the tourist pamphlets with maps of the site, and Allison highlighted where the excavations were at the Churches (mostly of Petra Chapel, and also the Blue Chapel and the Ridge Chapel), which weren’t even illustrated on the beaten tourist path.
So the first day: During lunch (which is provided for the scholars-in-residence, and includes me as a sort of payment), I spoke to a young woman from Brown University working on her dissertation on Byzantine glasswork, and is in Jordan to check out the sites and use the ACOR library for research. It seems she’s been everywhere and done so many digs; very interesting to talk to, and I’m sure I’ll pick her brain over lunch during the two months she’s around.
After the meal, I went with Tali E. G. (will get full name next time) to sort through some pottery shards. Tali is a specialist in “later” pottery, so she showed me how to fill out forms, noting the locus/trench, date excavated, how many shards, the type of shard (rim, base, handle, etc.), the function (jar, bowl, etc.), material (forgot the correct title for this; things such as fine ware, coarse ware, painted, etc.), the general time period and then a more specific time period (early Roman, Roman/Byzantine, etc.). It was interesting to watch her work: she’d empty out the bag and separate the later shards and left the older, handmade pottery bits for the other woman working on them, and then seem to merely count them, flip them over, and convey all of the aforementioned information, it was crazy! I told her that when she has more free time, I’d love for her to explain her thought process. That project didn’t last too long; some mix-up about being concerned that she’s already noted those shards and the woman she’s working with was disorganized, yadda yadda.
Next we went to the archival project: small room, of which one wall is completely full of binders, boxes, and notebooks. All of that was from a thirty year excavation of the Temple of the Winged Lions at Petra by [Name], but apparently his research was so poorly done, and out of 8,000-some artifacts uncovered, only 78 were used to illustrate this guy’s thesis. Apparently scholars have been waiting ages for a more comprehensive presentation of the excavation, so Chris Tuttle, along with Tali and a few others, are working on digitizing all of the documents and photographs from the excavation and sharing them with the world, and creating a more illustrative publication. They also plan to go into the site and stabilize it and make it more accessible to tourists; they say this will be a seven-year project. Also, many methods have changed so they can now date the site and the artifacts found within it. Chris explained the frustration of many younger archaeologists that published works only highlighted the findings that suited the author; he was very gung-ho about making everything accessible to everyone researching the topic. I’ll have to understand a bit more about his visions of future archaeological excavation practices. He said he would teach me how to use computer illustration programs so that I might make digital drawings of some of the shard sketches, etc.
I finally asked him what the possibility was of seeing the Petra excavation site, and he said that was definitely a possibility since he liked getting us “kids” (this guy’s like 30 years old…) out of the grunt-work dungeons and into the actual cake.
This day made me so excited to continue working at ACOR and getting more involved with these projects and learning more of the details of each; I was particularly intrigued by the fact that my name would eventually appear in publications as having helped out Will definitely have to start taking a notebook with me though to be sure I catch names and terms!!
(end of diary)
Also this week, finally met up with my real peer tutor, who was not the one listed at the Peer Tutor event day. We met up at a cafe just off campus; she seems really sweet, rather innocent (she could have passed for 15), and asked lots of questions. Her English is so-so, which is in a way good because I'll be forced to communicate in Arabic, however if I'm having her help me with homework, might be nice to have explanations of grammar functions in English. We'll just have to see! I think our plan is to meet every Sunday afternoon, since ACOR decided they'd rather have me 12:30-4 on Tuesdays and Thursdays and not have me come on Sunday.
Izzy's 21st birthday party was last week, too, and we all went out to eat at Cantina Hookah Bar. They started playing Happy Birthday over the loudspeaker, and all the people in the restaurant turned to stare at us, it was awesome! Noor and Senan had bought a big cake and brought it for the restaurant staff to present to Izzy during the music, very American style.
Finally, Wednesday night, we checked out the bar scene on Rainbow Street; about 10 of us met up at La Callet bar, and after chilling for a while we explored Gerard's Ice Cream on the corner, and I totally at some nutella ice cream...ohhhhmigosh I can tell that's going to be so dangerous!!
Thursday morning we left for our weekend trip to the Golden Triangle (Wadi Rum, Petra, and Aqaba), so that'll be the next post! Absolutely amazing trip, I hope you'll read about it!!
Last Saturday was spent in a day of activities with our peer tutors, students from the University of Jordan who are willing to meet with us to discuss culture, homework help, extra language lessons, etc, as well as getting help from us with English.
It took place at a YWCA (yeah...) camp about 30 minutes outside Amman, and it definitely felt like we were back at camp; we weren't warned of what we were going to do, so a lot of us chicks were in our cute clothes to meet our tutors, etc. It was literally about 4 hours of ice breaker activities, and, granted, it was fun commiserating with the other CIEE students and the Jordanians. I collected a few phone numbers of nice girls and a guy or two who were paired with friends of mine in the program, but, wouldn't you know it: my peer tutor didn't even show up. A whole day of breaking ice, for nothing! No, no, it was fun, but for those of you reading this in order to check out the workings of CIEE, this was a small example of their slight disorganization. Some CIEE students weren't even on the attendance list for this event, let alone did they have names of tutors to match up with. There seems to have been a few of these little annoyances and all the students moan, "oh, CIEE's at it again."
Class all week, fine, fine, well and good. For another example of lack of organization: I requested to change my Amiyya professor because he wasn't nearly as engaging or exciting as the other teachers I'd been with during the first week of class distribution. The day before the class was to take place, I asked the woman in charge of class switches if I would get my revised schedule today. She said after their meeting was out, at 4ish, they'd have the schedules in our mailboxes. I was to go to work and wasn't planning on coming back to the office, and she replied "Don't worry, we send out emails so you'll know." Ok, so I left, and by 10pm that night when I hadn't gotten an email, I sent her one, asking whether I'm to be at the old class at 8am or the new one at 9:30...I'd reeeeally like to know. No answer. I decided I'd be at school early enough to know for either class, and just camp out on campus with homework if I was early. By 8am the office still was not open, even though a class was to take place there at 8, and when someone finally did unlock the door, there was nothing in my mailbox. So i booked it to my class, late, of course. Only found out afterwards that I'd in fact been changed, and would have to wait until the following Monday to actually attend it. So there's another example of the disorganization, but, I mean, I wouldn't sweat those things; I'm just a personality who really likes order and knowing where I'm supposed to be, and receiving answers to vital questions like whether or not I get to sleep in for an extra 1.5hours!! :)
Thursday was my first real day of work at ACOR, and since I'd written a lovely diary entry about it (I need to keep one in order to get internship credit towards my Anthropology major), I'll just post it here :D
First real day of internship; Sunday, no one was really around to show me what to do, so I browsed through the library and checked out the ACOR publications on the Petra Papyri, etc. Allison, the director of ACOR had also given me a book on Petra, written by her friend Jane Taylor; she said they typically give the unpaid interns a gift of appreciation at the end of their stints at ACOR, but since the CIEE students are going to see Petra, she decided to jump the gun and hand me this book. I’m looking forward to being the group expert on the history of Petra! She also gave me the tourist pamphlets with maps of the site, and Allison highlighted where the excavations were at the Churches (mostly of Petra Chapel, and also the Blue Chapel and the Ridge Chapel), which weren’t even illustrated on the beaten tourist path.
So the first day: During lunch (which is provided for the scholars-in-residence, and includes me as a sort of payment), I spoke to a young woman from Brown University working on her dissertation on Byzantine glasswork, and is in Jordan to check out the sites and use the ACOR library for research. It seems she’s been everywhere and done so many digs; very interesting to talk to, and I’m sure I’ll pick her brain over lunch during the two months she’s around.
After the meal, I went with Tali E. G. (will get full name next time) to sort through some pottery shards. Tali is a specialist in “later” pottery, so she showed me how to fill out forms, noting the locus/trench, date excavated, how many shards, the type of shard (rim, base, handle, etc.), the function (jar, bowl, etc.), material (forgot the correct title for this; things such as fine ware, coarse ware, painted, etc.), the general time period and then a more specific time period (early Roman, Roman/Byzantine, etc.). It was interesting to watch her work: she’d empty out the bag and separate the later shards and left the older, handmade pottery bits for the other woman working on them, and then seem to merely count them, flip them over, and convey all of the aforementioned information, it was crazy! I told her that when she has more free time, I’d love for her to explain her thought process. That project didn’t last too long; some mix-up about being concerned that she’s already noted those shards and the woman she’s working with was disorganized, yadda yadda.
