Sweet and sour chicken

I'm sitting at home, watching Ghost Whisperer, full from a meal of mall food-court Chinese food.

"But Sarah," you say, "you can't possibly be back in America already!"

Well, I'm not. Life in Jordan, in some ways, isn't so different as you might think. And life in my Jordanian house is different still. The television (they have about a thousand channels) is almost always on - this is fairly typical for an Arab family. My family has internet access (hence the home update), which is definitely atypical. And I went with my host sister today to City Mall - a four-story brobdingnagian of a shopping center. Fun fact, the Sbarro there serves real Italian food - pasta, bread - instead of greasy pizza. What a shame.

I could go on and on about the differences and similarities between Jordan and the US. Make a giant Venn diagram that would take all day to read. But I got ahead of myself. I really wanted to start out writing about my host family.

My host mom is Italian, and my host dad is Palestinian - this family is atypical even from the first sentence. I have two host sisters - one is a student at UJ, and the other works in acupuncture. Rasha, my student sister, is also an intern with CIEE. At our Wednesday dinner, the night before we found out about our host families and met them for the first time, she asked how I felt about meeting mine. I told her that I was excited, but nervous - very nervous, almost scared - and she reassured me that I would be fine. Tricky, tricky. She knew then. She had known from the start that I was going to be her host sister, but I was completely surprised when our housing director told me about it. You know, in the good way.

My fears were completely unfounded. Rasha is fluent in English, and each other family member has a varying amount of English proficiency. Between all of them, I'm conversing comfortably, learning a little bit of Arabic, and also learning a little bit of Italian. This family speaks its own language. All of them have been so very welcoming to me, and their house is wonderfully comfortable.

After spending a lazy weekend at the house, waking up late - which is still five in the morning at home - I'm starting classes tomorrow. Yes, I typed that correctly. Sunday. The work week/school week here is Sunday through Thursday, because Friday is the holy day in Islam. Arabic class will begin tomorrow, running S/T/R, with a listening section on W and a colloquial dialect class M/W. Yeah, that's a lot of Arabic. Tomorrow we register for our area studies (= elective) classes - which I'm still deciding on. Check Fb for the poll.

I wish that I could be witty and stylistic tonight, but I just can't seem to pull it off. Do I have first-day-of-school butterflies? Well, it seems that I do. No matter - I'll just wear my glasses tomorrow. Professors think you're smarter when you wear glasses.

... Or something like that.

Things I've seen...

And things I didn't expect to see.

I saw: part of an Arabic wedding party.

I didn't expect to see: a bagpipe player among the drummers.

I saw: the first page of an Arabic placement test.

I didn't expect to see: directions entirely in Arabic.

I saw: the University of Jordan campus.

I didn't expect to see: trees and hills.

I saw: a small, well-lit bookshop.

I didn't expect to see: a dimly lit hookah bar above it.

I saw: an hourlong video about Jordan.

I didn't expect to see: a clip of King Abdullah flying a helicopter. And another of him riding a motorcycle. And another of him rappelling down waterfalls.

I saw: my black suitcase sitting in my room.

I didn't expect to see: my orange suitcase (finally) sitting behind the hotel's desk. Hooray!

I saw: falafel.

I didn't expect to see: meat inside it. (Was it really even falafel?)

I saw: a tiny stand selling DVDs.

I didn't expect to see: Avatar.

There's a lot to see here.

Study abroad exercise: running and swimming

Part 1. Running.

JFK is a nightmare. End of story. My flight out of Raleigh was an hour and a half late in leaving because of "weather concerns" in New York... it was sprinkling there. "Congestion" in the airways. So my two-and-a-half hour layover became a one-hour layover. Should be enough, right? Not when you come in on American and leave on Royal Jordanian. I got in at the farthest gate at the extreme end of terminal 8. Hustling my way up to the front of the terminal, I had to leave security to get on the Air Train. I rode the Air Train to terminal 4, where I found the Royal Jordanian ticket counter nearly empty. Three workers were standing around, and only one seemed to actually be working. Passport, bag tags, et cetera, and he tells me that my flight has already started boarding. Oh. So I started hustling faster. On my way to security, as quickly as I was going, an airport employee managed to overtake me (he wasn't carrying any bags). He grabbed my passport and boarding pass, rushed them past the TSA agent at the entrance to the line, whisked me past a few dozen people, and hurried me through security so quickly that I thought he was going to take my shoes off for me. Intense. So I'm on the floor just past security - there was no time to find a space on a bench - pulling on those brand-new shoes, trying to zip my bag and buckle my belt at the same time. Hustling even more. Turns out that gate 31 is at the very end of terminal 4. Just my luck. I managed to make it to the gate in time, but I was out of breath, uncomfortably sweaty, and beet-red in the face.

