Goodbye, Amman - also, Petra/Wadi Rum/Beirut

The past two weeks have been incredibly busy - last weekend, we went to Petra and Wadi Rum (aka Jordan's two big tourist-y sites) to see, respectively, Nabatean ruins and the deserts that drove T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia!) to basically swoon and fall in love with all Arabs everywhere. It was awesome, exhausting, and I'll tell y'all more when I get home! Pictures will eventually end up on facebook when I stop being a complete and utter failure with technology...

The school week after that was super intense, as it was the final few days of class. I gave a presentations, wrote two essays, and sat through 4 hours of final exams and then I was FREE! To celebrate, my roommates and I headed to Beirut for the weekend. Beirut is basically the coolest city ever (its old tourism slogan used to be "The Paris of the Middle East," which is kind of patronizingly accurate - the Beirutis take their French influence seriously, more seriously than Parisians, I think), and people go to Beirut to, essentially, have a good time. Lots of bars, shopping, cafes - there are so many ways to spend tons of money in very little time...which is what we ended up doing at all of those places...totally worth it, though, just to get a different perspective on life in the Middle East. Also, Courtney Dagher - your last name is EVERYWHERE - Dagher is apparently still a very popular family name in Beirut - so now you can convince all the unbelievers who doubt your "ethnic" heritage, right? But in a nutshell, Beirut is the bomb. More detailed stories (aka not meant for the internet, necessarily...stories to come when I can talk to you guys without worrying about what the CIA will think :o) Not kidding. Well, kind of kidding.

OK, so that's why I haven't really been posting to the blog - I know I'm a fail, but hopefully this has been amusing for you, though only sporadically amusing, I will grant, given the infrequency of updates and the fact that I think I'm funnier than I am...

I can't wait to see you all SO SO SO soon (well, most of you) and some of you not SO SOON, but KIND OF soon, potentially! Getting on a plane in t-36hrs to come back to America!

Love, love, love - Amrita

P.S. I don't know if I've mentioned this here (probs not) but apparently the easiest way for most Arabic speakers to say my name is to replace the "k" in the Arabic pronunciation of America (Amriika) with a "t." I've gotten this comment from at least 5 different people....since I suck at getting people to pronounce my name without saying "Rita" or something else silly, I may be switching over to this explanation instead...

Ramadan in Amman!

Greetings friends!

This post is focused, primarily, on Ramadan, which began on August 1st and continues until the end of the month. Here in Amman, everything changes for Ramadan, and it's kind of amazing to see the whole city just shift gears for a month. Because the fast goes from sunrise to sundown and forbids food, water, and smoking, workdays are shorter, people stay out later at night, and everyone started off the month just a tad bit grumpier than usual. The children to whom we teach English just sleep until 5pm and fast for the 2.5 hours until the Iftar meal, which breaks the fast at the moment of sundown, signaled by the singing of the muezzins stationed in each of the city's mosques. Then, they don't go to bed until 5-6am in the morning, after eating the lighter meal that precedes daybreak. Basically, they flip their schedule for Ramadan, something that, of course, not everyone can do...for example, our Arabic teachers just have to power through 10 hour work days without food or water, but they say it has grown easier since the initial days, which I kind of believe, except that I tried fasting the first day in anticipation of breaking the fast with our psuedo-host family, and it was HARD. No water? 100-degree heat? Not fun. Thank goodness our program space is air conditioned...

I'm kind of in love with Ramadan time here though, especially now that we aren't purely living in a bubble of American students here in Amman. I love the solemnity of Ramadan, and the emphasis on family time and charity, the delicious seasonal food, the lights and celebrations. The kind of social cohesion that becomes so apparent in Amman during Ramadan is, to be quite honest, different from the everyday Amman you see all the other months of the year. Except during Ramadan, the cracks in society between different economic and social classes seem to de-emphasize any sort of Ammani identity, but Ramadan reaffirms a core of solidarity that is, in some ways, more cultural than religious. It's nice to see that this city is united, if only for this one time.

Anyway, that's really about it...also, just finalized plans to go to Beirut in a weekend, so I'll def. post about that before I turn around and come on home :) I hope your summers are ending with just as much excitement as they began, and I cannot wait to see many of you when school starts again!

Short Catch-Up Post...

This post is super late, and it's been sitting on my computer for a little while, mostly because I was having troubles with uploading pictures, but everything is working now so it's finally posted!

