A REAL Hostel!

 I'm staying in a hostel in downtown Amman until I find a place to live. Right now there is a kitten on my lap playing with my camera wrist dealie.

My battery is almost dead. Inshallah, I'll have a real place this weekend.

Until then, I'm happy with this kitty. 

:)

The Day of Nothing

Last night I stayed up past midnight. This morning I slept in till 9:15. In the meantime, I was sleeping through my roommate's snores.

This morning I had pancakes for breakfast. Thick ones with not a lot of syrup. It reminded me of Saturday mornings in California when my dad would sometime serve up a big batch of pancakes.
But mine weren't in cool shapes.

I did a lot of time-wasting this afternoon. I watched the Daily Show and 30 Rock and surfed the internet. Then, once the afternoon was good and wasted, I wandered around outside and took pictures.



Arabs are a suspicious bunch, but I just walked around with my camera anyway. I figured they couldn't suspect me of being a spy if I wasn't acting like one.
So I took a picture of this guard:



(Actually, the real reason it's blurry is that I was being stealthy about it. So much for bucking suspicion.)


There are some of this flower right outside this house.



And they smell even better than they sound.

I got back before sundown and realized I have to pay tuition tomorrow. $715 in cash. So I went to an ATM, but they were all out of big money. So I took out about $340 in twenty dinar notes. I was anxious the whole way home.

Just now, Sister Boyd came in and told me they found a cockroach in their room. She thinks they brought it back with the boxes but be on the lookout just in case.

Now I have to take a shower, and soon after I will go to sleep.

But all I can think about are cockroaches crawling up through the shower drain and scuttling across my bedspread.

*sigh*

I should never have watched Men in Black.

As Per Request

I'm in my bedroom now, sitting with the windows open and listening to the Arabic wafting through the curtains. No wait, now it's just honking. Ah, the city. 

I got to Amman on Monday morning and this is the first chance I've had to be on the internet. Let this be a lesson to you: cherish your internet connection. It is a wonderful luxury. 

Amman is a great city. It's big and full of cars, noise and cigarette smoke, but it's got a good feel to it. It's hilly and green, and every time I crest a hill, I expect to be able to look out onto the ocean. Such a disappointment to be in another landlocked place. Ah, well. 

Today I was supposed to have orientation. I arrived at 10 AM and found a posting on the door:
Orientation postponed till tomorrow. Suckers.

The days have really worn me out. It's not hot--low 90s, probably--but walking around in the sun as much as I do takes a lot of energy. So does getting used to a new place and language and taxis. The last two nights I've been out by 10 and up by 8. Today I didn't do much AND  I took a nap so even though it means I'll regret it tomorrow morning during my placement exam, right now I'm happy to be up late.

I'm staying at the Amman Centre right now, which is a church thing. The church isn't allowed to Proselytize here, so they just have a humanitarian thing going on. I'm in a two-story building and the bottom floor is the living space, and the top floor is church space. The missionaries are Brother and Sister Boyd. Interestingly, they are from Utah and not just from Utah, but right down the road from a family I know in the Emirates (who also have a home in Utah). Small world. This weekend I'll move into my place. I'm pretty sad about that because it's so homey here and Sister Boyd makes such great food. 

I start class Sunday. I'm not really excited because bleh. Work. And no more homey home! But the campus is really nice and it'll be fun to get back into Arabic. 

More interesting updates to come. 

One More Day

Tomorrow at this time, I will be in Jordan. WOOHOO!

Initially my mom wasn't going to allow me to go to Jordan until I had secured housing. Initially I was going to buy my own darn ticket and go anyway.  But as I put off the housing search and the date drew nearer, I won without a struggle. So tomorrow, I'll arrive in Jordan completely homeless (!). I'm pretty excited.

But, really, not completely homeless. There are lots of Mormons around and one of them is even going to meet me at the airport. So though I may be arriving homeless, it's unlikely I'll be spending my night on the street. 

So that's good.

Jet Lag's a---well, you know.

The past few days are hazy.

In fact, last night was the first night I didn't pass out on the couch. I haven't even been eating dinner I've been so tired. The tug of some whacky circadian rhythms have had me out by 7 PM each night, tossing and turning through the wee morning hours, and out of bed by 7 AM.

The heat is stifling. I've woken up several times during the night with a sore throat, chapped lips, and a lovely sheen of sweat, especially around my hairline. Ah, long hair in summer.

