Okie dokie, i am real behind in posting the blog-age. Long story short Europe = amazing-nesssssss. I think when I have more time I will pull out my travel journal and just recap the stories on here... ah it was an amazing time though. Italy with Brian was great and we met the most AMAZING people along the way. Like this one girl named CiCi (who just so happened to go to middle school with TITUS! small small world), new years was spent in Rome at the coliseum, spent some amazing times in Berlin with Tara and Katie, then off to Slovakia where I had an INCREDIBLE time staying with my friends from this summer, and then CAIRO... I can't say anymore until I get my journal because I will not do it justice...
Moving on to AMMAN! Wow, guys, I can't even begin to describe... it's just so. ugh. okie here i will try ------ The first week or two were pretty intense, I would say less than half of the Jordanian population speaks English well, well enough to help you get around when your lost, which can be extremely frustrating and scarey, especially in the first few weeks, but we have very intense language classes and now I can pretty much find my way around and understand directions, which is really cool. Amman is a city that doesn't GRAB you right away like Cairo for instance. You really need to get to know it, and look for the unique-ness of the city. So I've been exploring downtown with my roommates and now I really feel like Amman is becoming my city.
My roommates are GREAT! We live in a small villa near the Israeli Embassy, there are 5 of us (plus our cute lil' jordanian land-lord couple on the top floor), I live downstairs with a girl named Suemayah she is from Illinois but her family (oh her dad's side) are originally from Palestine, Then on the ground floor is Tam (who is AMAZING!!!) and she is from Northern California but was born in Cambodia, Heba is from NYC/Haifa, her family is also Palestinian and I looove her, and Sarah who is really great too, she is from Virginia but her mama lives in France. Oh yea and then there is Hallvard our "sorta" roommate, he is Tam's boyfriend from Norway who has been living with us for about a month now and he is wonderful! So yes I am definetely the most BORING of the roommates.
I have made a few really good friends here, like Natalie (WI- totally went to high school with Annie Henely and dated Frank) and Shauna (TX). These are the two girls who I will probably be writing the most about, I simply adore them. Last weekend, we went down to Aqaba and stayed at the most AMAZING little bedoin run cottage place RIGHT ON the red sea. IT was RIDICULOUS!! I have facebook pictures so check it out, seriously we were sitting on the beach in Jordan and we could see Egypt staight across and Palestine to our right and Saudi to our Left... crazy. The geography whore inside of me peed a little it was so exciting... Anyway, after spending a glorious day on the beach, Natalie gets this text from a guy (Zaed) who is friends with the guy that she went out on a date or two with in Amman, and I shit you not this is what it read ----- Hey, what's up? We are heading over to the Prince's place in a little bit, call us when you guys are ready and we will send the cars ------ WTF?!?!? We all just sat there and stared at this text for about 5 minutes and we could not stop laughing. Then the cars came, or should I say the Porsche SUV... god, I am a hypocrite. Anyway, we go through all these windy windy roads and finally we get to this checkpoint with guns and guards, we give them our ids and after some more windy roads we finally get to it... the royal family beach house in Aqaba... we walk in and there are like 6 people, and one of them is Prince Talal.. Ahhh! And they were all so nice! We hung out at the house and then decided to go to a club, and as we were leaving Zaed pulls us aside and was like, "remember how hard it was to get in? Wait until we leave with the Prince." So we all pile into the Porshce and the prince is in front and the same checkpoint that took so long to get in, EVERYONE every since guard Stands up STRAIGHT and SALUTES us!! hahaha, it was amazing. Long story short -- drank alot, and ended up passing out at the Royal Beach house. Natalie and I had an amazing room with a really nice Bathroom... hahaha, it was fantastic. Oh and the best part, a couple of days later - - guess who calls? the prince. and he wants to hang out with us again. So Monday night, we all went out and it was even more amazing but shit shit shit I have to go to class. I will write more on Sunday (because it is the weekend now Thu-Sat in the Middle East) and guess who I am going out tonight with? just one guess.

Life is so good.