Some more week days

Okay I forget a lot of what I have been up to for the last few days, except for yesterday, so I'll do my best to piece it together. Sunday I was 1.5 movies; Alex's birthday wish, to see WALL-E, came together partially, as we went to see it but a large portion of the middle of the movie was missing. So we did our best to convey to the theatre manager what had happened and we ended up getting passes to see another movie later on. I am happy to report though that the parts we did see were quite good. Afterwards I met my language partner to watch a movie in Arabic, Captain Hemo (translation, hemo is a name). I did not understand a lot of the dialogue, and it wasn't a particullarly good movie, but I still enjoyed it. The strangest thing was that, as with a lot of Arabic movies, there are what amount to music videos inserted into the film featuring the actors, during one of which the entire theatre began clapping along to the music. I have never seen anything like that before.

Monday was boring, with no interesting stories to relate.
Tuesday was similar to Monday.
Wednesday too.

Oh but Barack Obama came and left over those few days. Thursday we went to Petra, which is one of the new seven wonders of the world. The older ancient world wonders list is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Wonders_of_the_Ancient_World and then the new list is here: http://www.new7wonders.com/classic/en/n7w/results/. We took a bus right after class down to Petra where there wasn't a whole lot to do besides walking around and looking at everything, and also climbing up some big rocks like we did at Wadi Rum. That said, I have pictures! It was a challenge with a broken zoom, but what makes this place so amazing is that everything there is huge. Oh and also the third Indiana Jones (and the Last Crusade) was filmed here. For the history of Petra, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petra. We did a night program there too before heading back to Amman, pictures/video of which I might be able to apprehend from some of the other people here.

Big Post

This one is going to span what has been a fairly busy four days, so please forgive my brevity in describing a few of the details. Wednesday was Alex’s birthday, and for his birthday he wanted to see WALL-E (spelling?), that new pixar film, and also to get a big cake. So, we went to the mall which has a cinema on the top floor, but discovered that all showings of the movie had taken place in the early afternoon, so no movie. We’ll probably go today (Sunday). So then we went to buy a cake, and upon inspecting all of the enormous chocolate cakes Alex settled on buying an enormous Ice Cream cake instead. The cake had three flavors of ice cream, mango, chocolate, and raspberry, then a thing layer of actual cake, and was covered with a syrup that had a faint taste of cherry, and then lots of pieces of milk and white chocolate.

That evening we got a mild spook, as Saleh received a call saying there had been a shooting downtown where several of our kids had been earlier. So he was quite frantic, and somewhere along the line of communication it got back to us (all of whom were safely at the apartment) that five Americans had been shot. In actuality, a man hoping to incur his own death had shot at a Syrian/Lebanese tour bus, causing minor injuries to four people (If getting shot in the leg can be considered minor), and failing his own suicide as police non-fatally wounded and arrested the man.

Thursday Alex left early with some kids from his class for Petra, Jordan’s top tourist attraction, and in the next day or two I expect him to have a lengthy blog post about it. If not, then you can read about it later as I plan to go there this coming weekend. For the rest of our group, we went to a wedding. The family is Bedouin (this means the clan lives/used to live out in the desert, so Bedouin=desert society), so although Jordan is modernizing the old wedding traditions are still all practiced. So first our group was divided into men and women, as with this three day wedding the stage we took part in has the sexes divided in two separate celebrations. Hopefully one of the girls will post about what they did, but for the guys it was a lot of handshaking and coffee. I must have had six small glasses of coffee, and a lot of overly sweetened tea. We met the groom, who that night would be entering his new home with his new wife for the first time, and the next morning everyone would come together for a giant feast. Now at some point they began to play music, and a line of men standing shoulder to shoulder formed, which we were whisked off into. The dance is uninspiring, involving simply rocking side to side and maintaining a slow clap for what must have been an hour. In the old days it was more complex, with complicated steps and choreography involved, but for whatever reason it had devolved into just rocking with a slow clap that never ever sped up. While in line we heard some guns being fired right behind us, but it is a new addition to this old tradition to fire guns into the air at weddings, so we were all doing our best to not jump or be intimidated as people were shooting off there weapons. That ended when we turned around and noticed one of the shooters was a five year-old. We were assured that his 9mm only had blanks, and Joe snapped what might be the best picture of the whole trip. An army officer at the celebration decided then to show off and was shooting off rounds of his AK47 (I think, was dark so while it was an automatic rifle I’m not sure of the model). Around then is when we decided to go home. That evening Saleh decided it was guy’s night, so we went to a coffee shop that his cousin owns, where another cousin wanted to show off his new red Mitsubishi, and proceeded to shoot flames out of the car’s tailpipe as he gunned it down a side street, avoiding the three pedestrians who may have damaged the hood of his car with their persons.

