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!