Next we went to the archival project: small room, of which one wall is completely full of binders, boxes, and notebooks. All of that was from a thirty year excavation of the Temple of the Winged Lions at Petra by [Name], but apparently his research was so poorly done, and out of 8,000-some artifacts uncovered, only 78 were used to illustrate this guy’s thesis. Apparently scholars have been waiting ages for a more comprehensive presentation of the excavation, so Chris Tuttle, along with Tali and a few others, are working on digitizing all of the documents and photographs from the excavation and sharing them with the world, and creating a more illustrative publication. They also plan to go into the site and stabilize it and make it more accessible to tourists; they say this will be a seven-year project. Also, many methods have changed so they can now date the site and the artifacts found within it. Chris explained the frustration of many younger archaeologists that published works only highlighted the findings that suited the author; he was very gung-ho about making everything accessible to everyone researching the topic. I’ll have to understand a bit more about his visions of future archaeological excavation practices. He said he would teach me how to use computer illustration programs so that I might make digital drawings of some of the shard sketches, etc.
I finally asked him what the possibility was of seeing the Petra excavation site, and he said that was definitely a possibility since he liked getting us “kids” (this guy’s like 30 years old…) out of the grunt-work dungeons and into the actual cake.
This day made me so excited to continue working at ACOR and getting more involved with these projects and learning more of the details of each; I was particularly intrigued by the fact that my name would eventually appear in publications as having helped out Will definitely have to start taking a notebook with me though to be sure I catch names and terms!!
(end of diary)
Also this week, finally met up with my real peer tutor, who was not the one listed at the Peer Tutor event day. We met up at a cafe just off campus; she seems really sweet, rather innocent (she could have passed for 15), and asked lots of questions. Her English is so-so, which is in a way good because I'll be forced to communicate in Arabic, however if I'm having her help me with homework, might be nice to have explanations of grammar functions in English. We'll just have to see! I think our plan is to meet every Sunday afternoon, since ACOR decided they'd rather have me 12:30-4 on Tuesdays and Thursdays and not have me come on Sunday.
Izzy's 21st birthday party was last week, too, and we all went out to eat at Cantina Hookah Bar. They started playing Happy Birthday over the loudspeaker, and all the people in the restaurant turned to stare at us, it was awesome! Noor and Senan had bought a big cake and brought it for the restaurant staff to present to Izzy during the music, very American style.
Finally, Wednesday night, we checked out the bar scene on Rainbow Street; about 10 of us met up at La Callet bar, and after chilling for a while we explored Gerard's Ice Cream on the corner, and I totally at some nutella ice cream...ohhhhmigosh I can tell that's going to be so dangerous!!
Thursday morning we left for our weekend trip to the Golden Triangle (Wadi Rum, Petra, and Aqaba), so that'll be the next post! Absolutely amazing trip, I hope you'll read about it!!
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Madaba
Friday was an adventure; a group of us decided to hop on a bus and go to Madaba, sort of midway between Amman and the Dead Sea...only...not? I don't know, only about 40 minutes outside the city, and like 75 quirish (about 1$) by bus.
When we got there, we picked up some lunch and then walked around, trying to find the churches and the mosaics. There were lots of cool shops, and I think I might go back towards the end of the trip to check out the souvenir selection. We ended up finding St. George's church; the mosaics were so crazy...teeny tiny bits of ceramic, with shading and everything.
It was a very cool place; though one of the guards came up to me and told me it was disrespectful to cross my legs in a holy place. Who'da thunk it?
After the church, we decided to head to the hot springs. I hopped in the car with Chris and the 3 Iraqis, Noor, Haydar, and Senan. The others took a taxi to go the 30km. Along the way we stopped and took some great photos of the countryside, which I like to tell people is the same place Moses walked around :-P
(Blog has for some reason started hating my uploading pictures, so will have to show some other time).
We ended up arriving first, and had to pay to get into this place; we Americans were totally charged 5JD more than the Iraqis!! Went in, headed to the (one) hotspring, and were totally disappointed. All it was was a relatively large hotspring, which was (surprise!) disgustingly steamy on such a hot day and at such a low elevation. What hurt most was the fact that it was mostly men and conservative women there: I'd been expecting more tourists and brought my only (bikini) swimsuit. I could tell it wasn't going to happen when lifting my shirt just a little caused all heads to turn towards me in surprisingly perfect unison. Guys were starting to the point of me wanting to get out my camera and snap a photo of them just to send the message. So no swimsuit, and i wasn't about to get the clothes I was going to wear for 45 minutes in a cramped car wet. Slightly miserable, and we called the others to warn them that it was not worth the 15JD to enter, particularly for the girls. They ended up taking off in the taxi in which they'd come, and we left soon thereafter. Headed back to Amman and ate at an overly air-conditioned restaurant (I just can't be satisfied, eh??) We dropped Chris back at his apartment and got to check it out, even though as a girl I'm technically not allowed in a guy's apartment, according to CIEE and the landlords. But I went, and was so shocked by the amazing quality of that place! Huge rooms, each guy had a bathroom, nice kitched, fully furnished...and aparently most apartments were that fantastic.
Headed home and went to bed!
After the church, we decided to head to the hot springs. I hopped in the car with Chris and the 3 Iraqis, Noor, Haydar, and Senan. The others took a taxi to go the 30km. Along the way we stopped and took some great photos of the countryside, which I like to tell people is the same place Moses walked around :-P
(Blog has for some reason started hating my uploading pictures, so will have to show some other time).
We ended up arriving first, and had to pay to get into this place; we Americans were totally charged 5JD more than the Iraqis!! Went in, headed to the (one) hotspring, and were totally disappointed. All it was was a relatively large hotspring, which was (surprise!) disgustingly steamy on such a hot day and at such a low elevation. What hurt most was the fact that it was mostly men and conservative women there: I'd been expecting more tourists and brought my only (bikini) swimsuit. I could tell it wasn't going to happen when lifting my shirt just a little caused all heads to turn towards me in surprisingly perfect unison. Guys were starting to the point of me wanting to get out my camera and snap a photo of them just to send the message. So no swimsuit, and i wasn't about to get the clothes I was going to wear for 45 minutes in a cramped car wet. Slightly miserable, and we called the others to warn them that it was not worth the 15JD to enter, particularly for the girls. They ended up taking off in the taxi in which they'd come, and we left soon thereafter. Headed back to Amman and ate at an overly air-conditioned restaurant (I just can't be satisfied, eh??) We dropped Chris back at his apartment and got to check it out, even though as a girl I'm technically not allowed in a guy's apartment, according to CIEE and the landlords. But I went, and was so shocked by the amazing quality of that place! Huge rooms, each guy had a bathroom, nice kitched, fully furnished...and aparently most apartments were that fantastic.
Headed home and went to bed!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Just awful!
So I know, I know, I'm a terrible person, who can't even maintain a blog/journal thingy beyond a week. But I promised updates will come soon!! I'll probably skip the first week (except for mentioning a few key details like getting my internship, visiting Madaba, and our peer tutor day of middle-school awkwardness), but I'll try to be better, I promise!!!
Monday, September 20, 2010
Day 1 of school!
It was rather weird starting classes on a Sunday, I can't wrap my mind around what happens when! Met the guys and headed towards the main road to hail a taxi around 8am. Found our way to the classrooms with the help of one of the CIEE office folk, and began at 9. My teacher was Rabi'a, in Intermediate One; the lesson was mainly a review of things we should have already learned, like past and present conjugations, pronouns, possessives, etc. I felt really strong though, and was very vocal in the class (like a certain Hillary Sue was :D ); the teacher seemed to acknowledge that I wanted to move up a level--I'd rather have to push myself than be the one who's reminding the others how to say "her pen" and "he works, not y'all work". Really now. We will have meetings on Tuesday, one on one with the teacher, to go over our placement tests to see if this is where we should be, so all that can be sorted out at that point.