I can't remember much, but I've been taking lots of pictures. Here's what I gather I've been up to:

Sahara Mall with my Mom to see Up.
We stopped at the food court.
I took pictures of the train at Adventureland.



Malls in the Emirates are not just for shopping. In fact, I think shopping is really just a bonus. Malls are really a big air-conditioned refuge for kids to eat and play.



Hence the mini roller coaster:


Another day, I had lunch with my very first college roommate. We happened to walk past the Deans List board (yes, so few students actually make Deans List that all the names fit effortlessly on one board).
Commentary was scribbled in all over the place, but this was our favorite comment:

Diana's name is circled--presumably by Diana herself--and an arrow points to this note:
Yay!! =) Note: 3.92 =p (hate me)
Another arrow appears at the top and draws the reader's attention to yet another message written, we can only presume, by an indignant engineering student. It reads:
LoL ur CAS !!!11! ur 4.0 is Engineering's 2.0 loL
It's a gem, this one. First with the typo-exclamation points, and then with the butchered English and finally with the presumption that Diana's near 4.0 humanities GPA (CAS=College of Arts and Sciences) is hardly worth a scoff over there in COE (College of Engineering). Really? COE is SO MUCH HARDER than CAS that it has rendered you entirely inept at English? Well, next time you want to LoL at a CAS(!!!11!) student, I'd like to see you write a dozen 8-15 page research papers--properly spelt, cited and punctuated, and without resorting to plagiarism. Then we can have a nice little chat about GPAs.

*ahem*

At some point I went grocery shopping. This can also be done at the mall. At any mall. Seriously.
I find this to be a particularly interesting food:

The sun, the moon, the whole sky looks different over here. I think it's all the dust in the atmosphere.
Whatever it is, it makes for some cool pictures:

I didn't shoot it in Black and White, nor did I edit it later. That's just how it looks.

This was just yesterday, so it just happens to be fresh in my memory. One of my former professors took me out to dinner to celebrate my completion of college. We passed this house along the way:

I like the blue glass.

And this one, too:

I have a thing for ridiculously spacious homes. (More to come.)

We decided to dine in Sharjah, even though half of the restaurants in Sharjah failed their food inspections. Heh.
It's just that we'd heard such good things about Qanat al-Qasba, and it did not disappoint.
Her daughter really enjoyed the dancing fountains:

While I found the ferris wheel (Eye of the Emirates) particularly photogenic:

The Journey: Photo Essay

Read about it here.

Goodbye, Salt lake City!

This was the flight I was supposed to be on...



Instead I flew through London, a place of strange seating customs



I think we replace "flush" with "start the wave"



You know how when something, say in an airport bathroom, is broken, we slap up a sign that says Out of Order ?



"Out of Order" the British way

wow.


And not only were there vending machines at the gate...



...a Book. Vending. Machine.
Dude.



Mmmmm....airplane food...



My favorite part of flying Emirates is the starry ceiling.



Ah. Home sweet home...ish.

The Journey of 8,000 Miles Includes 7 Times Through the Security Line

Arrive: Salt Lake City International Airport, Noon.

Security

Eat.
One o'clock, decide to watch Arrested Development on my laptop.
Turn on laptop; realize charger is still plugged in. At home.

Nearly 3, Roommate Amy drops charger off at airport.

Security.

Return to gate to board plane. Learn that flight has been delayed 3 hours due to mechanical problems.
Go to United ticketing desk and get rerouted from Frankfurt to London.

Security.

Fly to Denver.

Security.

Eat candy.
Fly to London.
Go from terminal 1 to ticketing desk in terminal 3.

Security.

Wait in line for 40 minutes.
Discover United did not give me Flight Interruption Manifest. Must go back to terminal 1.
Miss 2:15 flight.
Booked for 5 PM flight.
Take bus (again) to terminal 1.
Terminal 1.

Security.

Take bus to terminal 3.
Terminal 3. 

Security.

Get boarding pass.
Hang out for 2 hours.
Discover just how weak the dollar really is--while munching on really expensive candy.
Spend the London-Dubai flight watching 30 Rock, Marley and Me, and Taken.

Arrive in Dubai at 3 am (1 pm Utah time. 25 1/2 hours since leaving home).
Wait for luggage.
Wait for luggage.
Wait for luggage.
Discover 1 piece is still in London.
Fill out paperwork.
Leave airport just in time to hear call to Fajr prayer.
Get home just shy of 5 am (Dubai time).

Grand totals:

4 airplanes

7 times through security.

31 hours from home to home.