getting medz.

Okay, so getting medicine today was quite an insane experience. First, I tried to go to a couple pharmacies to ask them for some medz, but they told me i needed a prescription...I enlisted the aid of of Ummo (uncle) Rashad who met me at the University of Jordan at noon. We walked to Al-Isra' hospital where I spoke to a woman who told me she couldn't give me a prescription, but she knew a guy who could. we took a cab to this office building to meet this guy, but he wasn't there. We were told he would be back between 4 and 6. we didn't want to wait around for 4 hours so we left and had coffee at the city mall and went to a pharmacy. The pharmacy people told us to go to istishari hospital because they have the medicine. we went there and they directed us to another hospital in Shmeisani. I was exhausted by the time we got to this hospital, and then some doctor guy told me they didn't have these drugs in jordan at all...and i was like...are you kidding me? i've been running around this city all day, and now you telling me you don't have the medicine i need. i was so annoyed...i felt like i was on a really lame scavenger hunt. ugh, that guy sucked, but my Ummo Rashad was not about to give up. He opened some sort of secret door at the hospital where these two guys were chilling smoking cigarettes. apparently my uncle knew one of the guys so we chilled there for a while and my uncle filled him in on my situation. my uncle told me he has friends like this at all the hospitals. this guy spoke english which was nice. he made some phone calls and it seemed like i was going to be able to get my medicine, even though the other doctor told me they didn't have it in Jordan. i gave this guy my insurance card...and he looked at me like i was an idiot...and he's like no. you don't need this. go outside and there is a building and on the second floor is dr. mahmoud abu someone, and he will give you the recipe...and i was like okay this sounds super sketchy, but whatevs. give me the recipe...anyway, i roll over to this guy's "office" and chat with him for a while. he was pretty cool. he didn't really ask me much about medical issues, he randomly asked me if i was depressed. and i was like. no?...anyway, he gave me a prescription and it was marked like "special" and "danger" ahahah. which i thought was hilarious. i took it to the pharmacy...and 6 hours after my journey started, i had my medicine! i really wish i would have taken a pic of my prescription before i filled it because the guy at the pharmacy wouldn't give it back to me, and it was really funny. oh well. The Dr. gave me his cell phone number, and he was like, "call me if you need anything." if i get anything else, I will take a picture. anyway, after that i got coffee with my uncle again. overall, crazy exhausting, hilarious day. my ummo rashad is great. he's the bomb, like tick tick.

Figs for the road تين

So...I recently found out that I have a new set of local followers so I need to be more cautious about what I say...ha.

at any rate, Amman is a really chill city. everyone loves to hang and people are really relaxed here. generally, people are really calm and way less stressed out than Americans. Everyone seems disinterested in time and efficiency. it's really great, although, if you are in a hurry, you are probably screwed. for example, it took me 6 hours to get my medicine today...

When I got my phone here, it took me like an hour to figure out the cell phone logistics with my dad translating everything for me, but my aunt and uncle were annoyed that I was sorry for making them wait...my uncle told me...time is no problem in Jordan.
Also, if you walk quickly here people think you're weird...or they know you are a foreigner.
At restaurants, people hang out...the bill doesn't arrive as soon as you finish eating...the waiter doesn't necessarily come to your table immediately...you don't feel like you are being kicked out of a restaurant when you finish your food...

When my aunt and uncle were dropping me off in Amman, our trip took 3 hours, because we just hung out the whole trip. Its only like a 50 mile drive, but we stopped about every ten miles to chill...We made so many new friends along the way, and my family didn't seem in any rush to get me to Amman or to get back home. Along the highways in Jordan, there are a lot of people selling things. fruit, vegetables, tissues, decorations, jewelry, sim cards...most things. we stopped once to get juice... later we stopped to get some figs...figs make an excellent snack for the road. Here are some pictures of the fig experience.


here is the fig stand on the side of the highway. that guy was really nice!


delicious!

oh the exception to being super chill is when people drive. everyone honks all the time. it's ridiculous. it works though. i'm a little scared when i get into cars, but i'm starting to get used to it.