After class we all headed towards the CIEE office to check the final rosters for the culture classes that we'd be starting the next day. I'm enrolled in "The Middle East: Alternative Perspectives" and "Introduction to Islam" (which, for the record, is pronounced ISS as in "kiss" LEHM as in "flegm"...not like IZLAWM).
Also went to check out the gym Aspire, which is just up the hill from the CIEE office, and is women only so I can wear anything I want to work my buns! Pretty good deals for a 3-month membership, and I really need a gym if i'm going to be snacking on Reese's p.b. cups, putting cream milk in my tea, and eating like it's going out of style!
Some other nitty gritty stuff...got a lock for the gym, tried out the McDonalds for lunch (I had to see if it was different!! it wasn't, so soooo not worth it :D ) etc etc. Took forever to hail a taxi since there were many people trying to do the same thing, and they were all very well practiced in the art of diving into the taxi that stopped for us.... Elizabeth and I just ended up sharing a more expensive taxi, just cause we were sick of waiting.
Spent the rest of the evening at the apartment, mostly alone since the family ends up lunching with Rita's family then going to church. Good chance to review my Arabic lessons from the book though, and to start on the next chunk of vocabulary! I went to bed before they got home, since the first day had wiped me out, and left a "jayyid jiddan" note on my door (in arabic!) to explain my schedule the next day.
After class we all headed towards the CIEE office to check the final rosters for the culture classes that we'd be starting the next day. I'm enrolled in "The Middle East: Alternative Perspectives" and "Introduction to Islam" (which, for the record, is pronounced ISS as in "kiss" LEHM as in "flegm"...not like IZLAWM).
Also went to check out the gym Aspire, which is just up the hill from the CIEE office, and is women only so I can wear anything I want to work my buns! Pretty good deals for a 3-month membership, and I really need a gym if i'm going to be snacking on Reese's p.b. cups, putting cream milk in my tea, and eating like it's going out of style!
Some other nitty gritty stuff...got a lock for the gym, tried out the McDonalds for lunch (I had to see if it was different!! it wasn't, so soooo not worth it :D ) etc etc. Took forever to hail a taxi since there were many people trying to do the same thing, and they were all very well practiced in the art of diving into the taxi that stopped for us.... Elizabeth and I just ended up sharing a more expensive taxi, just cause we were sick of waiting.
Spent the rest of the evening at the apartment, mostly alone since the family ends up lunching with Rita's family then going to church. Good chance to review my Arabic lessons from the book though, and to start on the next chunk of vocabulary! I went to bed before they got home, since the first day had wiped me out, and left a "jayyid jiddan" note on my door (in arabic!) to explain my schedule the next day.
first Saturday
Because the family is Christian, Eddie and Rita both work on Saturdays, and their son goes to school; their weekends are subsequently Fridays and Sundays. Had the apartment to myself, and ended walking with Aaron to "Food City" to both get a few favorite snacks to keep in the kitchen (as if I'll ever be hungry again...) and to get passport photos that we supposedly need to turn in with our applications to the student center (TAGKS) just underneath the CIEE office, located just off campus. Came back and cooled off after the walk, then decided to do a trial run to the University, just to see how long it would take to walk to the main street and hail a taxi and get to the Main Gate of the uni. All the taxis wanted to charge us 5JD when we flagged them down, when really it's a 1.5JD ride, if that. We quickly learned that it's best to get in without letting them set a price, and make sure they restarted the meter!! Anyhow, we made it to the main gate of the university, and then found our way to the CIEE office. We also turned in our TAGKS application and got set up for that so we'd have a computer/study place to chill at.
Got some foods and headed home, testing where a cab would drop us off. I took a nap 'cause that sandwich was too heavy in that heat, but then woke up in time to chill with Rita and Eddie before they went to the doctor for Rita's cold and I headed out to meet some folks at Books@Cafe for some (tobacco!) hookah. Managed to handle the taxi by myself; did everything right: wore the sunglasses to avoid eye contact, sat in the back, had exact change, didn't answer the probing questions....couldn't help it that he took me about 500 feet beyond where I was supposed to meet Elizabeth to get to Books@! It ended up being a good spot, but how was I supposed to know? I just didn't think quick enough to say, Hey, I asked for First Circle, this looked like a 3-way-stop to me!
Nice evening, met some apartment people (they had a whole separate orientation so we never all met...they were kind of seen as "those apartment people", a whole separate entity!). Some of us started scheming about travel later in the semester, and planned on going to the Royal Jordanian Airlines office to start sucking up to them!
Came home, not to late as school starts the next day, ended up staying up anyway talking since the neighbors were visiting. Their little girl Amanda was very friendly and begged in English for me to come play with her (nice change from Andrew who is so shy!). The neighbors have an American girl staying with them, from the SIT (?) program, named Sophie. Nice to have a fellow Amreekiya right next door! Had some tea (yes, tea!) and passed out. So ready to start classes!
Got some foods and headed home, testing where a cab would drop us off. I took a nap 'cause that sandwich was too heavy in that heat, but then woke up in time to chill with Rita and Eddie before they went to the doctor for Rita's cold and I headed out to meet some folks at Books@Cafe for some (tobacco!) hookah. Managed to handle the taxi by myself; did everything right: wore the sunglasses to avoid eye contact, sat in the back, had exact change, didn't answer the probing questions....couldn't help it that he took me about 500 feet beyond where I was supposed to meet Elizabeth to get to Books@! It ended up being a good spot, but how was I supposed to know? I just didn't think quick enough to say, Hey, I asked for First Circle, this looked like a 3-way-stop to me!
Nice evening, met some apartment people (they had a whole separate orientation so we never all met...they were kind of seen as "those apartment people", a whole separate entity!). Some of us started scheming about travel later in the semester, and planned on going to the Royal Jordanian Airlines office to start sucking up to them!
Came home, not to late as school starts the next day, ended up staying up anyway talking since the neighbors were visiting. Their little girl Amanda was very friendly and begged in English for me to come play with her (nice change from Andrew who is so shy!). The neighbors have an American girl staying with them, from the SIT (?) program, named Sophie. Nice to have a fellow Amreekiya right next door! Had some tea (yes, tea!) and passed out. So ready to start classes!
first 24 hours with the family
Waiting for our host families to show up at the hotel lobby was such a funny situation. I don't know..I kept thinking how hilarious it would be if, when the family came in and Rana called out the student's name, the family was like "Um..no, I don't like this one. Can I have that one over there? She's not so tall." It was just a weird limbo; being checked out of the hotel, but then waiting for this relatively unknown person to come and take you away. :)
Eddie came for me; he's the father of my host family. His parents actually live in the top floor apartment, above Eddie's family a few floors, so he also collected the two guys, Aaron and Andy, who would be staying with the grandparents. Neither of those guys have taken Arabic lessons before, and I really admire them for being able to just jump into something completely new, only being able to say a few words and greetings, that must take a lot of courage!
Managed to get my luggage into the apartment; luckily it was on the lowest floor!! Rita was there, and Andrew, the five year old. It was such a relief to just finally meet the family and be installed in the place I would be spending the next 3.5 months in. Not only was it nice to not have to live out of my suitcase anymore--which I absolutley hate!!--but the whole hurdle of mystery and nervousness of the initial connection was in the past now, and all that was left to do is to just build a friendship.
Soon thereafter Grandma and Grandpa (Eddie's parents, Monira and Albert) came downstairs with Andy and Aaron to sit around and meet 'n greet. Monira (my host grandma, shall we say, "tita Monira") knows English, but she's very adamant about teaching vocabulary words. If we ask for something in English, which of course the other guys do because haven't learned much yet, Monira says and repeats the Arabic word, insisting that we say it back to her. She assured me that by the time I leave in 3.5 months, I will be fluent! She even promised that those guys will be "jayd jiddan", very good.
There was recently a wedding in the family (not sure whose) so Eddie's brother was in town, and had with him his American friend and her husband, who seemed to be longtime friends of the family. So dinner had lots of English going on, but I think that was nice for the first night. Rita made lasagna, but since apparently last time the lasagna had failed, Eddie had also ordered pizzas... Not a very traditional meal, I must say, but I knew I'd get plenty of that in my almost 4 months here.