Two weekends ago, we headed out to Jerash, which is basically a city built around the ruins of an old Roman town - the ruins are, in fact, some of the best preserved in the world, and we got a chance to walk by temples, houses, and fountains along a road that used to lead all the way from Jerash to Damascus. Pretty incredible stuff, even for someone who, admittedly, has never really been enraptured by the history of Ancient Rome. We got a guided tour of Jerash, actually, from none other than a fine member of Jordan's "Tourist Police" (not kidding. this is real. The "Tourist Police," as they are called, are not regular police officers, and they only work at Jordan's tourist sites - they were out in full force in Jerash because of an ongoing national arts festival being held there in the evenings through the end of the month). According to my Arabic teacher, though, any police officer in Jordan, tourist-y or not, is actually your best resource in any situation - they're apparently the friendliest, will always stop if you want to cross the street, and can generally point you in the direction of the nearest ice cream stand (his words, not mine). The officer we met in Jerash definitely held true to this characterization, and he had a good grasp of English, though he preferred to speak to us in Arabic and tease us whenever we reverted back to our mother tongue. It was great practice, actually, especially since we actually know a lot of vocabulary to discuss ruins and ancient history (a dubious thank you is hereby extended to that esteemed Arabic textbook, Al-Kitaab). In general, Jerash was really lovely because its citizens were far more friendly towards us than the cosmopolitan folk of Amman. We met people on the street who smiled and eagerly dispensed advice about the best shawarma joint in town...in Amman, it's a lot harder to find people who are willing to just stop and chat with you about anything and everything - people just seemed less busy in Jerash, to be honest!

Jerash ruins + Jerash modern city.

The same :)

Molly bought fezzes for all of her friends at home, so we tried a few on once we got home and took this faintly ridiculous picture. Just as a side-note, no one wears fezzes here, but Jerash is a tourist site, so there was a guy selling a bunch and Molly basically bought him clean out of them.

My Arabic teacher also decided that, instead of class one day, we would have a field trip! We went to a lovely restaurant that served those Middle Eastern staples of hummus, falafel, and pita, and after our noms, we went to the local mosque to explore a little. My teacher regularly attends prayers at this mosque, so he basically called up and asked if it was OK for a bunch of Americans to walk in between prayer times without wearing the hijab. They acquiesced, so we headed in, heads uncovered but shoes off, as is the custom. The mosque itself was very simple but beautiful calligraphy adorned the ceiling, and the space itself was very open and welcoming. Our teacher explained some of the details of the mosque's structure, and then we met the imam of the mosque, who apparently took a liking to us, because he gave us all beautifully illustrated copies of the Quran! The mosque keeps a lot of extra ones around, it looked like, and don't mind giving them out, so now I have my very own copy of the Quran, fully voweled in classical Arabic! Maybe ten years from now I'll actually be able to read any part of it...

My class. We just walked by the sign that said "Disco Al Lord" and had to take a picture in front of it...no other explanation can really be offered.

This is my really adorable Arabic teacher, Khalil, with a tower of plastic objects that he made after our meal. He's only 27 years old, and he acts like he's 12 and it's hilarious, especially because our class syllabus is focused on serious discussion about Middle Eastern politics and news...

A bit of the upper wall of the mosque - that's all really hard to read but absolutely beautiful calligraphy.

In other news, we ran out of water for a day because our water tank was never refilled for the week. This meant, unfortunately, no showers in the morning :( and no drinking water (I've been drinking tap water - I know it's bad - but no water at all was worse) and no water to wash the dishes. Grumpiness ensued in the apartment until water availability was reinstated by the powers that be. Contentment followed for approximately five minutes until we made the discovery that the water that now came out of our tap had bugs and various detritus in it. And that it was brownish in color. Yet, there was a wonderful silver lining! As a result of the drought-like conditions in our apartment, I ventured out to purchase a giant bottle of water to suffice for all the above things, minus showers. At the tiny convenience store near the local gas station, I had a lovely conversation (in Arabic!) with the shop-owner, a friendly man who speaks perfect MSA and English and who I've mentioned already, possibly...The first time I met him was when I was buying a newspaper for a class assignment - he gruffly informed me that the paper I had chosen was, in fact, the "Newspaper of the Opposition," aka the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan. It seems as though he has since forgiven me my ignorance, for he was quite kind this time around and helped me with a grammar point or two while I was paying for the aforementioned water. Since this wouldn't have happened without the water loss, I am, in a roundabout way, grateful for the experience as a whole...though I was pretty glad when the water came back later in the evening.

Halfway There!