البحر الميت -Dead Sea

So this post is long overdue, but I've been busy catching up...On our first day of orientation we went to the dead sea and listened to some really long lectures about Jordan...typical orientation stuff...long and boring. it was really overwhelming because no one knew anyone. it was basically exactly like the first day of college orientation except instead of just what's your name/where are you from...we asked what's your name?/where are you from?/where do you go to school?/and what do you study?....Too many questions...I never remember anything about anyone...Anywya. I ended up having a lot of fun. I met some really cool people.. we got to swim in the dead sea and hang out at a really fancy hotel all day.
Enjoy these pics!


here's the dead sea. i'm on the jordan side...across the sea is the West Bank. It was beautiful at night!


Here is a picture of the chilling that took place after we swam in the dead sea.


This is a picture of a part of the dead sea spa hotel.

And, here is a picture of Anneka, Mara at the hotel. i can't remember that guys name... i have a feeling it's either gary or dave.

ahh worst day

okay so it's only 10:28 and i already think it's like the worst day ever. i hope it gets better.
i woke up at 7:30 this morning because i had class at nine...
i took a cab to class and when i got there i found myself wondering around this giganto campus trying to find my class. it wasn't in the room it was supposed to be in so i wondered around to every other room on my schedule. it was really hot and i was like walking back and forth among buildings trying to get anywhere...to top it off, i left my phone at my apartment so i couldn't call anyone, and i don't know anyone in my class anyway. after 2 hours of tryiing to find my class, i took a cab back home...my taxi driver wouldn't listen to me and decided he knew where i lived better than i did so we drove around forever and i ended up having to pay way more than i should have for my taxi ride...i finally just got out and decided to walk the rest of the way...then everyone stared at me because i couldn't help, but cry. i can't believe i missed my first class. i'm so pissed. attendance in Jordan is really really important. it is at Macalester too, but seriously....i missed the first day of class.
ughhhhhhh

Here are some bad pics of my new school.
there are 38,000 students at the University of Jordan....Macalester has under 2,000.

the colgate guy

sooo,
the other weekend i went out with my roommates and some of our friends... we ended up going to this club called La Calle on rainbow street. we met some pretty cool Jordanian guys that we hung out with. we realized that they are super wealthy after they took us to some VIP club in their really fancy cars. one of them, the colgate guy, won some sort of contest....apparently he has the best smile in jordan....he is on billboards for colgate. hahaha. my roomate hooked up with him...

my apartment

here are some pictures of my new apartment. it's super nice! we also have like a garden around our house with a lime tree, a fig tree, and a whole bunch of other plants. it's beautiful. we also have a pet turtle in our backyard.


this is our kitchen.


this is our patio that goes all the way around our house. it's so nice. sometimes i eat breakfast out here...i also skype out here often. it's beautiful.


this is our guest living room....


this is our non guest living room?


anddd this is my room.


this is the dining room and you can kind of see our office/study area in the background.

we also have another cute little sitting area, but the internet decided i've gone over my uploading photo capacity for now sooo you will have to wait. also, the garden is beautiful!

Sharouk

here is a picture of my cousin sharouk. she's 15 i think...which means last time i saw her she was 9. she's a total sweetheart. she calls me all the time and askes when i'm going to be able to visit her. she's the bomb, and she loves to hang.
i keep telling her that she's not allowed to get married before i do...i bet she will though. people marry really young here.

overwhelmed

okay. so i'm super overwhelmed. i think i'm really bad at making friends, and i'm kind of sad....i really miss my friends from home, and i miss macalester...and the kbl

at the University of Jordan everyone just stares at me because i look like an idiot becasue i never know what i'm doing....i also can't communicate with anyone here...it's terrible. i can talk to people but they can immediately tell i'm a foreigner...it makes doing anything way more intense than it needs to be.

we've started classes, and i don't really know how they work yet. we had 300 pages of reading for one day and we only had one day to do it all. i'm pretty sure i'm the only one who did it, and i'm stressed out because i feel like i was doing all that reading and i had no time to study for my arabic classes or sleep. ahhh

after class today, i hung out with this girl Mara who is pretty cool. she could basically tell i was like really overwhelmed so we got coffee and chatted for a while. she's doing a home stay though, so i don't know how often I'll get to hang out with her.

I think things will get better as i adjust to things, but the first few days of class have been really stressful. i hope people here like me. i try to be nice.