Managed to unpack my bags, which I was definitely itching for. Somehow about fifty Reese's peanut butter cups found their way into my sneakers :-D
Finally heard the Call to Prayer around 5am, having slept with my windows open...It's definitely not as cool as I thought it was going to be, and I'll hear it all the time! But no, the idea is still pretty cool.
Yesterday when I woke up, we all went upstairs to tita and jaddu Leitch's apartment (my "grandma" and "grandpa" since Eddie and Rita are my "mama" and "baba"....which makes aaron and andy my "uncles", since my "grandma" and "grandpa" are actually their host parents...?). We had hummus and foule (mashed beans) and lebana on pita for breakfast, along with tea. The Jordanians have this 'communal plate' practice which I'll explain later for lunch..
We then went to visit Rita's family; they all met up at this old farmhouse in Jerash. Tiny little place, and the living room consisted of 3 cots around the walls to serve as couches, with a coffee table in the middle. Rita's parents were there, and her grandmother (I told Rita later that I really want to photograph her grandma because she has a great face for a portrait!). There was tons of Arabic, of course, and after about half an hour of trying to pick up the jist of the conversation, it was too tempting just to zone out. After a while of fighting off heat drowsiness, a huge platter of barbequed chicken and ...lamb? was brought in. I got my own plate, I suppose because I'm a guest? But everyone tried piling more pieces of chicken onto it, and it was all i could do to politely say it's delicious! amazing! i'm so full!! no more, please, i beseech you! yadda yadda.
Afterwards, I asked the maid who had helped me wash my hands from a bottle of water if my face was clean, and she goes laughing into the room with the whole family: clean?? you're face is too clean!! (referring to the fact that I"m so white :-P).
Showed the grandma--my host great-grandma-- some photos, since she'd been asking about my grandmother, then headed home. Can't remember what I did at that point, but it was late afternoon and I'm pretty sure I just passed out and hung around the apartment. Good ol' shower was definitely in the mix after such a hot (yet fully covered) afternoon!
Eddie came for me; he's the father of my host family. His parents actually live in the top floor apartment, above Eddie's family a few floors, so he also collected the two guys, Aaron and Andy, who would be staying with the grandparents. Neither of those guys have taken Arabic lessons before, and I really admire them for being able to just jump into something completely new, only being able to say a few words and greetings, that must take a lot of courage!
Managed to get my luggage into the apartment; luckily it was on the lowest floor!! Rita was there, and Andrew, the five year old. It was such a relief to just finally meet the family and be installed in the place I would be spending the next 3.5 months in. Not only was it nice to not have to live out of my suitcase anymore--which I absolutley hate!!--but the whole hurdle of mystery and nervousness of the initial connection was in the past now, and all that was left to do is to just build a friendship.
Soon thereafter Grandma and Grandpa (Eddie's parents, Monira and Albert) came downstairs with Andy and Aaron to sit around and meet 'n greet. Monira (my host grandma, shall we say, "tita Monira") knows English, but she's very adamant about teaching vocabulary words. If we ask for something in English, which of course the other guys do because haven't learned much yet, Monira says and repeats the Arabic word, insisting that we say it back to her. She assured me that by the time I leave in 3.5 months, I will be fluent! She even promised that those guys will be "jayd jiddan", very good.
There was recently a wedding in the family (not sure whose) so Eddie's brother was in town, and had with him his American friend and her husband, who seemed to be longtime friends of the family. So dinner had lots of English going on, but I think that was nice for the first night. Rita made lasagna, but since apparently last time the lasagna had failed, Eddie had also ordered pizzas... Not a very traditional meal, I must say, but I knew I'd get plenty of that in my almost 4 months here.
Managed to unpack my bags, which I was definitely itching for. Somehow about fifty Reese's peanut butter cups found their way into my sneakers :-D
Finally heard the Call to Prayer around 5am, having slept with my windows open...It's definitely not as cool as I thought it was going to be, and I'll hear it all the time! But no, the idea is still pretty cool.
Yesterday when I woke up, we all went upstairs to tita and jaddu Leitch's apartment (my "grandma" and "grandpa" since Eddie and Rita are my "mama" and "baba"....which makes aaron and andy my "uncles", since my "grandma" and "grandpa" are actually their host parents...?). We had hummus and foule (mashed beans) and lebana on pita for breakfast, along with tea. The Jordanians have this 'communal plate' practice which I'll explain later for lunch..
We then went to visit Rita's family; they all met up at this old farmhouse in Jerash. Tiny little place, and the living room consisted of 3 cots around the walls to serve as couches, with a coffee table in the middle. Rita's parents were there, and her grandmother (I told Rita later that I really want to photograph her grandma because she has a great face for a portrait!). There was tons of Arabic, of course, and after about half an hour of trying to pick up the jist of the conversation, it was too tempting just to zone out. After a while of fighting off heat drowsiness, a huge platter of barbequed chicken and ...lamb? was brought in. I got my own plate, I suppose because I'm a guest? But everyone tried piling more pieces of chicken onto it, and it was all i could do to politely say it's delicious! amazing! i'm so full!! no more, please, i beseech you! yadda yadda.
Afterwards, I asked the maid who had helped me wash my hands from a bottle of water if my face was clean, and she goes laughing into the room with the whole family: clean?? you're face is too clean!! (referring to the fact that I"m so white :-P).
Showed the grandma--my host great-grandma-- some photos, since she'd been asking about my grandmother, then headed home. Can't remember what I did at that point, but it was late afternoon and I'm pretty sure I just passed out and hung around the apartment. Good ol' shower was definitely in the mix after such a hot (yet fully covered) afternoon!
Friday, September 17, 2010
Just to be clear!
It has come to my attention that what I mean by "hookah" or "sheesha" is questionable. JUST TO BE CLEAR: as this is an Islamic country, most places do not serve alcohol, although it is possible to go to bars if you choose. A more popular pastime is to go to hookah lounges/cafes. These places only serve tobacco in their hookahs, and do not add anything but flavors. There is a strict no-tolerance rule set by my program about exploring beyond tobacco, and I want to be clear that this is not offered in any of the places I go to when I write that "we're going out for hookah/sheesha". Believe me, I want to stay here and enjoy the local customs as much as possible!! That is all. :)
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Orientation
Tuesday was Dead Sea day. The sea itself is about an hour's drive outside the city, so we left around 8:30 and went straight to the Dead Sea panorama, a building on top of the cliffs near the DS with a museum and such. Got a few good photos, i think!
So this was the beginning of our study abroad orientation. We had a few presentations in a conference hall of the museum (things like why are we here, ice breakers, program overviews, rules, policies, paperwork...all the nitty gritty). After that bit was done though, we had lunch on the panorama deck (some good ol' schwarma) and slathered on all that sunblock.
Drove down the cliffs to the Dead Sea Spa Hotel, where we changed and went down to the beach to float. Craziest feeling ever! So buoyant; if you're floating on your stomach--which is a bad idea anyway since you want those eyes as far from that water as possible--it's so hard to bring your knees under you to become vertical again. I could literally just SIT in the water, and float. Went way far out to the boundary buoys: it was great since we didn't have to tread water, and my discomfort with going out beyond feeling the rocky bottom in a body of water was dispelled by the fact that no way can anything live in that water. We of course did the whole mud thing, how could we not!? Can't miss out on all those cultural experiences!
Had tons of time at the resort, so chilled around the lounge a bit, went through my notecards to prep for the placement test that we'd be having the next day. Took the time to ask Ahmad about work opportunities, will have to wait til next week.
Had another presentation out on the pool deck with some program alumni, some of whom are here working through Fulbright Scholarships. It was just an opportunity to get answers from a student's point of view, as opposed to from our coordinators and directors... It was pretty helpful, and the sunset in the background made it slightly more bearable :)
Had dinner at the hotel--a super nice one. Hour's drive back to the hotel, mad stampede to shower all the salt, mud remnants, and grime from us. Generally a very fun, very exhausting day!
Wednesday was all about academics. After breakfast we were driven to the West side of Amman, to the university. Got a quick greeting and immediately entered our placement tests. Ugghhhhhh hardest test EVER. There were some reading comp sections that I couldn't even complete because the paragraphs were totally foreign (some written in aamiya, the colloquial, and others just too advanced and i only knew every third word and might be able to guess some of the new ones...). Everyone came out ready to cry, but the staff assured us that it was meant to cover everyone from beginner beginner to native speakers, and our scores would be relative to everyone else's when it came to separating into levels. We won't know how we did until Sunday, when classes begin!
