WELCOME TO JORDAN

I made it here in one piece at 2am yesterday (this?) morning. Most of my day was spent resting since I arrived early and no other students were here, so I got a little caught up on sleep and just tried to let the fact that I am actually in the Middle East start to seem real. After I woke up from a nap some other students have arrived so we wandered around for a bit and almost got ran over a few times ah ha ha... Jordanians drive very crazy and I'm pretty sure there actually are pedestrian and traffic laws but they seem to not be enforced at all... Lots of the cars sped by with Arab pop music blasting from the open windows as well as some hoots and hollers which will probably get annoying but at this point it is easy to ignore and sort of funny. We also got a loud shouting welcome from some hilarious prepubescent looking boys that said "WELCOME TO JORDAN WELCOME TO JORDAN!"

After the first outing I was still tired so I went back to the hotel to read for a while and could actually hear the loud call to prayer that was being sung as the sun went down! Since this month is Ramadan on the Muslim calendar most people (Muslims) fast from sunrise to sunset and then have a big meal after sunset called Iftar. Even if you don't want to fast eating and drinking, and smoking, is prohibited out in public. So for the last ten days of Ramadan while I am here I don't have to necessarily fast but I have to keep my eating to behind private walls where I won't offend anyone. It is a strange thing to get used to but I don't think it will be too hard. Most likely I will just end up eating less for the next ten days because getting food is more difficult than normal... but after that I plan on feasting regular on all sorts of Mediterranean/Middle Eastern foods mmmmmmmm.

After a big Iftar meal at the hotel and meeting the other students a group of us walked a few blocks away to Shariah Thaqafa (Culture Street is the what it means in English... and I don't really know how to write the equivalency to Arabic letters into English yet so words might look weird for a while to those who do know)... The street was very busy as everyone was out and about at cafes, drinking coffee, smoking lots of hookah which I think is called argileh here or "hubbly bubbly" haha! We settled at a nice cafe that was on the street side but had tapestries that made it a little more private and played cards and smoked hobbly bubbly (as they had it on their menu) for a few hours. That was the first real cultural experience for me as there were two men playing some traditional Arabic music on the stage, and then after they finished some Arab soap opera was turned on and blasted through the speakers throughout the cafe. It was pretty dramatic and hilarious. Oh! I forgot to mention that we found a tiny kitten outside the hotel and so we brought him along as well because he obviously didn't have a home. Overall, great evening.

All sorts of activities are planned for tomorrow to try to attempt to force ourselves out of jetlag during this orientation week. Friday we get picked up from the hotels to stay with our host families and school starts the following Monday. I have so much to look forward to.

Expect to hear more soon! Love and miss everyone already!