Explorations

Well, classes start tomorrow, so I've been taking the opportunity to experience Amman in all of its contradictory aspects. I've also been hanging out with the folks at Qasid, who are a diverse and fun crowd. Nothing particularly sticks out as the crowning highlight of the past few days, but some things worth mentioning.

• Amman food is incredible. The shawarma I'm eating in the picture in my second post was, in retrospect, crap--it was somewhat dry, and the French fries that accompanied it were cold and made from old oil. By contrast, the (pricier) shawarma I had in a cafe in the Mukhtar mall--which, besides the cafe, had only Western restaurants--was amazing. It was chicken instead of lamb, and it had a delightfully creamy sauce as well. The French fries were fresh and tasty, if oversalted. Other delights included a shish tawook in downtown Amman on Wednesday--basically a chicken kebab with great seasoning accompanied by delicious herbed bread and tomatoes and onions. There was also the lamb kebab in the little restaurant in Ajloun that we stopped at after visiting Ajloun yesterday. I'm mostly eating falafel for dinner, though--a sandwich costs about $.50, max, and though I've been assured I'll tire of it, that moment has not yet come. There's a stand just two minutes walk from my apartment, and if you come at the right time they'll just have fried up a new batch.
• Qasid organized a trip to Ajloun yesterday, as I mentioned. It's an old castle built by Saladdin's nephew to defend the Muslims from the Crusaders. Perched high on a hilltop about an hour north of Amman, it has views, to the west, of the Jordan River and the west bank and, to the north, of Syria. The defenders of the fort could send smoke signals in all four directions, to Iraq, the Hejaz, Jerusalem, and Syria. Ajloun also has the distinction of never having been captured--either by the Crusaders or by the Mongols, who attacked it later. Unfortunately, my camera batteries died halfway through the visit, but I'll be sure to steal photos from my friends and roommates. In the meantime, though, some snapshots:

From the outside, a view:














Crossing the moat:



















An arrow slit inside:



















The outer stairway (beware of boiling oil!)



















Katie and John looking pensive:

• I have roommates! Mohammed came on Wednesday evening--he's from California, son of Iraqi parents but he grew up in Kuwait and the US. He graduated from college about 4 years or so ago and has been working in various Middle East-related jobs (I think) for that time. Yersen (or so I've transliterated his name) is a 19-year old student at university in Istanbul who's looking to pick up Arabic as a second language. He's studying business administration, and at Qasid he'll be starting on the Modern Standard track, but he's just beginning to learn the language.
• The Qasid administrators are wonderful people. Granted, I haven't spent much time with the teachers, but the folks who've been running our orientation--Osama, the director of the institute, Abdullah, the outreach director, and Faysal, the academic director--are incredibly kind and welcoming. Most are Western-born or educated, so they speak English as a native language. It also helps that some of them have come to Arabic as a second language, so they have experience learning it just like we did. I'm not sure if that's true for the instructors themselves, but I'll have to see. Faysal actually lives in my building, so I got a ride with him down to Qasid yesterday morning. Otherwise my walk is about 25 minutes--fine, but happily missed in the hot weather!
• Amman has a huge diversity of nightlife. Where I live, Kharabsheh, is a pretty quiet neighborhood, but just a taxi ride away is the balad, or downtown, where there's a very lively Arab street scene. I spent Tuesday night with Qasid people in a maqwa, or coffeehouse, drinking tea, playing chess, and indulging in a bit of sheesha (what Jordanians call hookah. Very weird). Wednesday night, we went to Abdoun, the posh western area, and spent hours at a hip, upscale cafe. Thursday night--back to the balad, but this time to a bar where we watched Spain eviscerate Russia 3-0 in the UEFA semifinals. They'll play Germany in the finals on Sunday night, and since I don't have class on Monday, we'll probably go down there and see it again. Tonight, however, I'm looking forward to spending some quiet time in Kharabsheh, where there's apparently a Sufi meditational walk at 10:00 every night. Of course, when classes start there won't be an opportunity for much of this going out, so I'm seizing this opportunity while I can.

That's about it for now...my next posts will be squeezed in around the time constraints of homework. The horror! The horror!