Had some tours around campus (funny story: there's a rock sculpture hut thingy on a quad, and during one tour with CIEE students a few semesters ago, they joked that everyone at the university says it's ossama bin laden's hiding spot. kid told his mom, who subsequently freaked out, called ciee, and demanded why we were studying at the university where ossama was hiding!!). It's a pretty nice campus, lots of trees and shady spots to sit, a big ol' clocktower, etc etc. Apparently the path that runs from this side of the campus through the other side is about a 45 minute walk. Lots of cafes, restaurants, and supplies shops around the gates to the campus. After this we had our oral interviews, in which we went in one by one to speak with a professor who would assess our speaking ability. I think i did really well, and the prof seems pleased, and really impressed when I realized I'd messed up the iDHaafa construction and corrected myself. So the test was over, no more worries, and anyway we can petition our levels once we're placed and feel that it's not right for us, not a huge deal. Meanwhile we got lunch on campus at a restaurant, then went to a lecture hall for a 'health and safety' briefing, which was for the most part directed at the girls, but they also covered some good points about traveling outside Jordan, travel warnings, sickness, etc. Back to the hotel for a relaxing evening. Went out downtown to a sheesha lounge called Jafra with four Iraqi-Jordanian guys (who had been friends Elizabeth, who was here in the spring, all summer, and now back for this semester), as well as six friends from orientation. It was so nice; the place was really interesting, very traditional: no booze, inexpensive sheesha, a singer performing old Arab songs on what was the precursor to the guitar. Awesome atmosphere, and great conversation!
Today the drill was all about daily living and getting along with host families. Talks took place in the hotel, and we covered things like how to get around in buses, where to find good gyms and bookshops, how the money works, how the post and phones work, how to behave in the hosts' houses, what's acceptable and what's not, etc. Useful information, but I feel like most of it is common sense, really, and observation.
Just been lounging around the hotel now...went to the grocery store across the street to browse the Arab candy situation, found lots of American items with Arabic labels, and I just want to grab a sample of everything to show to people, like "look! it's Pringles written in Arabic! it's Snickers!!" Definitely picked up a sample of Kinder Buenos, typical typical.
Had a quick meeting with the staff to ask questions about my specific host family, and to receive my travel stipend money (which should just turn into extra spending cash: if not taking advantage of the half hour walk each day, i can at least split the taxis with the other CIEE student living in my building!). Packin up the suitcases now; so relieved my family lives on a ground floor!!!!
Will take a snooze and meet the Lietches in about 2.5 hours!
Monday, September 13, 2010
Arrival in Jordan
Ohhhhmigosh, love it here already!! But I'll start from the beginning:
Sunday was a terrible day of travel, and lots went sour: missed rendez-vous due to delayed flights, stupid French rules about there being a 24Euro charge on every kilo over 20..? 23..? (which amounted to a lot of money because the State's rules are different, but since I'd exited into Paris....), sick on the plane (funny story though, the flight attendants were SUPER nice, and let me sit back in their prep area in the tail just sippin water. later they offered me bread and sliced cheese and grapes from their own personal first class snacks, inviting me back behind their privacy curtain. was one of the family, they said!), headphones didn't work in my tv screen, so all i heard in movies were the music and the sound effects, no one to meet me at the airport, so took a taxi alone... Ended up okay though, managed to get directions to the taxi driver.
The taxi ride itself was exhausting. It was great driving into the city, saw lots of camel riding and donkeys, picnics being held on the side of the highway..? Great sunset, and palm trees, and the buildings..ahhh!! The taxi driver managed to get a few sentences out of me, but after answering my questions, he'd go on for 10 minutes or so, forgetting that I just said I only know Arabic qaleelan (a little bit)! He drove with no hands for the most part, one hand flourishing with a cigarette, the other showing me the Quran quote thing hanging from his rearview mirror to explain classical Arabic usage. He ended up inviting me to his house in Madaba to meet his 6 sons and daughter and to have some tea. Just smiled and nodded.. at least we were warned about excessive Jordanian hospitality!!
So managed to meet up with Izabella, Ali (american girl, not like Aladdin Prince Ali haha), and two Iraqi guys (Noor and Haidar) who are students in Amman. They knew a girl from last spring who's still here and whose apartment we bunked out in that night. Went straight to a place called Books@Cafe for some hookah and for me to feed my rumblin' tummy. It was a nice evening, just chilin on the rooftop.
Went to the apartment and crashed. There were six of us bunking there (another girl tagged on after meeting one of the original invitees in the plane).
Next morning, Elizabeth made us some eggs n fried potatoes for breakfast, then we all gathered our mountains of baggage to move to the orientation hotel. Flagged down a taxi and headed to the BelleVue.
There we met some reps from CIEE, who helped us check in, gave us our orientation packets, set up phones for us, etc. My number's 0799442663 if you wanna chat me up ;) (not international phone..i'm just kidding..)
Found out who my host family is! The jist is that they're a young Christian family, mom dad and 5yo son. They live pretty close to the university, i'll have my own room, no smoking, they have a goldfish, my curfew is at 10:30, and they got a good review from their previous student guest. Kinda bummed they're not Muslim, but I'm sure I'll get enough of that cultural angle from other Jordanians I meet.
Walked around the street to get phone minutes, lunch, cash..They warned us about getting looked at and stuff, but wow...9 out of 10 cars that passed honked at us, particularly taxis. They told us the worst thing to do was to make eye contact, which is very hard to do since we're looking around everywhere and such; but they key was to invest in some dark sunglasses! WIll do, particularly if i want to walk to uni every day.
Dinner with the group at 7, met lots of people today, kind of hard keeping everyone straight, but that'll come. Afterwards, about 12 of us went back to Books@ and met up with Noor, another friend, and Senan, with whom I'd been corresponding on facebook before the trip, asking about the country.
Very pleasant evening, but returned home in time for a quick Skype run and in bed by about midnight. Today we're off to the Dead Sea, and will have a few orientation talks there along with some free time to float and lather mud all over ourselves, the usual tourist thing, no big deal :P
Will try to write about how that goes later on tonight! Goodnight America!
Sunday was a terrible day of travel, and lots went sour: missed rendez-vous due to delayed flights, stupid French rules about there being a 24Euro charge on every kilo over 20..? 23..? (which amounted to a lot of money because the State's rules are different, but since I'd exited into Paris....), sick on the plane (funny story though, the flight attendants were SUPER nice, and let me sit back in their prep area in the tail just sippin water. later they offered me bread and sliced cheese and grapes from their own personal first class snacks, inviting me back behind their privacy curtain. was one of the family, they said!), headphones didn't work in my tv screen, so all i heard in movies were the music and the sound effects, no one to meet me at the airport, so took a taxi alone... Ended up okay though, managed to get directions to the taxi driver.
The taxi ride itself was exhausting. It was great driving into the city, saw lots of camel riding and donkeys, picnics being held on the side of the highway..? Great sunset, and palm trees, and the buildings..ahhh!! The taxi driver managed to get a few sentences out of me, but after answering my questions, he'd go on for 10 minutes or so, forgetting that I just said I only know Arabic qaleelan (a little bit)! He drove with no hands for the most part, one hand flourishing with a cigarette, the other showing me the Quran quote thing hanging from his rearview mirror to explain classical Arabic usage. He ended up inviting me to his house in Madaba to meet his 6 sons and daughter and to have some tea. Just smiled and nodded.. at least we were warned about excessive Jordanian hospitality!!
So managed to meet up with Izabella, Ali (american girl, not like Aladdin Prince Ali haha), and two Iraqi guys (Noor and Haidar) who are students in Amman. They knew a girl from last spring who's still here and whose apartment we bunked out in that night. Went straight to a place called Books@Cafe for some hookah and for me to feed my rumblin' tummy. It was a nice evening, just chilin on the rooftop.
Went to the apartment and crashed. There were six of us bunking there (another girl tagged on after meeting one of the original invitees in the plane).
Next morning, Elizabeth made us some eggs n fried potatoes for breakfast, then we all gathered our mountains of baggage to move to the orientation hotel. Flagged down a taxi and headed to the BelleVue.
