Aqaba

I love the beach! It is so nice to be here on the Red Sea, listening to new age music blaring from the hotel, while relaxing in their lounge chair on the beach, reading a book. I needed this time to space out and relax. The bus ride down was a bit long (about 4.5 hours) but totally worth it. Our hotel is very nice and the day time temperature about 80 degrees with a slight breeze. Nice to be here chilling out with my lovely wife.

Ready for a break

Another semester is done and boy am I relieved. I feel pretty exhausted, although I must admit that I just spent a half hour reviewing vocabulary words. I can't stop studying, but I definitely plan to slow down during the break. I feel I have learned a ton of Arabic in the six months we have been here, but also a lot about the culture/society here. I, by no means profess to be an expert, but I feel like I understand much more than I did before as a result of the numerous conversations I have had with folks here and from watching and reading the local/regional news. I wish more people could see and experience the things we have. I think it is difficult to comprehend how poorly informed and misinformed we are about the rest of the world, as a result of our pitiful news media, until you live outside of the U.S. for a while. I strongly recommend reading the Economist for anyone seeking an informative and balanced, English language news source.

With that said, I definitely have a greater appreciation for how good we have it in the U.S. and am looking forward to coming back in five months or so. Aside from my friends and family, there are a whole host of creature comforts that I miss and long for. In the short term, I am looking forward to getting the heck out of Amman for a while and enjoying the creature comforts of a hotel in Aqaba. I guess I am tired of Amman and the noise and pollution that go along with it and just need some quiet and fresh air to "get my mind right."

Taxis

Last night as Mel and I were waiting for a cab in our neighborhood, I greeted a random man walking past us in Arabic.

Me: Good evening
Him: Good evening. (He paused and looked at me with a puzzled expression)
Him: Do you know me?
Me: No.
Him: Are you just saying "good evening" to be friendly?
Me: Um, yes. (I looked at Melanie puzzled as I often greet random people in the street)
Him: Why don't you come to my house to have some tea if you have the time?
Me: I would like that, but we are on our way to meet some friends.

I was struck by the randomness and sincerity of his invitation and would have liked to have taken him up on it. For one thing, it would have been far cheaper than our night turned out to be, but we had fun just the same.
Next we got into a cab and the driver proceeded to drive us in circles around our neighborhood instead of directly to our destination. Just when I was about to say something to him, Melanie lost it and started yelling. He didn't understand English, but her frustration and anger was unmistakable and he knew he had been busted. We were not new, naive American tourists. We knew his little scam. I told him to stop and he started rambling about how he didn't know the way, blah, blah. We got out and didn't pay him a single piaster. Then we walked down to the main street and flagged down a new taxi. I opened the door and greeted him politely and he returned my greeting. I asked if he was honest. He was confused and asked what I meant. I could tell he was so we got in and I told him the story of the last cabbie who tried to rip us off. He took us directly to our destination and then when I tried to pay he refused my money. Most of the cabbies here are good, but some of them are criminals and will try to take you the long way home to get extra fare out of you. Luckily, this is a rare occurrence. Some of them are quite nice. Just last week, we were invited to a cabbie's home for mansef (a mountain of rice with yummy lamb meat on top that you eat with your hands). Mel wasn't comfortable going to a random person's house for dinner so I politely declined, but he gave me his phone number in case we changed our minds. I guess cabbies here are a mixed bag like anything else.