Onto Friday, when early that morning we went to the school to go on the University’s trip to Wadi Rum. This is Jordan’s most striking landscape, similar to the American southwest, where the desert sees giant rocks rising out of the sand. It is the location where Lawrence of Arabia was filmed, so if you youtube that movie you can see what the place looks like. Our tourist company had a camp of tents set up, some nice meals, and bathrooms with toilet paper (!!!). It was a four our drive, and the company doesn’t run tours until the evening, so we decided to climb one of the rocks. They are eroded in such a way that if you find the right route up they are quite scalable, even in flip flops. So, ignoring a fear of heights, we went up one, which wasn’t terrifying unless I stood on/looked over the edge. Included in this post are some pictures from the top. Then that evening we all piled into jeeps, where the drivers took us around to a few good places to take pictures and to watch the sunset. Two good stories come out of this; the first is that the tour company appears to be, like everything else here, a family business, and as such one of our drivers was an eleven year-old kid. The second story is that from the top of one of the sand dunes we (the guys) were encouraged to run down the dune, touch a rock wall past the bottom, and be the first back to the top of the dune. Dumb, right? So of course I participated. Going down the dune I essentially ran as though I was playing broomball, taking huge leaping strides, which was effective because as I neared the bottom of the dune I looked to the side to discover that I had large lead on everyone else. Then I reached the bottom of the Dune, but was going fast enough that the ground leveling off was not compatible to the giant steps I was taking. So I tripped and got a pretty decent mouthful of sand, earful of sand, and a busted lip. Oh and I scratched my glasses up a little bit. I am being told it was quite funny. After that incident we watched the sunset, and that evening they played bad Arabic music loudly. So our Miami group within the larger university group left the dancing and walked up a sand dune to hang out under the stars for a few hours, which was pretty awesome.

We woke up early to board the buses and head to Aqaba, a port/resort town in the south, five hours from Amman but only an hour from Wadi Rum. Aqaba is on the Red Sea (the one that Moses parted) and sits right next to the border with Israel; in fact, an uninformed observer might guess that Aqaba and the Israeli city Eilat right next to it were only one city. From Aqaba you are also close enough to take ferries to either Egypt or Saudi Arabia, but we did not venture into any of these three counties. The Red Sea is very clear, and the small city made for a quite charming afternoon at the Swedish hotel that we spent the day at. I didn’t mention previously that my camera stopped working right before sunset at Wadi Rum, so unfortunately I have no pictures of Aqaba, but I suspect Joe will put some up in the next few days. Aqaba as a city really doesn’t have anything special that you can’t find in any of the larger cities in Jordan, so there is nothing more exciting to report beyond the serene day splashing around the pools and the Red Sea. A few guys went snorkeling, which I’m told was quite neat, but I did not partake, as I was not there when people decided to go. Instead Paula and I had left the resort and went to what is supposed be the Aqaba’s best restaurant, where we had nice pasta dishes. It was frustrating that the one place I would have eaten seafood in Jordan with any confidence was very expensive, unless you got pasta, which was cheap for the quality of the food. Paula and I also ordered a white wine, which I, as a result of being active all day and of not being a connoisseur of wine, proceeded to take two full gulps of, which apparently is not how wine is meant to be consumed. Last, it seems worth mentioning that the taxis in Aqaba are green, not yellow. The bus ride back to Amman was long, made longer by the bus driver’s faking engine problems so that he could take cigarette brakes every hour or so. I’ll do my best to acquire some other peoples’ pictures of Aqaba this week.