Sunday was my midterm for the summer semester in Arabic, and that means that I'm half-way through!! I'd love to use the excuse that I was hard-core studying to explain why I haven't posted a real post in forever, but frankly, that's not true...I'm just spacey. Anyways, there is so much to write about, all super positive - after being here for a month, I finally feel as though I am really, truly living in Amman, not just awkwardly visiting as a quasi-tourist! WIN.

Here's a pretty picture of Amman at night!

And me, drinking something green!

My roommate and I made friends with our neighbors and we are currently employed as tutors for their three ADORABLE children, ages 7, 11, and 14, in English. By tutoring, I mean that we go over there for an hour a day and hang out with the kids, speaking only in English, which they all speak fluently, pretty much. We played Bowl Full of Nouns the other day and the 11 year old boy, Ahmad, wrote down the word "photosynthesis." The 14 year old girl, Ranad, read "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," in the original with the cray dialect-y stuff, in class last year. The 7 year old, Selene, is just about the cutest thing on the planet and has a penchant for putting dragons into any story we try to tell. So wonderful. Also, on top of getting a chance to hang out with awesome kids and play games and test out some of our Arabic when needed, we also get FED, every night, by the wonderful mom of the family! And she makes us really excellent coffee, also every night. I am the happiest.

Random cool thing: outside my window, on a wall facing the apartment building, is some rather cool graffiti. Here's a picture.

What it says is the following, translated, from right to left, "Not for terrorism, not for Zarqawi: Jordan." This was, I'm guessing, probably painted on there soon after the bombings in Jordan in the mid-2000's at the hands of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, aka the Al Qaeda operative who was the US's most wanted man in Iraq up until he was killed...he was also from a little town an hour outside of Amman called Zarqa' (hence his name). Incidentally, one of my Arabic teachers is from Zarqa' and actually knows Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's family...apparently they're super normal...anyway, just thought that, and the graffiti, was interesting.

Also, we've been making a great deal of effort to go hang out in Amman on weekdays, despite the mounds of homework we get, so last week, we went to a city-wide music festival and a film screening at the Royal Film Commission. The music festival was basically a carnival + dance show + classical Arabic musical performance, and there were mostly families in attendance. It felt super safe and fun and chill, and the music was great...also: random hip-hop dancers gave a kids show and I don't know if they necessarily realized that the music they chose was often inappropro to the point where every other word in one of the songs was a cuss-word (in English...so I guess it didn't matter a ton?). Ridiculous, but pretty fun dancing and tons of little kids imitating the dancers, which was great! An Arabic classical performance happened in another part of the park where the festival was held, and it was equally exciting for us, because half-way through one of the songs, we realized that it sounded super familiar...as it turns out, it was the original version of a song that the earlier choir we had gone to see had re-written lyrics to! I'll put up videos of all this on FB soon...interwebs are not cooperating currently.

Here's a poster from the event!

The film at the Royal Film Commission was also really amazing - it was an Algerian film about the fight for independence, done in real Hollywood style, to be honest (lots of flashy action sequences, really predictable plot), but one of those epic films that almost needs to be made to sort of represent in a really controlled way the arcs of the independence movement. The film was in a conglomerate of the Algerian dialect of Arabic and French, so basically I was eternally grateful for the English subtitles, but it was still really great to get some exposure to Arab film. The best part of watching the movie, though, was the location. The Royal Film Commission screens its films outside, on a giant screen perched on a hillside of Amman. The film's backdrop, then, became the whole city of Amman, glittering with light in the evening, and as we neared the end of the film, the moon began to rise, by degrees, above the screen. It was the best outdoor theatre I could have imagined! We're going to try to head back a couple of times before the end of the summer, I think, no matter what films they end up screening...

Here is an artsy picture of the view from the film commission - by artsy I mean you can barely make out buildings because I forgot to turn on the flash on the camera...

This one gives a better impression of Amman and of the film screening!

Much love, friends! Hope the summer continues to be wonderful :)

Tiny Post in Arabic!

مرحباً، يا اصدقائي!كيف حالكم؟ أنا اشتاق اليكم كثيراً!

