WillW

As uninspiring as the Desert Castles were yesterday the trip to Jerash made up for it. I decided to take public transportation all of the way and if things worked was going to try to make it Ajloun. The bus station that serves the areas to the north of Amman is very easy to negotiate. The buses are clearly marked and the drivers bark out the destination to get the bus full of passengers since they don't leave until they have a full load. After waiting about thirty minutes we finally hit the road. It was an uneventful ride and there are several places to hop off the bus in and around the main gate into Jerash. I went past Hadrian's arch a bit since I wanted to get my bearings if I decided to press ... read more

The first week of classes are now finished and I am exhausted. I am studying at the Ali Baba Center which is a small school that runs group and individual programs. It is near the University of Jordan campus, but not affiliated it with it in any way. My program was set up to be three hours of MSA Abrabic and one hour of Ammiah Arabic every day. I don't know if I was lucky or not, but definitely drew two great teachers. My main instructor is a PhD and from the moment she comes into the room it is non stop instruction for three hours. Since I have been more or less a self taught student so far this sort of instruction has been very useful to fill in the holes in my understanding of ... read more

After about 24 hours of traveling I finally made it into Jordan. The worst part of the flight was the nine hour lay over in Frankfurt waiting for the flight into Amman. Getting through the visa and customs stuff was much easier then I thought it would be and was stamped and on my way in less than ten minutes. My ride was waiting for me outside of customs and we quickly set a speed record to my hotel near the 3rd Circle. I didn't get checked in until about 3:15 AM so decided to hit the streets to see what was going on. All of the Jordan travel guides rave about a Schwarma stand on 2nd circle which is a short walk so I decided to head out to that. I forgot to bring my ... read more