Three Week Days

Not a lot has happened since my last blog post, but for the sake of putting something up more regularly, here’s another one. So we had class Sunday, and afterwards we all planned to go to get our visas renewed, as we only had three days left to do so before incurring the 1.6JD/day fine. But things worked out in such away that I didn’t bother going with the rest of the group as I had a meeting with my language partner and then church in the evening. As for the rest of the group, they got the run-around, being told that the police stations computer(s?) was down. That is the clearest sign of a (former) third-world country: clouted bureaucracy. Because there are no good private jobs, eight people get to split what should be just one position in a government agency, and laws are passed so that processes involve seeing all eight of them, seven of whom will likely expect a kickback. So that evening I went to church, but there was a note on the door saying (in Arabic) that all of the priests in Amman had left for Madaba for the week (the city we were in the day before) and that there would be no mass that week. So we went to Americans’ other favorite Sunday gathering place, the mall, where we had a nice dinner and some ice cream.

The only thing that happened Monday worth mentioning is that we decided to try doing visas in pairs rather than as a large group, hoping the (lazy) police would be more willing to accommodate smaller numbers because there would appear to be less hassle involved. And fortunately they did, so I now have permission from the government to stay here for the remainder of the summer. I spent Monday evening studying for the mid-term exam,

Which proved quite easy. Not that I aced it, but it wasn’t hard either. I finished it in much less time than that which we were allotted, allowing me time to do some domestic chores, such as cleaning our bathroom, doing laundry, and getting a haircut. Then in the afternoon our Miami group had an appointment set up at the American Embassy. We didn’t get a tour of the embassy, as it is mostly offices and meeting rooms, but we were able to spend two hours talking with government agents in the fields of public relations, US aid, political science, and economics. The most interesting thing was that the US aid officer highlighted Jordan’s 1994 peace accord with Israel as the most significant date in US-Jordan relations, as it precipitated huge amounts of aid and military support from America. Today our country gives $500 million usd to Jordan annually, half in aid and half in military support. Being a smaller country, this puts Jordan near the top of the list of per capita aid received by our country. America has termed its mission in Iraq as one of spreading democracy in the Middle East, so Jordan being a monarchy may seem adverse to such goals, but the King is very interested in bringing Jordan’s economy into both modernity and stability, and this, combined with peace with Israel, has made Jordan a tight ally for our own nation.

Last, I checked ESPN before posting this, and just want to say wow is Josh Hamilton good. But Volquez has been fantastic as well, so we’ll just have to wait and see who can be great longer.

A busy weekend

Alright, I’m going to start where the last one started, but hopefully relate more fun and interesting details. On Tuesday there was a tutoring/review session for those in levels 2/3/4. It was kind of a waste of time, and I am really hoping that with the next one we can do a better job of telling our tutor what we need help with so that we get more out of it. As a result of the poor session, I decided to sit in on the upper groups tutoring session, but unfortunately their tutor never showed. That afternoon I met with my language partner and, after spending 45 minutes working on Arabic, we listened to English music on my computer. Her favorites were The Beetles, Regina Spektor, The Killers, and the Violent Femmes. Afterwards that evening I went to the market with Joe and Matt to buy dress shoes and a dress shirt, since we were going to the palace the next day.