ألان ساحاول أن اكتب افكاري بالعربي، ولكن الكتابة بالعربية شيء صعب جداً لي وأيضاً لكم، غير تضمن أريلا، طبعاً! أولاً ساصف صفي بطريقة بسيطة جداً: ادرس أدب الشرق الأوسط وثقافته في صف الصباح، وبعد الظهر، ادرس الأخبار والتاريخ مع أستاذ أخر. أنا أفضل الصف في الصباح، ولكن أحب أستذيني! هما يتكلمان بلعربي كل الوقت،وفالحقيقة أستاذي في صف الأخبار لا يعرف الانجليزية بالضبط، ولكن على الرغم من الحظر على الانجليزية شيء غير متعمد، أظن أنه يعزز قوتي في اللغة العربية. في صفيني، نحن نقرا مقالة أو قصة قصيرة كل يوم ونناقشها اليوم التالي. اليوم من الضروري لي قراءة مقالة عن الاختلاط بين إنجليزية وعربية في الاردن، ومقالة أخرى عن النساء في العالم العربي. أحياناً المقالات سهلة، ولكن كثير منها صعبة جداً لي. وحتى الآن، أنا لأتكلم أو اكتب بالعربية مع راحة. إن شاء الله، في نهاية الصيف، ساتكلم بسرعة وساكتب مع أسلوب مناسب. في الحقيقة، أنا استمر الدراسة، ولكن تصبح اللغة فقط أصعب! وهدا كل التفاصيل المهمة عن دراستي!

أسف للاخطائي في هده الكتابة القصيرة! اتمنى أن أصيافكم سعيدة وجميلة جداً! مع سلامة!

Aspects of Life in Jordan: Including Whistles and Taxis and Nargeeleh Smoke

Part 1: Whistles

So, this afternoon, I was walking through the center of Amman with my roommate, when she turned to me and muttered, "If they don't stop whistling, I'm so tempted to flip them off!" I responded with characteristic confusion: "Huh?" She jerked her head in the direction of a group of teenage boys lounging in front of a small convenience store across the narrow street. They were all looking at us, and one of them, as it turns out, was whistling, not the fun kind of whistling that has some element of musicality, but a more suggestive, kind of creepy whistling that I had, at first, tuned out. I nodded my head in agreement with her frustration, but as we kept on walking, I tried to figure out why I hadn't even noticed the uncomfortable attention we were receiving. Part of the reason is because it's everywhere - being an obviously foreign woman in Amman almost seems to invite staring, horn-honking, cat-calls, and, of course, whistling. It becomes part of the ambient noise of the city, and I mostly ignore it because there's not much you can do about it and because I haven't quite worked out why it happens so much.

I think it has a lot to do with the "foreign" part of the equation - I've seen young Jordanian women not wearing the hijab and dressed in Western garb receive not so much as a passing glance from those ubiquitous groups of men who socialize in public spaces across the city. But being foreign, being Other, makes the staring seem acceptable to some of the young men here, especially when they're hanging out with their friends and killing time. It's also different being here for the summer - being not quite a tourist and not, of course, a resident - that makes the attention so frustrating that it's almost worth ignoring it just for the peace of mind. As a tourist, perhaps you can write off the attention as a natural reaction to a stranger - after all, though a little more aggressive, it's really no different from the way we react, with a little curiosity and some annoyance, to the bus-loads of tourists passing through Harvard Yard on a regular basis. And if you are a resident, you just don't even experience the attention. But being in this quasi-residential state makes you a target for longer than it is possible to just brush aside. It becomes personal.

Interestingly, the only time I've not experienced this sort of unwanted attention was when I was garbed in quasi-scandalous attire at the Dead Sea. Dressed in a sports bra and gym shorts (I forgot a swimsuit...) instead of being covered from the neck down to my ankles, I expected myself to feel a little uncomfortable, especially given that we were heading to a public beach. Yet, when we first arrived, at 8:30am, the only people we saw were a couple foreign tourists dressed even more scandalously than us (bikinis! gasp!) and the beach attendants, all of whom were friendly and un-phased by our sartorial choices. Even as the beach started filling up with Jordanian families - SO MANY cute kids playing in the sea and in the near-by pools - there were no stares, no comments, nothing at all. It was a welcome reprieve that came, ironically, the one time I've been in public and not completely covered up here in Jordan. Also, the Dead Sea was just generally awesome, to take a bit of a detour from my rant...two highlights = paddle boats in the pool and smearing mud (with supposed healing properties) all over my body. And just a warning if you ever go into the Dead Sea - it is so painful if you have so much as a paper cut! And it can dehydrate you in 20 minutes flat, less if you go in during the hottest part of the day. But the floating was fun :)

And back to the topic at hand - I just want to emphasize that, despite my musings here, I don't mean to imply that every guy in Jordan whistles at foreign girls, nor that it isn't something you can't address on a personal level. I've practiced my colloquial Arabic with men around Amman with absolutely no issue, I'm friends with an old security guard I pass every day on my way to class, and the guys at the sweets shop by our apartment always laugh when we come in, because they know we are going to walk out with more baklava than we initially intend to buy...and that's without even mentioning the taxi drivers, many of whom are AWESOME and willing to chat with foreigners who are attempting to speak their language. A little more on taxi drivers follows, after another brief side-note about the imminent end of my childhood and how it got postponed.

