Settling In

The week after Petra was hectic, to say the least.  The majority of us schlepped into class that next Sunday morning, sore, exhausted and sick from the weekend’s exertions.  That next day I had not yet succumbed to the cold that had spread through most of 70 odd students who had gone to Petra; but as the week wore on I felt myself sniffling and coughing with everyone else. 

For better or for worse, CIEE’s Language and Culture program in Jordan is a very much a STUDY abroad program.  This week I felt the full effects of that.  My class schedule is now set in stone; my electives are Contemporary Arab Women Writers and International Relations and Diplomacy in the Middle East, and then I have Colloquial Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic.  I absolutely love both of my electives.  They are amazing classes. Amazing. Definitely on par with some of my favorite courses in SIS (School of International Service) back at American. 

That said, this week following Petra was one of adjustment.  Maybe because of the emotional highs of the weekend, the little things made themselves more apparent than in past week or so.  I think it is also a side effect of settling in.  When the little peculiarities of life here aren’t shiny and new, they can be annoying and/or frustrating.  With the hardships of the past week in mind, I made an executive decision to take Friday as a personal day, by reinstating my favorite DC routine: I camped at a local coffee shop all day and did homework. If you ever find yourself in Amman from 9am - 1pm on a friday, you definitely have to check this place out.  Their three course breakfast is affordable and fantastically delicious! (You know it's good if I'm resorting to adverbs...)

Course One:  Eggs, toast, and homefries with Juice and Coffee.

Course Two: Pastry filled with cheese

Course Three: French Toast

 The cafe is called "Books@Cafe" and it is wonderful.  It reminds me faintly of "Politics and Prose" back in DC, except cooler.  The downstairs is a book store; english and arabic books, from non-fiction and cookbooks to general fiction and comic books. The upstairs is even larger than the bookstore downstairs, and has several rooms for seating.  It is a cafe by day and a bar and hangout by night.

While there, I actually picked up a graphic novel in arabic, and found I could read and understand most of the first few pages! I didn't purchase anything today other than delicious food (and three GIANT cups of coffee that were all included in my meal), but I'm sure to before my semester is up.  I'm definitely bringing back from Arabic children's books for my little cousin (and myself).

On Sunday, I was supposed to go on the first of four community service trips CIEE offers.  This semester, we will be fixing up a girl's school that is about an hour north of Amman.  However, it snowed, sleeted, and hailed on Saturday night and into early Sunday morning, and the trip was cancelled.  Let me just say, freezing rain here in Amman is, if anything, worse than in the States, because - to use an aphorism - when it rains here, it pours.

Or in this case, snows!

Also, I did manage to find a picture someone took of me while on my lovely camel:

Look that those heels. They're down! And I definitely felt a little lost without reigns to hold on to...

Camel anecdotes aside, the weather cleared up after Sunday and all of the locals here keep telling us that Spring is about to start and that the weather will be beautiful.  So here's hoping I finally have some warm weather bragging rights here in Jordan! :-P  This week has been largely uneventful, save a few interesting taxi conversations, and actual language successes on the streets.

One thing that has become a point of frustration for me here is the need to always have change on you.  In the States, you can walk into pretty much any store and expect them to have change for a 20$ at the very least; while I worked at Dunkin Donuts we quite regularly broke 50$ and even a few 100$'s.  In Jordan, this is not that case. Generally you will be okay even in Taxi's with a 5JD note, but even some convenience stores will not have enough change for you if you have a 10JD or above.

Over the weekend, I perpetually lacking change. Despite this I had to buy bread for the week from a store a block from my apartment.  The guy didn't have change for me then, but told me to go ahead and take the bread and pay the next day.  When I returned the following day, explained, in arabic, that I had bought bread the day before, but lacked change, so I was going to pay now...and I was understood on the first go without the need for descriptive hand gestures or pictionary.  Successes like these, albeit small victories, are happening more and more now.  They are still generally the exception to the rule; but the longer I'm here, the more I think handling at least day to day problems in arabic will be مش مشكلة (no problem) at all.