Getting Used to Amman

After over 24 hours of no internet access I can finally blog again! Anyways, these last two days have been full of fun and new experiences! Yesterday the group took a tour of a different part of Amman that consisted of multiple art galleries and historic buildings. We are all starting to get pretty close and we are definitely having an awesome time!
Here are some pictures of yesterday around the city...

A unique store around Duar Al-Paris that has t-shirts that reflect Jordanian youth culture

 An old building

 Some views of Amman...

 

 I really love this city

 A nice little church

 A view from an art gallery's terrace

 Loving Amman

 Mashallah

 Two of my roommates Rosalynd and Brenda

 All of my roommates! Maegan, Sarah, Ashley, Rosalynd and Brenda

 A local graffiti art project based upon the Arab-Israeli conflict

 Jordanian ice cream!

 Mango juice!

 Ancient Roman ruins that used to be a church

 The alter of the ancient Roman church

 Ancient Roman building

Beautiful poem on the side of a parking garage

 Photo of a bombing in Palestine

 Light art

 The best cab ride ever! The driver hardly spoke English, but he cranked up the American tunes and jammed out with us through the streets of Amman! Anndrea, Maegan, Leah and I had such a blast!

 A fancy yummy restaurant we went to

 We were in heaven, hamdillah

We also conquered a grocery store! We managed to get a lot of yummy foods as well as buying expired juice...we learned its completely normal to keep expired food and drinks on the shelves so always check expiration dates! These couple of items gave me the giggles...

 Well your hijab and abaya won't fade...

 I finally saw it in person!! Mayo and ketchup already mixed!!

Today we went to the university we will be attending, Al-Ahliyya Amman University! Before I tell you about the campus, getting there was crazy. We took a taxi for 15 minutes to the outskirts of Amman then we went in little small smelly buses and rode about 25 minutes to the campus. The campus is outside of the city in the middle of nowhere, but it is beautiful! There are a lot of hills, but nothing I haven't faced at SDSU. While I'm studying I will be taking a U.S. and Middle East foreign policy class and Arabic 201. We also got to meet our professors and I took an Arabic placement exam. The professors seem very nice and although the Arabic placement exam was hard, I'm ready to further develop my Arabic skills!  

Here are a couple of photos I took of the campus...

 The entrance of the university

 A view from campus

Of course pictures former King Hussein, current King Abdullah and the future king are in the classroom ;)

This weekend most of the members of the ISA program I am in, including myself, will participate in the East West Forum.  We had orientation tonight and basically this forum brings international students and Jordanians together for community service and to explore parts of Jordan. ISA will be participating in forum tomorrow where we tour some parts of Amman, Friday where we get to spend the day with Jordanian families and Saturday where we will participate in community service either in a Palestinian refugee camp or a local school. It seems like it will be a lot of fun and a great experience!

Also tonight we had dinner with one of our advisers, Mohammad which was very fun. Mohammad is a great adviser, he is always helping us with whatever we need. He even offered to help me find an internship in Amman next summer!

 I had my favorite tonight...pistachio ice cream :)

The fruit stand that is right down our street! Fresh fruit everyday!

Amman is still treating me very well. I keep falling more in love with it everyday! Its such an amazing city, just thinking about going home makes me sad! Can't wait to show you more of my adventures...this is just the beginning!