The Imminent End of My Childhood and How It Got Postponed: A Tangent

Part of my big weekend plans was to head to the local cinema to watch HP7:Part 2 and cry as I enter the world of adulthood. However, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that I get to be a kid for another six weeks! The bad news is that this is because I am not going to be able to see the final installment of Harry Potter until I return to the States...the cinema informed us with nary a word of encouragement that the film had not come in and would maybe arrive in "August or December". So, you all know what this means. You guys are all going to see Harry Potter TWICE! Once now, like any sane person, and once at the end of August with meeeeee :)

Part 2: Taxis

Amman, unlike Boston, is not a walkable city, nor is it particularly invested in public transportation. So, the way most people get around is by car, if they can, or by taxi. We've been taking a lot of taxis since we got here and have gotten very adept at judging whether or not a taxi driver is going to overcharge us (dead give-away: his meter is "broken") or drive like a crazy person (one sign is the condition of the car itself...but you never know - some of the craziest drivers have the most well-kept vehicles, because they're just really good at the crazy driving...which is semi-reassuring). However, while some of our most salient moments of culture shock have occurred in this space (i.e. near-death experiences and futile arguments over half a dinar of taxi fare), the taxi is also a great place to practice Arabic, learn a little about Jordan's people, and break through some of those gender boundaries that structure life here [see above].

Most taxi drivers are really friendly and will ask lots of questions, in English, if they speak it, or in Arabic, if they can be convinced that you (kind of) speak it. On our way to the Dead Sea, Mahmoud, our driver, was one of the ones who spoke English, and he told us stories the whole way to the beach about his experiences with tourists in the area. Also, he informed us that he spoke Russian, in addition to English and Arabic, and that one of the tourists in his tales was, in fact, a Russian gangster who he befriended as he drove him along the Dead Sea Highway. Unclear if this was true or not, in retrospect, but I thought it was great at the time! And then we definitely saw a few Russians at the beach, so it's totally plausible that gangster-types would make their way to the Dead Sea, as well as just regular Russians and Mahmoud was quite a friendly man, so his story may well have been true, despite the practiced air of his delivery.

In Amman proper, we've also had some really kind taxi drivers - we met one man who told us about his daughter who was around our age and studying at the University of Jordan, another who told us about his Bedouin heritage and native village on the outskirts of Petra, and another who asked us, in all seriousness: "Why aren't you all married? You're such nice girls!" As we get more confident in Arabic, we've started having more conversations with our taxi drivers, though because the colloquial ('ammiya) varies a little from the standard Arabic (MSA) we study, our attempts at speaking are, invariably, highly amusing to our drivers, even when we are speaking fairly good MSA. Apparently the most hilarious thing is when we try to incorporate some 'ammiya into our speech, because usually what happens is that we say what we mean in MSA and then add in the 'ammiya equivalent, so what emerges is, basically, a stutter, wherein we repeat the messages we are trying to convey a couple times over before the guffaws of our taxi driver incite us to refrain from such efforts.

Part 3: Nargeeleh Smoke

The final episode of this rather ramble-y post has to do with the last item in the series located in the title, obviously. First, some synonyms: nargeeleh = hookah = sheeshah = argeeleh. I've never smoked any of the above before, and I did for the first time last night, which - and this should come to no surprise to anyone who knows my track record with trying new things - was a HUGE fail for the most part. I am not so good at inhaling smoke into my lungs, even when the smoke tastes like strawberries, as this did. I ended up experimenting with various lengths of inhalations but to no avail. To make matters worse, our waiter definitely noticed my failures and started chuckling every time he came back to add more hot coals to the top of the apparatus. A large group of women sitting in front of us occasionally threw me glances of disdainful amusement as they sucked in unbelievable amounts of smoke and exhaled in measured fashion. I was jealous. New mission, as long as I don't get lung cancer: be able to smoke hookah like all the old grandpas we see sitting outside coffeehouses across Amman, or like a fully functional chimney.

The End

I'll post in Arabic soon about classes, because, let's be honest, no one but Ariella is really going to want to hear about my classes, and even that is pretty questionable :) Also, chances are that when I re-read this post at any time in the foreseeable future, I'll probably soften my words about the things I don't love so much about Amman...to be honest, I'm really glad I'm here and everyone has been super kind (a lot of people ask if I'm Indian, and then they emphasize the deep friendship that exists between Jordan and India, and then they tell me they'll give me a special price on whatever trinket they are trying to sell me, even when I know for a fact that they just offered the same price to my roommates when they say they are from Boston). But for real, most people are surprising tolerant of our poor Arabic, which is definitely to be appreciated. That's all, folks! Miss you all lots!

