Post Awaal!

Ahlan wa sahlan!

"Welcome to Jordan"! It's something I've been hearing a lot since I got to Amman last week. Despite everything that's been going on in the Middle East these days, despite being American, I have never felt unwelcome.

We arrived in Amman, Jordan, a number of days after the "Gaza flotilla" catastrophe. We stayed at the Al - Manar hotel, nothing to write home about (hence the blog) but it had internet which was nice. A bunch of us were excited to head out and start exploring Amman, but the staff told us we couldn't leave. Apparently, our hotel was located close to the start of a rally point for demonstrations, and it being Friday (generally the day where demonstrations take place), we were told to stay in for safety reasons.

So we hung around the hotel for a bit, massing around the internet room (typical American college students can't get enough of facebook). I ended up meeting a bunch of people the first night: Joey (one of Nabeel's close friends from Texas A&M [Nabeel is a good friend of mine from high school]), and Bri (got our wisdom teeth taken out one day apart by the same dental surgeon) just to name a few with small world mentions from Texas.

The next day we took a trip to eat some great Arabic food (half the reason why I'm abroad at the moment. Ohebu shawerma, falafel, wa hummus!). Apparently, King Abdullah II goes there to eat all the time. It's a quaint little place about twenty minutes outside of Amman, cool architecture (see pictures below).

Picture of one of the courses of food we got. Ohebu hummus!!!

After we ate our multiple course meal (in full Arabic fashion, we were all fit to burst afterwards), we went up and saw some beautiful views of the countryside. The owner then began speaking with a few of us, showing us around. He was very kind, again welcoming as ever. He began to ask questions starting out with "Who is from Texas?". Obviously, being from Texas, and a conservative I was a bit uneasy about this. I knew he was going to at some point slam Bush for his foreign policy in the region. I raised my hand, said yes, bracing for the worst. He came up to me and asked me "Where are your guns?!". We all laughed, and I was relieved. He began to ask a few other questions, who's from Chicago, DC.

Picture of the building and everyone gathering around for the questions!

Never once did I feel threatened by this man. Welcoming as ever, he invited us back down for coffee.

After our absolutely fantastic lunch we went to the King's car museum. It was pretty cool, lots of nifty cars from way back when, but not being too big of a car buff, it was nothing to write home about. The coolest things were the motor cycles in the front before we got in (see below).

Joey on one of the motorbikes.

We got back to the hotel, internet-ed, and chilled for the rest of the night. I found myself hanging out with a few of the guys, Zain (my hotel room roommate -- chill guy from Colorado. He had spent some time recently in Morocco), Mark (KapSig from Penn State, chill "bro", also a petroleum engineer, we've made some engineering jokes here and there), John (another "bro" from GW. He's a Pike, chill dude), and Joey (KapSig from Texas A&M, mentioned before). We bro-ed out in the hotel bar for a bit before hitting the sack.

Next day, we were to move into our new houses / apartments. Turns out John, Joey and me were rooming together in our own housing section. We were first ecstatic, being the total "bro" house, but then we were worried; either we were going to be in the house that they could only afford one apartment in, or the more likely, stuck us in the place after they couldn't get anymore of the nice apartments. We also heard from one of the Resident Staff that there were "two or three of us living near the Israeli Embassy" (obviously a place that throws great parties [I see a lot of pictures with guys waving flags and dancing in front of it, see below]). Being the only group with three people in it, it was obviously us. We were... excited about this all.

Us bro's doing what we do best.

We got in the van to take us to our place with a few of our resident staff. They told us we lived in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Amman, and one of the safest. Because the Israeli embassy is close, there are tons of police (and secret police!) patrols around our house all the time. We also got very excited about the fact that we lived in the nicest neighborhood in town. We got to the apartment and we were thrilled. See pictures below. Everything was decked out in true Arabic fashion, frills, trims, and doilies everywhere. Our rooms were huge, kitchen nice and equipped, have a water cooler == save katheera dinars (lots of money) on water.

Best part: open wireless connection next door. It goes good and bad here and now, but it works, and it's 80 dollars cheaper than renting out an adapter.

Picture of the outside of the house

Kitchen picture. It's huuuuge!

Dining room slash seating room

Bedroom picture

Porch outside our house. Much chilling to be had

When we first moved in, we were introduced to our landlord and guard (who was initially introduced as Ahmed, but promptly "corrected" the landlord that his name was "Ramadan"). He wore an NFL Coor's Light polo -- obviously a complete bad ass and total bro. We later asked him about the polo, said a friend gave it to him. He obviously had no idea he was wearing a beer shirt.

We then proceeded into the completely logical conversation, "Who you rooting for in the World Cup?" Pretty much everyone and their dog is rooting for Brazil. Obviously they want to root for the winning team. Apparently, the city goes crazy during the cup, we're super pumped.

Well, it's getting a bit late. And I have to wake up early for class. Inshallah, I'll have time to write about getting ready for classes soon. I hope you enjoy this!