Columns, football, and way too much vocab

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Let me start by saying that Roman ruins are pretty cool. Walking through them is always interesting, seeing how people lived thousands of years ago. Very cool.

So I went to Jerash, one of largest sites of Roman ruins in Jordan, with my friend Amanda on my first day off after school started. I have wanted to take this trip since I got here, but haven't been able to up until now. We took a public bus, which took about a hour. Amanda had residency, so she got in for dirt cheap, while I got to pay through the nose. Being a foreigner is not always a good thing, especially when it comes to tourist sites. It was a beautiful day, and it was chilly, so there were hardly any people there. The first thing you notice - the columns don't end. They're everywhere. We were able to walk through a couple amphitheaters, down cobbled roads, and we got to move columns. That's right. There are moving columns. They don't move much, but just enough to keep them from falling apart in an earthquake. It was way cool. We were followed around by Arab kids willing to part with "insider knowledge" of the place, should we care to part with our money. We even had a kid follow us, even when we declined, and after he talked at us for 10 minutes or so, we gave him a dinar so he would leave. He then had the audacity to tell us it was a bad tip, and that we should give him more for the service we didn't ask for. And then yelled at us, and used some foul language when we politely refused. So we told him if he didn't shut it and be happy with what he got, we'd take it back. So he left us alone. We wandered through the site for several more hours, taking loads of photos, going wherever we pleased. After we had been through the site, we learned how the funky sand art with the pretty camels and mountains was done, and went to eat at a restaurant outside the gates, which was highly recommended. We ate, then headed back to where the bus was supposed to pick people up to head back to Amman, only to find that there wasn't going to be another bus to Amman that day. We honestly guessed that this would be the case, the day had gone so smoothly thus far, and both of us have a habit of attracting all sorts of "adventures." So we got a sirviis to take us to the edge of Amman, where we had to try to find a bus going into the city to get anywhere near where we lived. It took us a while, but we finally found one. After about half an hour, we were instructed to get off the bus at the side of the road and walk somewhere to another bus station to get further into the city. By this time, we were tired, so we simply flagged a taxi and went home, which only cost about a dinar more. Overall, it was a good trip. It was my first time taking a bus, too, so I was pretty happy that we didn't die.

That same weekend was Superbowl 43. We go all out for stuff like this. Kick-off was at 1:30 am, so we all went over around 10:30 the night before, bringing plenty of junk food, as is traditional. We hung out, pigged out, and trash talked the teams (because it should've been the Eagles, for serious. Because they're amazing). We even had the game projected on the wall - the biggest screen showing the game in Jordan. It was a pretty big group, and we tore through soda, chips, awesome homemade dips, sausage balls, and coffee. Lots of coffee. And it was actually a decent game. I was in a pickle though, I couldn't root for the Steelers, being a die-hard Eagles fan and all, and I certainly couldn't root for the Cardinals, they weren't even supposed to be there. So in the end I rooted for no one, accurately predicting a Steelers win, as much as I hated it, and simply enjoyed a good game. We wrapped up and headed home after 5 that morning. I was supposed to get up 2 hours later for school, but I may have accidentally turned off my alarm clock and slept until noon. I felt like a trainwreck, but the experience was definitely worth it.

About school. It's tough. I'm keeping up, but there is a ridiculous amount of vocabulary involved. Most of my homework is memorizing vocab. My brain is already full and overflowing, and I still have around 70 new terms to memorize tonight for tomorrow's classes. So it's a lot. But the classes are interesting (except grammar, I could really do without classical grammar classes), and it's really fun to be able to say more and more as the days pass. We've also switched to Arabic script from transliteration, and all of our written assignments are expected to be in script. This certainly isn't easy, but I love it. Writing is my favorite part. I"ve also gotten better at visiting with Arab families here - I've been tutoring some Iraqi kids with a classmate, and visiting teachers from last semester after school.

A quick update on my time-wasting skills: I can know do my Cube in 3 minutes, 45 seconds. I can also make vegetable stew, I've finished the 1st season of The Unit, just started the second, and The Secret Life of Bees is a truly excellent film.

Coming up: I attempt to watch the UNC Duke men's game on thursday, but we don't know if it'll be broadcasted here yet, more conversational visits, an epic game night, and we are FINALLY getting internet in the apartment. Again. Maybe this time it'll actually work... Oh the joys of Jordan.

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