Independence Day in Amman

Happy Belated Fourth of July, friends! I hope you all celebrated with style, whether in the States or somewhere else around the world! Here inAmman, we had our own little Fourth of July celebration, subdued, of course, because it probably wouldn't do to be loudly patriotic in a country where the average person is not too fond of America, or at least of our foreign policy in the Middle East. Also, we had school. However, we still managed to have a pretty enjoyable celebration - as soon as we got back from class, we started blasting Pandora's Fourth of July playlist and contemplated buying sketchy fireworks to set off in the empty lot by our apartment building. There's a pretty fun tradition in Jordan of setting off tons of fireworks every time someone gets married, which happens, in our part of town, every night. July 4th was no exception, and so we got to enjoy the sounds and sights of celebratory fireworks, without the risk of injuring ourselves by setting off ill-made fireworks with the cigarette lighter we use to start our stove. To top off our super low-key July 4th, Kaitlin, my roommate, found a recipe for bananas stuffed with chocolate and cooked in tin foil over a campfire, which sounds pretty much as American as you can get. We decided to replicate it with our stove, which proved to be just as dangerous as it sounds...the tin foil caught on fire, the kitchen towel got singed, we burnt pretty much all of our fingers...but it was totally worth it in the end, as we ate our bananas with ice cream and watched Arrested Development and felt a twinge or two of homesickness to be back in the U.S.A.

Here's the process...aka right before everything went up in very patriotic flames:

And here's the finished product!

Yes, this is the most exciting thing that happens during the school week here...after we ate, it was back to going over Arabic flashcards, which, in its own way, is probably the most patriotic thing we could be doing on the Fourth of July!

Weekend Update!

Heyya friends!

As you may have noticed, I'm already falling behind in regularly posting to this blog...I promise it's because, during the week, all I'm doing is going to classes, studying, and trying not to blow up my apartment with our finicky gas stove every time I cook...basically, barring the last activity, I'm not really doing anything "blog-worthy," as they say. This weekend, though, my roommates and I saw Amman from a lot of different angles, making up for our rather uneventful first full week of classes. Here's a picture.

We kicked off the weekend with a visit to a bakery for, basically, sugar, in the form of the kinafa mentioned in the title of the blog. The cool thing about this bakery, however, besides the awesome sweets, was that it had a little patio-like area behind it where people could chill as they ate/entered food comas. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the demographic on the patio was mostly families with little kids celebrating the end of the work week. There were also a couple little boys who were there with their dads, playing a soccer video game...all the dads were sitting nearby, smoking, chatting, and cheering their kids on in the video game. I could definitely sense some of the other little kids, who were sitting with their extended families, getting a little justice of the kids with the game, but the whole atmosphere was just super friendly and low-key. I think it's probably the first public moment in Amman where I've felt almost at home, as if I weren't, in fact, an American tourist doing all the touristy things I'm supposed to do (though that's awesome too! I love touristy things - witness the picture I took in the last post with the Bedouin guardsman figurine...). We finally left once it started to get dark, as it's still not the smartest idea for a group of girls to be wandering around at night in the city, but it was, all in all, one of my favorite moments here so far.

Friday, we saw a completely different side of Amman - instead of seeing working class families enjoying the end of the week, we people-watched Jordan's affluent upper class at the aptly named "City Mall." The name fits for two reasons: first, the mall is, in fact, in a city, and second, the mall itself basically looks like it's own little city. I don't think I've ever seen a shopping mall that more deserved the term "mecca," if you can pardon the political incorrectness of using that word in this way...but actually: so much stuff. The whole mall looked like a giant spaceship had landed in the middle of the city. There was a Starbucks. I couldn't get a picture of that particular Starbucks, unfortunately, because the apparently snapping a photo would be a security threat (or so I understood from the angry tone of the security guard who ran up and stopped me...). But here's a picture of the logo - best part = the transliterating of "Starbucks" into Arabic. Gotta love globalization!

