"I LOVE Amreeka"

My taxi driver last night was pretty adamant about loving America, where half his family lives, and told us all about Philadelphia. I'm glad he loves America though, because I had one friend who had a taxi driver who said, "I khate america, I khate obama, I khate america. I love Americans, but I khate America." Mish Mushkila, that's life.

I know I skipped yesterday, but as it is the weekend, I think I'm allowed to let that one slide.

One thing I forgot to talk about a couple days ago was Fu Fu's birthday. We went to my host grandmother's house and got to see her "boys" (aka our host cousins) and the girl who lives with the family upstairs, which was nice. The five of us had a nice chat, and we were invited to go out with Sam and Elliot (our host cousins) which is what we did last night. Fu Fu loves a tv show called "RiHanna" - not Rihanna, btw - and the characters from that show were on his birthday cake. Also on his birthday cake were about 12 sparklers and two firecrackers. All of us had to hold sparklers as well. Did I mention this was all inside? because it was. There were 13 people standing around inside with sparks shooting every which direction. It was an interesting experience, to say the least.

So yesterday was pretty eventful. Our only "class" was meeting with our professors to discuss our placement tests. I got a 56% on my exam and was bumped up to Intermediate II, which I was pretty pumped about. After that, a group of us went back to Khalefa Plaza for coffee at Gloria Jean's. Alot of restaurants here have two areas. It's hard to explain, but I'll try. Usually there's one room/area where you go order your food/drink/whatever, with some chairs and tables and what not. However, there's also usually another room/area across from the main one that's only seats and tables. Gloria Jean's is like this; it's at the entrance to the plaza, so the doors into the plaza separate the two parts of Gloria Jean's. When we got our coffee and went to go sit, we went to the other side and up the stairs to this lovely little cozy area where we could people watch. Oh, and let me not forget the music: Jordan seems to be very big on sappy, romantic ballads and late 90s - early 2000s music. It gets to be a bit much, sometimes, but we were content to just sit and chat for a few hours yesterday.

After Gloria Jean's, we decided to head out for City Mall. It was raining again (it has rained almost everyday since I've been here) so we wanted to stay inside for the most part. Matthew wanted to get a suit for his internship, so he, Brooke, Julia, and I headed out to city mall to shop. We of course had to stop upstairs for a bathroom break, since you never know what type of bathroom you'll get here. No one uses UJ's bathrooms - they are regularly protested for being so horrific. We though getting a taxi might be difficult because of the rain, but we got one and headed out.

I should point out that security here is a lot higher than in America. At the entrance to the mall you have to go through a metal detector and have your bags searched (by the gender appropriate person, of course) and at a good number of the stores you're not allowed to take bags in. Instead, a guard will take your bags and give you a number to retrieve them when you leave. It's actually kind of nice if you're carrying a lot around.

City Mall was busy, since that's where people hang out on the weekends. It's very hard to just hang out in Jordan, since it is so family centered and dating is so frowned upon. So the mall was packed with teens, much like America, but there is such a variety of people here unlike in the malls back home. The people there are much more diverse than the ones at the University, and I saw guys rocking styles from America to Japan. Getting out of the mall was pretty difficult though. It was raining, and the taxi drivers kept telling us "traffic too bad, 5 JD" which is a total lie, so we had to wait until we found a driver willing to turn on the meter, which was mostly due to luck. We found one and went home, dropped off our bags, and headed out for Hashem's. Hashem's is the famous fuul place in Jordan, although I can't tell you what it's like because we only met there before we went out to the restaurant/lounge with Sam, Elliot, and Leah. It was my first time heading into Amman proper, where the buildings are fairly ramshackle and close together. An interesting note; the stores are grouped together by type. We passed by a whole row of gold sellers, then a whole row of only men's barbershops, then a whole row of suit sellers. Convienent, if you're trying to find a bargain, but not if you need to buy a variety of things. The section we were walking through was all DVD stores, and after we went the restaurant we headed for DVD Hamudeh's, where every single dvd you could ever want is only 1 JD. They really do have every dvd of anything ever. I saw Donnie Darko, season 2 of Boy Meets World, Kyle XY, Lemon Tree, etc. it was pretty epic, and Brooke and I plan on going back.

Back to the restaurant. We went up two flights of stairs and ended up in this cozy little room with low couches and chairs, and were seated by a lovely woman who I think was from America. Sam knew her really well, since he frequents this place, and she was absolutely pleased to have us there. We were the only Americans in the place, which was nice, since almost everywhere I've been so far has been jampacked with other students from my program. We had sheesha, which was a new experience for me, and Za'ater with cheese, which was a pastry with cheese and thyme and some other herbs, a little like a pizza but much tastier. We sat and talked about just about everything, and listened to music which blasted from the speakers right next to us. We heard everything from typical Arabic music to the James Bond theme song to the Looney Tunes theme song. There were families in there, as well as groups of women and groups of men, and it was fascinating, as it always is in Amman, to see how many varieties of people frequent different places. You'd never see a six year old in a place like that back in America, but it was no big deal here.

After all of this, Sam flagged down a taxi for us which was great. At night, you're never quite sure what type of taxi will try to pick up two American girls, but going anywhere with Sam guaruntees safety. He's a big, full-bearded guy from the Midwest, and no one messes with him. He's a lot like a big brother, and since he's already been here for a semester he knows what he's doing. In short, he's a good guy to have as family.

So we came home, watched a game of yaad, then went to bed. We tried to watch Sense and Sensibility again, but failed. And now it's Friday morning, and I've had my breakfast of fried eggs, pita, and shay, and have my cup of qahua (turkish coffee) sitting here while I type this. I'll update again soon, hope your weekend is as good as mine!

Beth

p.s. update on Mubarak and his speech coming soon. That's an event in and of itself.