Al Sarih

Hey everyone, I hope that you are all doing well and enjoying the winter that is taking hold. I personally went and played soccer in shorts and a tee shirt yesterday and it was glorious. This will be my last email because I am heading back to New York this Friday after my final exam on Thursday. I haven't done anything outside of Amman since I last wrote, so I thought that I would just give you some parting stories and a reflection. I want to start with a couple of things that I have learned after talking with some of the Muslims in Kharabsha, an area near Qasid where many of the students live. The conversation started with me describing a presentation that we had in class about the various creation stories across religions and ... read more

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope that you all had a great holiday and spent time with those you care about. Because I was unable to go home, I ate dinner at the house of a Lt. Col. in the Air force and it was amazing. I met him at the U.S. Embassy and asked him if he could help me talk to some people who work in the State Department and yesterday I got a call inviting me to Thanksgiving at his house. I had a great time with loads of food and the company was great. I was also able to talk with someone who works in the foreign service so it was a very fulfilling evening, even if my Taboo team lost. It was nice to celebrate here, and it brought back some good ... read more

Hey everyone, it has been a little while since I last posted because I thought I would give your eyes a break after writing a book about my Eid trip. Everything has been going well here and I just finished my midterm which only took a measly 3 and 1/2 hours to complete. Classes are going well and I feel like I am really getting a grasp on the language. I was in the French Cultural Center (where I take Amiyya classes) talking to one of my friends in Arabic and a group of Jordanians interrupted us to say that we sounded fluent and spoke just like they did which although probably not true was nice to hear none the less. I felt the need to write another entry because I just got back from a ... read more

I hope that everyone enjoyed the last two entries, or at least managed to get half-way through the first one which is a feat within itself. This section should shock and amazing you with the camels and snorkeling and Bedouin! Here it goes... Aqaba After we spent Tuesday night in Damascus Roger and I caught a bus back to Amman where we had a frustratingly easy time getting back into Jordan. We only spend 2 hours in Amman before leaving, just enough time to go home take a shower, send some emails, repack, and cook lunch (which I carried out with me in a plastic bag which attracted many stares). After that we boarded a beaten down bus for the 4 hour trip from Amman to Aqaba which is far down south on the Gulf of ... read more

This is the first and will be the longest section of a three-part section covering the Eid Break that I just got back from yesterday. This post will be on Damascus, the next one will be a short section on Aleppo and the final part is going to detail my trip to Aqaba and Wadi Rum. This is going to be a long entry because this was a packed trip and I don't have this amount of free time again so we went all out. Read it in segments or just look at the pictures, but enjoy. So now, onto Damascus...sort of. Day 1 I started my trip on the Thursday after class and took a taxi up to the Syrian border with three people who I was going to be staying with, one from the ... read more