Anyway, in general, this mall was just super crazy, and the people shopping there were clearly doing pretty well for themselves financially. There was still a range of people present, from women in full niqab to teenagers in short skirts. Also, here's a sign of my absorption of cultural values: I was momentarily horrified to see people wearing clothes that didn't hit their neck, elbows, and ankles. Young men in shorts - what were they thinking? Girls in skinny jeans and tank-tops - so little clothing! It's only been two weeks and I'm already talking like a grumpy old Ammani grandpa. Basically, though, it looks like a lot of those clothing concerns seem to not apply in a place as commercialized as City Mall - it's almost as though any place with such a high concentration of international brands must be, in some way, culturally neutral. Yet, parts of it were still so unique to Jordan...there was a food stand selling chocolate covered dates (NOM), there were prayer rooms for men and women on the lower level, and the Starbucks sold grilled halloumi sandwiches. Not quite sure what to think about it, but it was a pretty cool place to go!

We followed our trip to the (air-conditioned) mall with dinner at a little restaurant called Hashem. All they serve are the following: falafel, hummus, pita, and a dish called ful medames (basically Middle Eastern refried beans, sometimes served with a fried egg - here's a picture of my attempt to replicate it for dinner tonight). Also, chips - as in, french fries. We got everything

but the chips and basically managed to make a meal out of, well, chickpeas, mostly. It was amazing, and it cost us about 3 bucks each. Cheap, delicious, plentiful food for the win. In our satiated state, we made our way to the Roman Ruins to a concert in the smaller version of the gigantic Roman Amphitheatre, called the Odeon Theatre, also dating back to the Roman era. So, as I said before, Jordan's government cares a lot about tourism and they use these ancient structures for concerts and other events.

This whole week, the city's annual music festival has been going on with performances in the two spaces, both the main Amphitheatre and its tiny counterpart. We didn't really know what we were going to see on Friday night, but we sort of just wanted to go see a concert in the ruins, so we showed up and bought tickets at the door. The group that was performing, interestingly, was a choir! So obviously I was dorkily really happy that we had gone that night. They weren't really the kind of choir I'm used to, though. The group, called "Choir Al-Shaab" (Choir of the Youth) were a group of young Arab men and women from all across the Middle East who wrote songs of political satire and social protest. Kind of a cool concept! Unfortunately for us, the focus of their performance was on the lyrics of their songs (they had excellent enunciation!), which were, of course, in Arabic, so despite the aforementioned enunciation, we were at a loss, reduced to eagerly pointing out words or phrases we sporadically recognized and to awkwardly laughing along with the rest of the crowd, always a second too late, whenever the witticisms in the lyrics cropped up.

The audience there, though, was so enthusiastic and upbeat that it made the performance loads of fun anyway! Also - one of the best parts of listening to a choir is watching all the individual singers, which definitely paid off this time! There was one guy who did a constant head bob, another who would gesture dramatically with his hands at certain points in the songs, and a girl who basically had her own dance party in the corner of the stage. Everyone looked like they were having a ton of fun, and obviously they were pretty amusing, since all the Jordanians around us were chuckling non-stop! It was definitely a different kind of musical performance than what I was expecting, but it was incredibly enjoyable as more of a "cultural experience" than anything else...

After the concert, we went over to a classmate's house to eat cheesecake - not any kind of cheesecake, though! This was American cheesecake. It was the shape of the American flag, with blueberry pie filling as the stars part and strawberries for stripes. We sang "Proud to Be an

American" as we cut it and pretended that it was the Fourth of July a little early...it was kind of the best. Also, we drank beer, Jordanian-brewed but beer nonetheless, and since the beer came from a can, I felt pretty darn American as I was drinking it! It was a solid little pre-7/4 shindig, which will hopefully tide us over if we can't celebrate the Fourth with proper pomp! And we finally got home after a kind of sketchy 11pm walk through downtown Amman to find a taxi.

I spent today, in contrast to the events of yesterday, sitting at home studying vocabulary, so there's not much to say, but hopefully I'll have more to post soon! Also - if you get a chance, could you tell me what your address is? I'd like to send postcards :)

A City Called Philadelphia

I've started exploring Amman, little by little, along with my excellent roommates, to whom I will devote a little more space on this blog later during the summer, when I'm drowning in schoolwork and have nothing else really interesting to say. But back to exploring: one of my roommates has a Lonely Planet guidebook to Jordan that wehave been shamelessly using to plan all of our adventures in the city, and it has a brief section on the Roman ruins that are scattered across Amman. Basically, most of the old stuff in Jordan dates from the Roman era, especially in the North, and in Amman, there is a (mostly) preserved Roman Amphitheatre, so we decided to head there yesterday afternoon. Shout-out: Zach and Courtney, I'm so grateful we watched Gladiator last year - when I went to the Amphitheatre all I could imagine was the horrific battles, re-imagined by Hollywood, that must have taken place there back in the day. Here's a picture, minus gruesomeness and excessive amounts of blood.

