That's pretty much all I have to say about it right now. OK, OK, I know that it's blizzarding all over the states right now, but really. When you brought very few warm clothes with you, and the few you do have are disgusting because you haven't had access to laundry in over two weeks, being cold is rough. Plus the rain. Something about us going to desert countries inspires days of rain. It happened in Cairo when we first arrived, and now it's happening in Jordan! Lauren and I are currently planning on going to Aqaba for our upcoming three day weekend because it's warm there, apparently...(that's right... 3 day weekends are not the norm here. :( Come on, AMIDEAST, follow Matthew's example and give us time to travel more!)
Lauren and I got into our apartment last night. It's mumtasic (mumtaaz = awesome in Arabic). We each get our own room and bathroom, flatscreen HD TV, leather couches, kitchen supplies. We have central heat too, but debatable about how well that works, especially at night. I couldn't fall asleep because I was so cold. :-/ Might need to go get a big fleece blanket today. No internet as of yet (currently in a starbucks), but talked to Mom last night and hopefully we'll get that installed ASAP so I can talk to her as much as I want. Plus it's just so much more convenient to have internet at home, for doing homework and job/internship apps and whatnot.
It's been a rough week or so. I feel like I'm working on autopilot right now. I've just been overloaded with information, I don't even know what to blog about. Where we live in Jordan is the really rich area (it seems), because everything here is American, plus we're near the malls, and stuff like that. There's a Safeway a block from our apartment, where we got towels and linens and cleaning supplies yesterday. Walking the aisles, it felt like I was at home in Dominick's with Mom. Anything you could ever want was in there. On the one hand I felt so relieved that I wasn't going to have a hard time finding everything I needed, but on the other hand, I didn't feel like I was studying abroad. It made me miss Cairo a lot. Cairo was a big culture shock, but I got used to it. Now that I'm in Jordan, I got more reverse-culture shock, because everything seems so Western so far. Ian was reassuring us that it's just because of the part of Amman we are in, and he is going to take us to the more authentically Jordanian parts of Amman later.
When we first arrived in Amman, the resolve we all had to make this work basically broke down. The exchange rate is not what we were expecting, the Jordanian dinar (JD) is actually stronger than the Euro. So we were all upset about how expensive everything would be, after how amazingly cheap Egypt was. That was only one of many things. Long story short, many of us broke down, I called Mom crying because at the time I thought I would rather be home than in Jordan. We gave it a day though, and we did feel a little better the next day, although we were still extremely hostile. Hala, the Matthew of the Amman program, is extremely nice. It definitely helped to have her assuage some of our hysteria. Matthew called. I can't even explain to you how calming it was to just hear his voice. He was basically our savior and all the Jordan people are sad that he ended up with the Morocco program. Oh well. We'll see him again soon. After that, we were all in a noticeably better mood.
Classes start on Sunday, so I have a bit more time to relax before the "study" part of my study abroad begins. I'm still working on the epic blog post about the last couple weeks, keep checking back in!
Lauren and I got into our apartment last night. It's mumtasic (mumtaaz = awesome in Arabic). We each get our own room and bathroom, flatscreen HD TV, leather couches, kitchen supplies. We have central heat too, but debatable about how well that works, especially at night. I couldn't fall asleep because I was so cold. :-/ Might need to go get a big fleece blanket today. No internet as of yet (currently in a starbucks), but talked to Mom last night and hopefully we'll get that installed ASAP so I can talk to her as much as I want. Plus it's just so much more convenient to have internet at home, for doing homework and job/internship apps and whatnot.
It's been a rough week or so. I feel like I'm working on autopilot right now. I've just been overloaded with information, I don't even know what to blog about. Where we live in Jordan is the really rich area (it seems), because everything here is American, plus we're near the malls, and stuff like that. There's a Safeway a block from our apartment, where we got towels and linens and cleaning supplies yesterday. Walking the aisles, it felt like I was at home in Dominick's with Mom. Anything you could ever want was in there. On the one hand I felt so relieved that I wasn't going to have a hard time finding everything I needed, but on the other hand, I didn't feel like I was studying abroad. It made me miss Cairo a lot. Cairo was a big culture shock, but I got used to it. Now that I'm in Jordan, I got more reverse-culture shock, because everything seems so Western so far. Ian was reassuring us that it's just because of the part of Amman we are in, and he is going to take us to the more authentically Jordanian parts of Amman later.
When we first arrived in Amman, the resolve we all had to make this work basically broke down. The exchange rate is not what we were expecting, the Jordanian dinar (JD) is actually stronger than the Euro. So we were all upset about how expensive everything would be, after how amazingly cheap Egypt was. That was only one of many things. Long story short, many of us broke down, I called Mom crying because at the time I thought I would rather be home than in Jordan. We gave it a day though, and we did feel a little better the next day, although we were still extremely hostile. Hala, the Matthew of the Amman program, is extremely nice. It definitely helped to have her assuage some of our hysteria. Matthew called. I can't even explain to you how calming it was to just hear his voice. He was basically our savior and all the Jordan people are sad that he ended up with the Morocco program. Oh well. We'll see him again soon. After that, we were all in a noticeably better mood.
Classes start on Sunday, so I have a bit more time to relax before the "study" part of my study abroad begins. I'm still working on the epic blog post about the last couple weeks, keep checking back in!
FYI it was 14 below this am in Oswego!
ReplyDeleteNow that's cold!!