Living the life under the his majesty king Abdullah

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I am now in the super fancy (free internet cafe that serves supper fancy desserts to the dismay of my waistline. Maybe I can off set that by the fact that I have to walk, EVERYWHERE and the only food I have found is fruit and bread. So far I have moved into my apartment, FLUNKED a placement exam, I mean I left huge chunks of it blank. This resulted in my being placed in the lowest level but fortunately was a real teachers pet in class today and proved just how much Arabic I knew and got moved up to the next level. Wow little did I know how much was going to happen since I started this post. It all began with the commemoration of the coronation of his majesty King Abdullah. I was under the impression that sine we had class of that day that there was going to be a festival. If standing outside in the heat of the middle east for 7 hours surrounded by men is a festival then there absolutely was! However I got a Jordanian flag to wave around which helped the time go by, oh an the fact that my friends David, Alex, Rebbecca, Logan and Kristen were there to stick it out with me. However towards the end a Jordain man waves for us to follow him which we did because this is Jordan and you just go with the crazy. We were actually let into the stadium to see the celebration after being funneled through several guards and check points and with no real reson to be there at all other than Americans get in places. It was very cool. There was singing and a cavalry display to demonstrate the unity of the Jordanians, Palestinians and Bedouins as well as lots of speeches in Arabic, none of which I understood, and some kids running around then forming Jordan where they stood which was pretty awesome. there was also a helicopter fly over and an f-16 or something fly over. The first time the jets came over they were so low to the ground that my friend Rebbecca ducked. At the end of the ceremony everyone flung the pillows they were sitting on out into the field wich multiplied by a thousand people was quite and impressive site. This weekend, since Thursday is the new Friday and Friday and Saturday are the weekend we went to Jerash on Saturday and Um Qays on Saturday which are both the ruins of roman cities. A guide said Jerash is actually antioch but I am not sure I believe him. Oh but did I mention that Jerash has a chariot race? Because it does! There was centurian marching, gladiators and chariots. The head gladiator had a crush on my friend Maura and did a special pectoral muscle dance for her. All of the pictures today are from Um Qays...ok never mind I cant upload from the computer for some reason...oh well I will try again tomorrow.

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Comments

[Bep]

have a great time
So nice that you have been to so many places already! How far is your apartment from the college and how do you get there? I hope you will soon find some other food than bread and fruit. Keep blogging... x Bep

[Courtney]

Wow, you've gotten to make friends and see so many awesome things already! Hope all's going well~

[Neal]

Chariot Races
The Chariot Races sound pretty cool. Next time you see King Abdullah, tell him I said hello. ;) I am glad you are enjoying yourself BTW, I did not get a notification that you had posted for some reason.