The next day we went to the palace which, to be perfectly honestly, was not as impressive to look at as one might imagine. In fact, I’ve seen more flashy things on MTV’s cribs. But the significance of the place, that numerous world leaders came to this same place on various diplomatic missions, was quite inspiring; men like Nassar, Arafat, and Bush. We got to sit on the big long couches where meetings were held, but we weren’t allowed to sit in the King’s desk chair or throne. Those two spots are famous to anyone from Jordan, as most of the television and radio broadcasts from the Royal family came from one of those two locations. In what must have been the luckiest day of his life, our bus driver was allowed to wander the palace with us, which must have been mind-blowing for a poor older man who likely rightly assumed that he would never see that place. Unlike the White House, tours don’t happen here, or at least not until three years ago when the King authorized groups of honored students to visit the palace on certain dates. And getting in was no easy feat, as we had to stop at six different check points along the way. We got checked for phones, cameras, and weapons (thus no pictures), and our bus was screened for explosives. Eventually we got through though, and had the pleasure of touring this quaint palace with its cabinets full of sumptuous gifts of swords, statues, and Qur’ans from around the region. We ended the tour at the Royal cemetery where we were able to visit the mausoleums of the past kings King Abdullah, King Talal, and King Hussein I. Standing over the marble and gold coffins of the men who would make up the Jordanian Mt. Rushmore was awe-inspiring.

The next day Alex, Judith, and I took a bus up to Jerash, a town one hour north of Amman known for its extensive ruins and annual international festival. In what was essentially an outpost for the Roman Empire, the scale of everything the built is incredible. A hippodrome that sits 7000, two large theatres that could sit 3000-5000, a gigantic plaza, stone roads, and numerous temples. Then after the Romans lost control of the area, the Byzantines erected a series of churches of their own. I apologize but I forgot my camera, still I should be able to get a hold of some pictures by the end of the week to put up. It was a lot of walking in the hot afternoon sun, so Alex and I are both boasting pretty impressive farmers’ tans at this point. To be honest there isn’t a ton to say about this place, as I stated before, other than to show off pictures and say that everything is bigger than it comes across in pictures. There was one really funny moment though; because it is hosting the Jerash festival, we thought the ruins of one theatre may be hard to enter, so we snuck in the back entrance (this proved unnecessary). Upon entering from a high level of the theatre, we found a Arab man dressed in the traditional garb (dishdash and koffiya) playing Beethoven’s Ode to Joy on a bagpipe! I am unable to explain how such a thing might happen.

So then on Saturday we were going to go on the school trip to Madaba and Mt Nebo, but Alex and I neglected to sign up. So Saleh instructed us to sneak on to the bus, which we did, and hope that it wouldn’t be a problem, which it was. So we sat quietly while they inquired as to who was on the bus without signing up, but eventually they gave up and the bus left for Mt Nebo. Mt Nebo is supposed to be the mountain that Moses ascended to view the Holy Land (remember from Genesis that Moses was never able to enter the holy land, Joshua led the Israelites across the Jordan River to Jericho). It seems pretty reasonable to think this the same mountain mentioned in the Old Testament, and so in the fourth century the Byzantines built a church on top of the mountain. Back in the old days before pollution clouded the air the view was astounding. These days it still is, but the visibility switched clearly seeing Jerusalem from an hour and a half’s drive away to kind of being able to tell where the city sort of is. But things that are closer (like only a half-hour’s drive away) are still easy to see from the peak, such as the Dead Sea, the Jordan River, Jericho, and even Amman. After visiting Mt Nebo we headed back to Madaba, which ended up being a bit of a headache. The city has one of the largest Christian populations within the country, and is home to a Greek Orthodox Church (St George’s Church) which boasts the oldest known map of the area. The map is actually a mosaic on the floor of the church, and throughout the city there a number of places with old or restored mosaics, of which I’ve taken pictures. Also in Madaba we saw seven bicycle shops, all adjacent to each other on a single street.

The last neat piece of information is that lately I’ve been going to a place next to our apartments for sandwiches. The best one, and one of the cheapest is a cordon-blue sandwich, which uses fake pork, but is fantastic. So when I went in this evening (writing this on Saturday evening, but I wont post it until Sunday morning, which will be like 1 AM in Cincinnati time) the guy at the register smiled and said cordin-blue?, meaning that I am officially a regular now.