Also, the internet has decided not to let me upload any pictures today...:(

So my Dad has 4 siblings that live in Jordan.
3 bros: Muhammad, Eiad, and Rashad
1 sis: Maha
So far I’ve seen Maha’s family and Muhammad’s Family.
Here are some updates/intros on my aunts/uncles/cousins/etc….that I haven’t seen in 6 plus years.

So my dad’s brother Muhammad is married to Merriam…they have 8 kids, but since I’ve seen them their kids are all grown up, andMerriam and Muhammad are grandparents,.

Aight. Here’s the break down.

Layla ((27), the oldest is married to Allah, a photographer who she met at work. They live somewhere in Irbid with their two kids: Zayna (2) and Nadia (1 month) everyone seems to call the newborn Nadoush….people love nicknames here.


Here is a picture of Leila drinking some juice at Maha’s house. You can see a little bit of Nadia in the corner. Leila speaks English pretty well, and sometimes sends me text messages. Like this one.



Here are some pics of her fam!

This is her daughter Zayna. She's two years old.


This is Nadia. she is one month old. everyone calls her Nadoush. i don't know why. but i'll roll with it.


And here is a picture of Leila, Allah, Zayna, and a monkey. Zayna was really afraid of this stuffed monkey for some reason.

Interwebzzz

SO, internet is really sporadic here, and we don’t have wi-fi in our apartment yet...we were supposed to get it today, but I can’t get it to work…I spent 3 hours trying to do it, but it’s not working. So now I’m just using the modem…stupid router! I’ve been typing up posts on Microsoft word, but here are some


Occasionally we get internet from an Ethernet cord in our apartment, but I can’t really rely on it. I have been able to skype some people though. I talked to Janine last night. I also got to talk to Maddie and Ji Soo a while ago. I had to stay up super late to talk to Ji Soo and Maddie though because I was in the hotel and the Wifi couldn’t support much bandwidth or something like that….so I had to wait for everyone else to go to bed. I hope the internet situation gets better before school starts…I also learned that at the University of Jordan, they don’t allow access to skype, facebook, youtube, and other popular sites, just because the internet here can’t handle it yet. It’s weird because I’m so used to having internet all the time wherever I want it.


Here is a pic of me skyping with maddie and Ji Soo


Also, I’m at an “internet cafe” right now, but the internet is reallllly reallllly slow and I can’t upload pictures. It takes like an hour each picture….i hope soon I can get all caught up because I have a lot of stuff to post . Also, Noelle, I’m sorry I haven’t uploaded a facebook album…internet in Jordan is really slow. Highspeed internet is new in Jordan, and it’s not quite high speed yet.

Who knows when I’ll get to post this post?? Probz not at the internet café.




AND here is pic of me skyping Janine...i also got to talk to brayden for a bit! miss you guys.

Oh my Gatos!

There are stray cats everywhere in Jordan. They are really cute, but they are super skiddish and kind of gross becasue they chill under dumptsters all the time.
on my second day here, my cousins Salam (7) and Selma (9) found a kitten that they played with for a while. it was really cute, but then they proceeded to bring it into the taxi with us and over to my Aunt Miriam and Uncle Mohammed's house. no one, not even the taxi driver, found this behavior abnormal. it was just wierd. the cat chilled with us like all day....



Here is a picture of Selma and Salam getting a kitten out of an alley



another picture of them with the kitten...they really didn't know how to hold it properly.

Mc Donuts?

I was walking In Irbid, the city that my aunt lives in, and I saw this Mc. Donuts sign...ahaha.

Welcome to Jordan

I've been in Jordan now for about a week, and it's been pretty crazy so far. Good, but crazy. I arrived here the night before Eid ul-Fitr which is a three day celebration at the end of Ramadan. I was exhausted after my long flights and 8 hour layover, but there was no time for me to sleep. We visited a bunch of relatives and friends, ate delicious food, and smoked hookah together. I've been having a lot of fun, but it's been really intense. The first four days involved no English except when my dad would call to see if I was alive. I only cried one time when the no English thing became too overwhelming about four days in...oh well.



This is the first picture I took while in Jordan. It's a picture of my cousin Salam (7 yrs old as of sept 13th) at the restaurant we ate at in Amman when i arrived. The food was delicious. We had falafel, hummus, and foul. foul is like hummus except it's made of a different type of bean, a fava bean, and it is served warm. My aunt Maha was pregnant with Salam when I was in Jordan 6 and a half years ago. I think she turned out pretty cute.