There we met some reps from CIEE, who helped us check in, gave us our orientation packets, set up phones for us, etc. My number's 0799442663 if you wanna chat me up ;) (not international phone..i'm just kidding..)
Found out who my host family is! The jist is that they're a young Christian family, mom dad and 5yo son. They live pretty close to the university, i'll have my own room, no smoking, they have a goldfish, my curfew is at 10:30, and they got a good review from their previous student guest. Kinda bummed they're not Muslim, but I'm sure I'll get enough of that cultural angle from other Jordanians I meet.
Walked around the street to get phone minutes, lunch, cash..They warned us about getting looked at and stuff, but wow...9 out of 10 cars that passed honked at us, particularly taxis. They told us the worst thing to do was to make eye contact, which is very hard to do since we're looking around everywhere and such; but they key was to invest in some dark sunglasses! WIll do, particularly if i want to walk to uni every day.
Dinner with the group at 7, met lots of people today, kind of hard keeping everyone straight, but that'll come. Afterwards, about 12 of us went back to Books@ and met up with Noor, another friend, and Senan, with whom I'd been corresponding on facebook before the trip, asking about the country.
Very pleasant evening, but returned home in time for a quick Skype run and in bed by about midnight. Today we're off to the Dead Sea, and will have a few orientation talks there along with some free time to float and lather mud all over ourselves, the usual tourist thing, no big deal :P
Will try to write about how that goes later on tonight! Goodnight America!
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Jour Parisien Final
Again, a day of just being in ze Paris atmosphere. Woke up to a lunch of meats cooked ourselves on a hotplate (a bit too much raw meat mixing, for my tastes!! using the same fork to put the raw meat on the grill as to eat..no way, thank you), then went to Arthur's friend Camille's house. Saw some of her pictures from her summer adventure in Mauritania, then came home in time to chill before Arthur's friends were supposed to arrive for dinner. Had time to Skype with the rents for the first time, rather successfully, even though Mom wasn't wearing makeup (gasp!), quel horreur! :)
It was about eleven of us at dinner (including me and the three Heller boys), munching on frozen pizza and aperatifs. I like hanging around the young folk but geeeeez, their French is so fast, and their slang...very easy to get lost!
It is now 1:30am and I'm arranging my suitcase to leave for Jordan tomorrow! Not looking forward to dealing with ze bags, but that's all my doing, I suppose! Doesn't help that Catherine (the french mama) gave me a cute pair of shoes that I'd worn to the nightclub and are too small for her. But much appreciated; what girl doesn't like new shoes??
Won't get to post for a couple days; well, Monday at the earliest. Meeting some other American chicks at the Amman airport and then staying in an apartment for the extra night before the real orientation begins at a nearby hotel. I think the plan is to go dancing?? Not too late a night for me, though! I think the other girls particularly will be rather jetlagged, not having had the sweet little limbo that I've had here in France these last few days :)
It was about eleven of us at dinner (including me and the three Heller boys), munching on frozen pizza and aperatifs. I like hanging around the young folk but geeeeez, their French is so fast, and their slang...very easy to get lost!
It is now 1:30am and I'm arranging my suitcase to leave for Jordan tomorrow! Not looking forward to dealing with ze bags, but that's all my doing, I suppose! Doesn't help that Catherine (the french mama) gave me a cute pair of shoes that I'd worn to the nightclub and are too small for her. But much appreciated; what girl doesn't like new shoes??
Won't get to post for a couple days; well, Monday at the earliest. Meeting some other American chicks at the Amman airport and then staying in an apartment for the extra night before the real orientation begins at a nearby hotel. I think the plan is to go dancing?? Not too late a night for me, though! I think the other girls particularly will be rather jetlagged, not having had the sweet little limbo that I've had here in France these last few days :)
Days 2 and 3 in Paris
So the next day, slept in a while, and woke up in time for lunch (Yes, it is possible for me to sleep that long, it seems!). Arthur and I decided to walk around Paris a bit, and took the RER and the Metro to arrive near the Bastille. Ventured around, got stuck in the rain, ended up in the Place de Notre Dame, and walked next to the Seine a bit. I managed to find the old apartment I'd stayed in with my mom when I was 11 and again with mom and Christopher three years ago. After "taking a coffee" and a hot chocolate at a cafe to get out of the rain, I bought some more of those French posters I like to collect (for my apartment in the spring, cross your fingers!!!). Headed back home and snoozed on the train.
 |
| Sorry it's blurry, the RER's bumpy!! |
Oh, almost forgot: there was totally an accordion player on the train heading in to Paris. All the natives just seemed annoyed at the noise, but I loved the quintessential French sound, riding the trains into Paris. Le sigh...
Back at home, had another nap (Hey, it's exhausting here!) and headed out for night two of Rosh Hashanah. More people this time, around 30, and lots and lots of fast, confusing French. Had me some sips of whiskey and zoned out a bit :)
Yesterday was tres calme. Leisurely lunch, a bit of Arabic study for me, then Arthur's friend Camille came over and we totally made crepes.
More chillin round the house, then after dinner Arthur and I prepared to go out to ze nightclubs! Had a few apparetifs chez Heller then mama was nice enough to drive us to Place des Etoiles, right next to ze Arc de Triomphe. The line for this night club (called Duplex) was long, and there were some silly drunk American girls behind us in line. I like the clubs here, it's always fun to dance amid smoke n blacklights and everything. Called it a night around 2.30, got a ride home, and had a loooong night's sleep! Sadly it was just us two at the club, since none of Arthurs friends wanted to deal with the expensive entry fee, but hopefully tonight there'll be a little soiree here at the house. Nice, friendly night before heading to Amman tomorrow!!
Thursday, September 9, 2010
first night in Paris
Finally made it! Not that it was that bad (17 hours to South Africa definitely made this one seem like a breeze), just lots of anticipation. I love being here; just the French atmosphere is exciting, at least for a foreigner, I suppose :).
Arthur got me from the airport, and we sat for a good while in traffic. The comments made about the weight of my bags weren't toooo out of line :P. Back at Chez Heller, got caught up with Catherine and took a lovely 3 hour nap--very necessary after only getting about 2 hours of sleep on the overnight flight. Woke up to a lovely lunch of salmon then just spent the afternoon chillin (including watching Sherlock Holmes in French, which sounds rather funny).
Now, Rosh Hashanah dinner: big family gathering. All the Hellers, plus grandma and grandpa, plus a few cousins and their families, a great aunt or two...I think 22 overall? Here were the courses: apperatifs (sausages and fish on toothpicks), les entrees (bread in honey, apples in honey with sesame, what looked like pomegranite seeds, dates, gefilte fish, soup with crackers), the principal dish (beef meatball things, potatoes with onion, greens including beans, leeks, chickpeas..), dessert (fruits, quince, sesame "cigars"), then tea. Y'all should be so proud, I tasted almost everything, and always cleared my plate: good practice for Jordan!!
Came home absolutely exhausted: French wears you out, man. And, of course, lots of questions about my semester abroad; these people vacation in destinations like Tunisia..they had lots of questions and suggestions!
I almost forgot...during the entrees, shotglasses full of vodka were passed around. I passed, fully aware that my few sips of wine would suffice juuuust fine.
Bit of computer time back at the house, but otherwise totally passed out at 2am. Another dinner at "mami et papi's" tonight, but smaller crowd it seems. Going back to bed!
Arthur got me from the airport, and we sat for a good while in traffic. The comments made about the weight of my bags weren't toooo out of line :P. Back at Chez Heller, got caught up with Catherine and took a lovely 3 hour nap--very necessary after only getting about 2 hours of sleep on the overnight flight. Woke up to a lovely lunch of salmon then just spent the afternoon chillin (including watching Sherlock Holmes in French, which sounds rather funny).
Now, Rosh Hashanah dinner: big family gathering. All the Hellers, plus grandma and grandpa, plus a few cousins and their families, a great aunt or two...I think 22 overall? Here were the courses: apperatifs (sausages and fish on toothpicks), les entrees (bread in honey, apples in honey with sesame, what looked like pomegranite seeds, dates, gefilte fish, soup with crackers), the principal dish (beef meatball things, potatoes with onion, greens including beans, leeks, chickpeas..), dessert (fruits, quince, sesame "cigars"), then tea. Y'all should be so proud, I tasted almost everything, and always cleared my plate: good practice for Jordan!!
