week 2

Well this week went fairly fast... We didn’t have classes because it was the Eid holiday so we spent our time exploring downtown amman, shopping, reading (in my case and half the other girls here- who I’ve managed to convert into Twilight fans!) Going to the movies to see Twilight (me and the now slightly obsessed girls who I converted...).

On Monday night Anisa cooked this incredible Eid feast with this yummy rice and kaftas (mince meat balls with spices and herbs). Some of the other apartments brought more food and drinks and we had a lovely little dinner party in our apartment.

Thursday was so much fun. We headed into downtown Amman because Kristy bought some boots for 5JD and Molly decided she really wanted a pair. But unfortunately the place where Kristy got them wasn’t there anymore, so we went hunting to find some boots for Molly. The locals told us that we would find a place that sells boots behind the king hussein mosque, and low and behold we found a dingy little shop and Molly found her boots! This street then turned into an open air opp-shop! It was so cool. We found this one rack of all these american high school bomber jackets! And then we found another table selling all these grandpa jumers for 1JD, so we all bought one... Alyson bought two and one of them smelt like B.O, so that was pretty gross.

Anyways, so then cae Friday and we left at 9am for Wadi Rum. Wadi Rum was incredible! Dad you would have loved it! It took us 3 hours to get there... I read my book the whole way... And then it took another 2 hour Jeep Ride to get to our desert camp. Omgoodness I’ve never had so much fun in my life! We climbed this massive sand dune and ran down it and rode camels and yeah... It was just so cool.

Then Friday night we got to our camp and had dinner. Lots of arabic food, it was great. All these amazing vegie dishes and kebabs and chicken...and bread of course... Afterwards they had a DJ dance party...haha and Arabic music DJ... It was pretty fun. We were all dancing and even got involved in some local bedouin dances. That was really funny and I think that Anisa got some of it on camera... It involved Kristy and I mumbling nonsense (the dance went with a song) and then every five seconds shouting “Abdullah!” and trying to move our feet with everyone else... We looked like idiots but we were having fun..and I’m sure we were the night’s entertainment or everyone else.

We slept in mud brick huts and almost froze even with the super thick blankets... I wouldn’t have frozen if one of the blankets hadn’t of fallen off during the night :(.

The next morning we got up, had breakfast, nicked some honey (it was really good honey and it came in these little tubs like butter) and were on our way to the coastal city of Aqaba. That place was incredible! You should have seen all the resorts! We went to one resort and spent the day in the pool/and or red sea (Nada and I put our feet in, and cut ourselves on rocks, so we lost interest after that and went back to the pool). So yeah... We hug out all day like we were rich and famous. Unfortunately the day got marred by one of the guys from our group who went up to some Israelis and asked them if they were Jews and when they said yes, proceeded to abuse them, telling them to get out of his country...even though he’s Australian Egyptian. So that got they hotel management pissed off at us and we almost got kicked out. So that was fun.

Then after a day in the beautiful warm sun, we got on the bus for a 4 hour bus ride back home. It’s actually meant to be a 5 hour bus trip but according to our tour guide a bus driver was “making good time” needless to day we got pulled over twice by the cops for speeding. He got a 20 JD fine the first time and got off the second time about an hour later...go figure!

Much love

Carly