Also, speaking of shout-outs, I have another one! In the guidebook, there is also a brief history of Amman, which I read (because I'm a nerd) before flipping to the section on hookah bars (only half kidding). So, as you probably gathered from the fact that there is lots of old Roman stuff here, Amman used to be a Roman city, part of the Decapolis, a group of Roman-occupied cities located across much of modern-day Jordan, Syria, Israel, and Palestine. And, of course, in Latin, Amman had a very different name. Guess what it was! Guess! Guess! It's super exciting! It was called....Philadelphia! SO COOL. It's as if I never left home at all and somehow made it back to Philly after all, except instead of cheesesteak, there's falafel.

Anyway, back to the story. The great (or terrifying, if you're a historian) thing about Jordan is that they are super gung-ho about tourism and not really as concerned with preserving the majesty of these ancient spaces, so not only is the Roman Amphitheatre in Amman completely open to the public, it's also used as a concert space for music festivals, visiting performers, etc. In a kind of cool way, the Amphitheatre is still being used for entertainment, albeit a different kind of entertainment than in the gory days of yore. Because it has been partially restored, it's also perfectly acceptable for little kids to scramble all over the Amphitheatre, which we observed as we (much more carefully) trekked up the steps.

As some of you know, I'm kind of afraid of heights, among other things...so when I first saw the Amphitheatre, I thought to myself, "Hm, maybe not such a great idea to go all the way up." But then those hordes of little Jordanian kids basically taunted me by bounding up the stairs with absolutely no regards to safety, and so I began the precarious trek upwards. It actually wasn't that bad, to be honest, and the views at the top were absolutely worth it. But then I looked down. Bad move. So, for about ten minutes, I was basically stuck at the top of the Roman Amphitheatre, until, finally, the sun began to set a little, and people started to trickle out as it approached closing time, and I realized that I sort of had to get down unless I wanted to sleep alongside the ghosts of gladiators past. I ended up sliding step by step the whole way down - not super-dignified, and I definitely saw some 6 year olds snickering - but I got to the bottom and headed to the Museum of Cultural Artifacts, which basically holds clothing, jewelry, and housewares from Jordan's many Bedouin tribes. Also, there's a figurine of a desert guardsman, with whom I took the following picture.

Since, obviously, nothing can top this picture, I'm going to stop now. Thanks so much for reading this, you guys! Miss you all an unbelievable amount :) Final shout-out: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JAMIE SONG!! I hope it is absolutely the best birthday ever :)

P.S. I expect anecdotes from all of you about various moments of hilarity that transpire over the course of the summer...the sharing of embarrassing events cannot be a one-way street! Much love!

- Amrita

About the Blog Title

So, I'm super uncreative with titles - as people who have ever had to read essays I've written know, I usually just start with "Insert Title Here." This was my original thought for this blog, but then I decided that having a title in Arabic, just to be kind of obnoxious, would be better. Given my obsession with food, I attempted to make the title also relate to omnomnoms in some way. Thus, the current title translates to "Tea and Kinafa," which is pretty straightforward minus the "Kinafa" part, which is nowhere near as globally ubiquitous as the "Tea" part. Kinafa is, basically, the most incredible/weird sweet ever and it's the national dessert of Jordan (I don't know if it is actually the national dessert of Jordan, but it is everywhere here): it's basically some kind of cheese pan fried, topped with pastry and doused in copious amounts of honey/sugar. So, to analogize, it's basically like mozzarella sticks but with sugar syrup instead of marinara sauce for dipping. I'll put up pictures soon - I was too busy eating to take a picture the first time I had it...

Anyway, so that's the title of my blog - doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it's definitely better than "Insert Title Here" I think.

!سلام, i.e. Hello (also, Peace)!

Greetings from Jordan! So, as many of you know, I really like lists, so I'm going to make a list of why I've decided to start this blog!

1. Otherwise, I'll forget too much of what happens this summer.

2. I keep telling myself I'm going to write more regularly and then I don't, but now I will, because you guys will be (hopefully!) reading this :)

3. I need to practice my Arabic more informally, so occasionally I'll post in Arabic, so just ignore that when it happens unless, of course, you either can read it or want to run it through Google Translate.

4. I love and miss you all SO MUCH and given my limited access to the interwebs here, I need a more efficient way of keeping in touch, so please comment frequently/tell me about your lives!

Love, love, love,

Amrita