Came home absolutely exhausted: French wears you out, man. And, of course, lots of questions about my semester abroad; these people vacation in destinations like Tunisia..they had lots of questions and suggestions!
I almost forgot...during the entrees, shotglasses full of vodka were passed around. I passed, fully aware that my few sips of wine would suffice juuuust fine.
Bit of computer time back at the house, but otherwise totally passed out at 2am. Another dinner at "mami et papi's" tonight, but smaller crowd it seems. Going back to bed!
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Start of Jordan
Ok so those previous posts from my South Africa trip are not going to continue. I suppose you can just call it a taste of what I did earlier this summer! Also, I'm making the blog public, so no more need to send in email addresses and be invited (though if you're reading this you either already have done that or you're on the page anyway..?). It's about twenty days now until I depart for Paris, where I'll be staying for a few days before meeting in Amman for the program orientation on the 13th. I'll have my laptop, and hope to write a daily post, for my own personal journaling of memories, of course, but it's open for y'all to view if you want to keep up! So add this page to your favorites or whatnot so you can remember I'm around! I'll also probably put random reminders on my facebook status about this blog. I'm super super excited for this experience, and I want to share it with as many people as possible!!!
Love y'all
Love y'all
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
May 14-17
May 14, 2010
Loooong day. Breakfast at 6am; out in groups at 6:30. This was my first day doing the population surveys and vegetation sample plots. It was very tedious and took a while; plus, the sun was out today so it was slightly miserable and very difficult. We did see some leopard prints (apparently it's very rare to actually spot the buggers). And we saw a giraffe from afar on the crest of a hill. They assure us that the animals are much more numerous in the next place we're going and spotting them will happen much more often. But anyway, today was absolutely exhausting, and my legs feel like jelly from hiking, and now we're going to have two lectures by Dr. Bowers about the fossil record and evolution of primates...ughhh...
May 15, 2010
Today was a great day; we had a pleasant surprise when Shawn told us we were going on a game drive before work for the day. So we spent two hours driving through the park and we spotted giraffe, impala, kudu, zebra, and warthogs. Also a wildabeast and enough rhino poop to fill a kiddy pool.
After two hours' blissful escape from vegetation plots, we started another transept into a donga. After half of it, someone noticed a baboon on the other side of the ravine, so we stopped and tried to get a population survey and more baboons appeared; then, all of a sudden, there was a BLOWOUT--National Geographic style. A bunch of big ol' males started screaming and fighting and running down the cliff after one of them who had what looked like a vervet in its mouth. It was a definite shit show.
We all sat down on a rock and observed them for another hour or so. They calmed down, no sign of vervet lunch, and they went back to feeding and grooming. The alpha male kept giving us warning hoots to remind us we were close to his territory, but they were calm because the donga was obviously impassable for us. We were at the perfect viewing spot. Both groups were at about the same hight on our respective hills, so we could look across the 60m distance and watch the baboons interacting without them fearing us.
After they'd moved off to better trees, we finished our transect and did a vegetation plot while Shawn radioed Brandi the news about her beloved vervets' loss. Since the group with her probably couldn't do much primate data (the monkeys would not welcome visitors right after one of their own had been just picked off)we went to meet them at the road to figure out what to do.
To our pleasant surprise, Brandi and Shawn decided we'd go to a pub in town that had a pool. On the way there they kept warning us of how redneck the guys there would be, saying they'd be sure to make racist jokes or hit on us easy, wild, American girls.
It was fine though, and nice to sit with a (non-alcoholic!) drink by a small pool and just chat with everyone. Shawn told me I did good work today as the compass girl, blazing the trail with everyone walking single file behind me; i got the worst of the thorn damage!!
For dinner we had a braai (a South African barbeque) and had toasted marshmallows around the campfire. Eventful day overall!
May 16, 2010
Another day of hellish vegetation plots. At least we started with another, less successful, game drive. I think everyone was just about done with doing veggie plots; it was especially difficult today since Brandi was ill and therefore all 15 of us were using three tree i.d. books in an 10x10m plot...you know how that goes.
Dinner was followed by a genetics lecture by Dr. Bowers (yes, again), then a few of us sat around the fire pit, staying up til 10 (oooh! rebels!) since tomorrow we're doing NOTHING! Yay for a free day!
May 17, 2010
A blissful day of sleeping in (only until 7am, since we're so used to waking up at 5:30 now), lounging around and just getting shit done, like studying for our tests or reading articles and preparing for our presentations. Some of the people who hadn't gone in the monkey groups spent the morning hiking the dongas looking for them but with no luck. I spent some time chatting with Dr. Bowers about my research paper topic.
Dr. Bowers must have given her blessing for a few alcoholic beverages because Andrew took orders for a booze store run. I pitched in on some rum and had two rum 'n cokes with our braai dinner. It was our last night in Loskop so several of us stayed up late (10:30!!) to play some games and laugh around the campfire. Tomorrow: bye, Loskop, Hello Lajuma!
Loooong day. Breakfast at 6am; out in groups at 6:30. This was my first day doing the population surveys and vegetation sample plots. It was very tedious and took a while; plus, the sun was out today so it was slightly miserable and very difficult. We did see some leopard prints (apparently it's very rare to actually spot the buggers). And we saw a giraffe from afar on the crest of a hill. They assure us that the animals are much more numerous in the next place we're going and spotting them will happen much more often. But anyway, today was absolutely exhausting, and my legs feel like jelly from hiking, and now we're going to have two lectures by Dr. Bowers about the fossil record and evolution of primates...ughhh...
May 15, 2010
Today was a great day; we had a pleasant surprise when Shawn told us we were going on a game drive before work for the day. So we spent two hours driving through the park and we spotted giraffe, impala, kudu, zebra, and warthogs. Also a wildabeast and enough rhino poop to fill a kiddy pool.
After two hours' blissful escape from vegetation plots, we started another transept into a donga. After half of it, someone noticed a baboon on the other side of the ravine, so we stopped and tried to get a population survey and more baboons appeared; then, all of a sudden, there was a BLOWOUT--National Geographic style. A bunch of big ol' males started screaming and fighting and running down the cliff after one of them who had what looked like a vervet in its mouth. It was a definite shit show.
We all sat down on a rock and observed them for another hour or so. They calmed down, no sign of vervet lunch, and they went back to feeding and grooming. The alpha male kept giving us warning hoots to remind us we were close to his territory, but they were calm because the donga was obviously impassable for us. We were at the perfect viewing spot. Both groups were at about the same hight on our respective hills, so we could look across the 60m distance and watch the baboons interacting without them fearing us.
After they'd moved off to better trees, we finished our transect and did a vegetation plot while Shawn radioed Brandi the news about her beloved vervets' loss. Since the group with her probably couldn't do much primate data (the monkeys would not welcome visitors right after one of their own had been just picked off)we went to meet them at the road to figure out what to do.
To our pleasant surprise, Brandi and Shawn decided we'd go to a pub in town that had a pool. On the way there they kept warning us of how redneck the guys there would be, saying they'd be sure to make racist jokes or hit on us easy, wild, American girls.
It was fine though, and nice to sit with a (non-alcoholic!) drink by a small pool and just chat with everyone. Shawn told me I did good work today as the compass girl, blazing the trail with everyone walking single file behind me; i got the worst of the thorn damage!!
For dinner we had a braai (a South African barbeque) and had toasted marshmallows around the campfire. Eventful day overall!
May 16, 2010
Another day of hellish vegetation plots. At least we started with another, less successful, game drive. I think everyone was just about done with doing veggie plots; it was especially difficult today since Brandi was ill and therefore all 15 of us were using three tree i.d. books in an 10x10m plot...you know how that goes.
Dinner was followed by a genetics lecture by Dr. Bowers (yes, again), then a few of us sat around the fire pit, staying up til 10 (oooh! rebels!) since tomorrow we're doing NOTHING! Yay for a free day!
May 17, 2010
A blissful day of sleeping in (only until 7am, since we're so used to waking up at 5:30 now), lounging around and just getting shit done, like studying for our tests or reading articles and preparing for our presentations. Some of the people who hadn't gone in the monkey groups spent the morning hiking the dongas looking for them but with no luck. I spent some time chatting with Dr. Bowers about my research paper topic.