Amman of in the distance from Mt Nebo

The Dead Sea

The Jordan River and Jericho on the far side of it

In the far distance is Jerusalem, but we could hardly make it out standing there, and it doesn't stand out in this picture.

A Byzantine Mosaic

The oldest known map of the area

The church that the map is at

The Patron Saint of the church, St George

Sorry no new pictures

Okay it has been two school days and two weekend days since my last post. I'm at an internet cafe I found so this is going to be a quick update and I'll type up and post something more thorough on Sunday.

So, Saleh came through on getting us a tour of the Royal Palace. when I say that I am sure that you think of the same grand building that we had, but in actuality the palace is more the staging place for the hosting of foreign dignitaries in Jordan, not the actual home of the King. We were not allowed to take pictures here (as instructed by the guards with M4's), but you can see it if you look for old Royal broadcasts or see pictures of American presidents visiting Amman. It was amusing to sit on the same couches where a multitude of historically significant people sat (Obama will be there this month). Afterwards we had a lunch at a restaruant that specializes in deserts, which really is the best kind of restaruant to eat at.

Today (I'm typing this Friday evening) Alex, Judith, and I went to Jerash, a city to the north of Amman that has a ton of old roman and byzantine ruins. Judith was the only one with a camera, and without pictures there really isn't a lot to talk about. So I promise more in a few days. For now, look here: http://www.tourism.jo/HistoricalSites/jerashFestival.asp

Sorry this was so brief.

Pif Paf

A few of the other kids have been putting up pictures of the Dead Sea, so be sure to look around other blogs. I think Alex has some pictures of us covered with mud from the Dead Sea, which is supposed to make your skin nice, that he should be putting up in the next few days.

So anyways we’ve since had two more exciting days of class, where the reading we’ve been going over is about Wadi Rum, which is our destination for a weekend trip two weekends from now; it is where Lawrence of Arabia was filmed. But the most exciting news to report is that all of our rooms were fumigated, which was a headache. It is hard to get across how casual business transactions are here, but being a half-hour late is never a big deal. So with the fumigation, we were told that we needed to be here at two o’clock to let the guy into our rooms, and then after that we couldn’t enter the rooms for two hours, and it would be another six hours after that before the smell would dissipate. But our bug guy, true to form, didn’t arrive until 4:30, and so I wasted three hours of my Sunday waiting around. Tuesday I was supposed to renew my visa but my one thirty appointment never showed. The good news from the fumigation is that based on the body count (of cockroaches) it appears to have been needed, and my room ridded itself of the smell fairly quickly.

The other exciting thing was that I got my language partner. She has only taken one semester of English formally, but she has watched enough American movies that she can understand a lot of what I’m saying if I speak with gestures and draw a few pictures to explain words that I can’t translate into Arabic. She also said she might like to have blonde hair like American girls and I told her American girls would like to have tan skin like she has (she thought I was lying).

The middle of the school week seems like a nice time to make a quick mention of something cultural, so, Arab fashion: men here dress western, or at least older men look like something out of a JC Penny catalog from the mid 1990s and younger guys wear a lot of knock off Dolce and Giovanna and Diesel. The kind of cultural dress that is popular in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Coast is not commonplace in Jordan, so that if you see a man with a koffia (red and white checkered head scarf) and a dishdash (white full length outer robe) than it is a fair assumption that they are wealthy and from the Gulf States. Older women here dress like you would imagine, sleeves past the elbow, pants or dresses to the ankles, and a head scarf. For younger girls on campus, there is more variety. Some dress very western, a lot dress western but with a hijab (head scarf), and the rest dress like the previously described women. I have seen a few women in burqas, which are the full body clothing with only the eyes, hands, and feet showing (as was required by the Taliban in Afghanistan), but they are fairly rare.

I realize this has been a shorter post, but it has been a serene two days. Alex and I are continuing to try to come up with big things to do each weekend, so I promise better stories each Sunday.