Dr. Bowers must have given her blessing for a few alcoholic beverages because Andrew took orders for a booze store run. I pitched in on some rum and had two rum 'n cokes with our braai dinner. It was our last night in Loskop so several of us stayed up late (10:30!!) to play some games and laugh around the campfire. Tomorrow: bye, Loskop, Hello Lajuma!
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
May 10-13
May 10, 2010
Finally in Africa! It was so awesome to meet the group at the airport; I feel like we all got along right off the bat. The plane ride was SO long, it was great to finally arrive. I kind of wish we had arrived to drive to Pretoria in daylight, but I guess we'll end up seeing plenty! Great meal, some introductions, now off to bed because I got maybe two hours of sleep on the plane!
May 11, 2010
Today was the first day of lectures--and there were a LOT of them. At times it was interesting, but other times it was just repeat for some of us from ANTH B200 or too quick to absorb anything and take notes to study and a lot of information (8 lectures at once!) being thrown at us. I'm glad we got it out of the way though.
It was nice to go to the mall--a bit more of a cultural experience than we've had so far. It was also a good opportunity to have lunch with the group and bond a bit more. By the end of that though I was exhausted and was eager for a nap that we didn't have time for before more lectures!
I'm super excited for Loskop Dam tomorrow. Seeing how I cope in a tent for five nights will be interesting!
May 12, 2010
This is sooooo cool! I'm in a sleeping bag, in a tent, at a research camp, at Loskop Dam in South Africa. Supposedly warthogs and baboons pass through this clearing on their way down the mountain; and earlier I saw a bushbaby--the first primate sighting! By me!
So the day started off with three quizzes on the material we learned yesterday (yes, we had just one overnight to study) then two lectures on measuring behavior and doing vegetation plots. After those we set off for Loskop Damn, about three hours from Oppi Steopp.
It took us forever to set up tents, and we finished right before dark. The whole time all the girls were squealing over a spider the size of my hand dangling above us (a golden orb web weaver, fyi).
The camp is decent; there's a converted garage with three beds that our group is rotating through in the next five nights (the camp only really houses 12, but there's our three leaders, their two research assistants, and two British girls, Vicky and Vicky, here to study giraffes, hence we're staying in tents behind the camp). Tomorrow I'm getting up early to help with breakfast and lunch sack prep.
May 13, 2010
Today was super awesome. We started with some introductions to tree and shrub identification, which was tedious, but a necessary start to the day. Funny story: we were pointed to a very thorny tree and told to identify it with the help of our books. The way a book identifies it is by taking you through a matrix of questions until it leads you to the right species. One question asked about the quality of the branches, and I said they looked very "robust". Shawn looked at me funny and I repeated it, not knowing what I said that merited the funny look. Turns out the tree was an Acacia robusta.
So then we split up into our groups for the day. Each day, three people would go with Brandi to observe the vervets and the rest would go with Shawn to do vegetation plots and population samples. Since I volunteered to do morning setup/clean up, Erica, Austin, and I got to go out today with Brandi.
We drove up to the first Donga (ravine) and hiked along it, looking for the group. We planned to search three dongas that this particular vervet group uses regularly until we came across them. We tried the three, hiking all morning, until Shawn radioed that the other students had spotted them across the road from where we were hiking. So after we finally found our monkeys, we had lunch and got the low-down about what we were supposed to be doing. We were each assigned to a monkey to follow in 10-minute intervals. I was assigned to Xena, the alpha female, distinguishable by a notch in the center of her left ear.
It was SO hard to follow the monkeys as they darted around, or keeping track of which was Xena (because looking through shaky binoculars waiting for the little bastard to turn her head and check the ear was tedious as heck). So when it got too hard we just did practice follows on random group members. I followed Punkey, the lowest ranking female with a head tilt, Pam, her daughter, Barfight (who looks like he's been in a barfight), and Xylo, Xena's subadult son who looks full-grown but his electric blue balls are still tucked up there :P We were supposed to record the start/stop times of behaviors such as feeding, grooming, self-grooming, mating, playing, and resting. We definitely got within about 15 feet of the monkeys; they were very habituated to researchers' presence.
We did that until about 4:30 then got back in time to beat the other group to the showers. Very early to bed (7:30!!) but my legs feel like jelly and if all days are this long, I'll need all the sleep I can get!
Finally in Africa! It was so awesome to meet the group at the airport; I feel like we all got along right off the bat. The plane ride was SO long, it was great to finally arrive. I kind of wish we had arrived to drive to Pretoria in daylight, but I guess we'll end up seeing plenty! Great meal, some introductions, now off to bed because I got maybe two hours of sleep on the plane!
May 11, 2010
Today was the first day of lectures--and there were a LOT of them. At times it was interesting, but other times it was just repeat for some of us from ANTH B200 or too quick to absorb anything and take notes to study and a lot of information (8 lectures at once!) being thrown at us. I'm glad we got it out of the way though.
It was nice to go to the mall--a bit more of a cultural experience than we've had so far. It was also a good opportunity to have lunch with the group and bond a bit more. By the end of that though I was exhausted and was eager for a nap that we didn't have time for before more lectures!
I'm super excited for Loskop Dam tomorrow. Seeing how I cope in a tent for five nights will be interesting!
May 12, 2010
This is sooooo cool! I'm in a sleeping bag, in a tent, at a research camp, at Loskop Dam in South Africa. Supposedly warthogs and baboons pass through this clearing on their way down the mountain; and earlier I saw a bushbaby--the first primate sighting! By me!
So the day started off with three quizzes on the material we learned yesterday (yes, we had just one overnight to study) then two lectures on measuring behavior and doing vegetation plots. After those we set off for Loskop Damn, about three hours from Oppi Steopp.
It took us forever to set up tents, and we finished right before dark. The whole time all the girls were squealing over a spider the size of my hand dangling above us (a golden orb web weaver, fyi).
The camp is decent; there's a converted garage with three beds that our group is rotating through in the next five nights (the camp only really houses 12, but there's our three leaders, their two research assistants, and two British girls, Vicky and Vicky, here to study giraffes, hence we're staying in tents behind the camp). Tomorrow I'm getting up early to help with breakfast and lunch sack prep.
May 13, 2010
Today was super awesome. We started with some introductions to tree and shrub identification, which was tedious, but a necessary start to the day. Funny story: we were pointed to a very thorny tree and told to identify it with the help of our books. The way a book identifies it is by taking you through a matrix of questions until it leads you to the right species. One question asked about the quality of the branches, and I said they looked very "robust". Shawn looked at me funny and I repeated it, not knowing what I said that merited the funny look. Turns out the tree was an Acacia robusta.
So then we split up into our groups for the day. Each day, three people would go with Brandi to observe the vervets and the rest would go with Shawn to do vegetation plots and population samples. Since I volunteered to do morning setup/clean up, Erica, Austin, and I got to go out today with Brandi.We drove up to the first Donga (ravine) and hiked along it, looking for the group. We planned to search three dongas that this particular vervet group uses regularly until we came across them. We tried the three, hiking all morning, until Shawn radioed that the other students had spotted them across the road from where we were hiking. So after we finally found our monkeys, we had lunch and got the low-down about what we were supposed to be doing. We were each assigned to a monkey to follow in 10-minute intervals. I was assigned to Xena, the alpha female, distinguishable by a notch in the center of her left ear.
It was SO hard to follow the monkeys as they darted around, or keeping track of which was Xena (because looking through shaky binoculars waiting for the little bastard to turn her head and check the ear was tedious as heck). So when it got too hard we just did practice follows on random group members. I followed Punkey, the lowest ranking female with a head tilt, Pam, her daughter, Barfight (who looks like he's been in a barfight), and Xylo, Xena's subadult son who looks full-grown but his electric blue balls are still tucked up there :P We were supposed to record the start/stop times of behaviors such as feeding, grooming, self-grooming, mating, playing, and resting. We definitely got within about 15 feet of the monkeys; they were very habituated to researchers' presence.
We did that until about 4:30 then got back in time to beat the other group to the showers. Very early to bed (7:30!!) but my legs feel like jelly and if all days are this long, I'll need all the sleep I can get!
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