I am 20 now

The last three days were pretty uneventful. But Thursday night a few of us found a really nice cafe with a view overlooking downtown Amman. Once again I forgot my camera, so unfortunately no pictures. Afterwards we went to another place named Books @ cafe and had overpriced wings and drinks. When we got back to the appartments we had Backlava (desert pastries) in celebration of Mary's 4th of July birthday.

On the actual day of the fourth of July we went out to Fudruckers for a really big lunch. To show my pride in America I ate a hamburger, fries, and a vanilla milkshake, which was all surprisingly good. That evening Alex, Joe, and I went to a shopping area where we found disney books and boardgames in Arabic, and purchased several. Joe found a copy of The Jordanian Times (Jordan's leading English newspaper) with a picture of himself in it, and an article about all of the foriengers now studying at the university. Then we had dinner, and a little boy threw up on me. Hopefully our laughing and non-anger demonstrated to the folks there that Americans are cooler than some people would give us credit for.

On my birthday we went to the Dead Sea, which seperates Jordan from Israel/Palestine, and is known for its high salt content. Basically, it feels the same as you walk out as if it were a normal beach, but at some point before the water is more than chest high, you realize that your suddenly no longer touching the floor. You can float in a normal pool by holding your head up and lying on your back, but here you float no matter what. Joe tried to swim to the bottom (probably just 11 ft where he was) so he took a deep breath and dove, but the couldnt get deep enough to even submerge his knees. Beyond our fascination with the nature of the water, it was stunning to look across at Israel knowing how significant that same view is for so many Arab Palestinains who left the country in 1948 or 1967 and still have not been able to return.

P.S. Please feel free leave me comments/questions, I will respond to them (Eric Lanman- my grandma reads this blog too)

July now

Resuming where I left off after my last blog post on Sunday morning, the last two days of class have been quite easy which has freed up time for me to do some other things. On Sunday after class I had a quick lunch and studied at the apartment for a few hours before going to church (a different one then last week). Once again there were a few intricacies that differ from masses I’ve attended in the States and Europe, but the best difference was the singing of the Lord’s Prayer before communion, which was sang slowly over a very methodic, deliberate beat. I imagine it’s one of those you had to be there things. After mass we had dinner (the four of us who go to church), and decided to watch DVDs of Arrested Development instead of the Euro Cup final. On a sports side note, the few times that I have checked up on the Reds have been very disappointing. If I was home the past week would have driven me up a wall; it’s easier to shrug off half a world away.

So Sunday was a boring day, but Monday evening was more worth a paragraph description. Quick side note: my teacher Fatima (f) will apparently not be our teacher one day each week; instead we have a younger doctorate candidate named Nizar (m), who happens to have spent some time at OSU. So Paula and I ate lunch together and as we finished Saleh happened to spot us and told us to follow him. We ended up at the faculty lounge and sat down with Nizar. At the end of our meal, he invited us to attend the Graduation Services that evening with him. So it ended up being Alex, Janine, Mary, and I who met Nizar to go the graduation, which was cool to see, but still a little bit boring in the same way that all graduations are. Afterwards we ate, and then went to a café that had hookah and backgammon. So I tried sheesha for the first time, which was uneventful, and Mary played backgammon against some old guy who used different rules than the ones she grew up playing with. It turned out that this guy was related to Saleh, but then so are 2,999 other people in Amman (I’m not exaggerating, they are kind of a big deal). Oh and she ended up beating him.

The unfortunate thing is that I forgot to take my camera to the graduation, so I thought I’d put up some pictures of our apartment. I personally think we have nice accommodations, but every single other person in our group would probably disagree with me. Maybe it is because our room is the only one yet to be invaded by the cockroaches. But anyways, enjoy the photos and hope I do something interesting enough to read about between now and the next post. (But do expect some good pictures on Sunday)

Also, I added Joe’s blog on the left side of my page today. I’d suggest you check it out; he has a lot more pictures up than I do.

Notice my good fortune on the one shot where I aimed high.

Here is Alex holding a gun, which he suggested may shock his mother.

To make the male dolls they just painted a mustache on a female doll. This may have been a good gift for my Mom if they weren't vastly overpriced.