Cardio, airport-style:

1. Sprint up the escalators. It helps if they're extra-steep and multiple stories high.

2. Rush down the moving walkways. Hello, America, they aren't there so you can take a free ride on the lazy train. I will push past you, and I will not regret it.

3. Take a mid-workout breather. In my case, it was a short train ride. Also acceptable: bathroom break, airport trinket purchase. Just make it quick.

4. Talk during the workout. Try explaining a delayed flight, two-terminal connection, security regulations, and gate assignment.

5. When in doubt, move faster.

I crashed after the workout and slept for the better part of an eleven-and-a-half hour flight. We were served dinner at midnight Eastern time, 7:00 AM Amman time. This meal was followed by breakfast at 7:30 AM Eastern and 2:30 PM Amman. We landed around 4:30, went through customs, got our bags, and by the time that we went outside to the vans, it was dark out. Jet lag? You know it.

Part 2. Swimming.

We chilled out last night at the hotel - ate dinner, made friends, played nice, tried to get the internet in the lobby to work. Today we were up early for our first day of orientation. Yes, they sent us wake-up calls at 6:00. Please note that that was 11:00 Monday night for you Easterners. We piled into buses post-breakfast and rode off to our first-day orientation site. That site being the Dead Sea. For those who aren't up to date with the current Jordanian weather, it's a cold snap. A rainy cold snap. I honestly believe that it was colder when I left the airport yesterday than it was in Raleigh at the same time. Today was a bit chillier than yesterday, although drier, and it may in fact end up being the coldest day of the year. So of course we went to a beach. It makes perfect sense.

We went to a convention center called the Dead Sea Panorama to have our orientation meetings, look into a museum, and take pretty pictures. (Facebooking of said pictures may follow when I have serious internet capabilities. Right now I'm sharing a low-bandwidth connection with about ten other people in the same room.) After lunching, we got a chance to go into the water, and chilly as the air was, the Dead Sea itself wasn't too cold. In fact, it was terrific. The off-season is pretty chill. We got to float around all we wanted and pretty much had full run of the beach. For 2 JD, a guy was selling mud out of a bucket for slathering and rinsing. There are few experiences as awkward as slathering yourself with mud in front of other people. But, again, terrifically fun.

So this is swimming, Dead-Sea-style:

1. Walk out past where your feet can touch.

2. Bob up and down.

3. Fall on your back because it's so hard NOT to float.

4. Either lie back in the water and push yourself with your arms - like a really ridiculous-looking elementary backstroke, or...

5. Swim freestyle, at least as best you can. This involves a torso in the water, legs bent at the knee, sticking out into the air, and paddling motions.

6. Admit that you've lost some dignity.

7. Enjoy.

New shoes

This is my last day in the US - in fact, one of my last hours in the US - in fact, I should be packing right now instead of writing this post. Things have become far more "real" to me recently, and it's all happened quite quickly. Even two or three days ago, I didn't feel like I was about to leave. I watched a basketball game at VCU, I made chocolate chocolate chip cookies, I drank coffee at New World - I did all of these very normal things, and they felt okay. But today even the normal things feel abnormal. Church wasn't normal, because I found myself answering so many questions about Jordan. Lunch at Buffalo's wasn't normal, because I knew it was my last kickin' chicken wrap for four months. Ever since I started the pre-packing process, laying things out on the dining room table in preparation for packing them away, the regular things about my life have taken on a different flavor. It's like the unpacked bags are hanging over me.

This newfound awareness is unsettling. I'm not entirely sure how to feel about any of this. Of course I'm excited - people invariably talk about study abroad as one of the most rewarding experiences of their time at college. And of course I'm scared - I'm going to a nation that speaks a different language, and I'm going to study with a hundred complete strangers. Between those two extremes, I can also identify the sadness of leaving the ones I love, the happiness of trying new things, the shyness of meeting new people, and so much more.

I'm absolutely horrible at doing goodbyes. Flat-out terrible. But in the words of Semisonic, "every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." The only way that I can distract myself from the end of this winter break is to look very hard at the beginning of my spring semester and find something to celebrate. Usually I would mark the beginning of a new semester by buying a new box of pens or binder clips - I love office supplies - but I didn't think that those were quite fitting for this particular semester. So I bought something else to mark the occasion: shoes. A brand-spanking-new pair of shoes. Seriously, when I bought these at the store, the woman asked if I wanted to try them on. Nope. Until this morning, I had not put the shoes on, hadn't even unwrapped the laces. These are my Jordan shoes. I'm wearing them today, flying out to Jordan, and I'll wear them in May when I fly back. Perfectly white (and black) now, we'll see what they look like at the end of this semester, after four months of wear in Amman. My shoes will come a long way, too.

By the numbers

Here are a few facts about the place where I'll be living and studying, for those who are curious out there:

Amman's population is 2,419,000.

- Raleigh's is 392,552.

- A 2008 census estimate of the "Research Triangle" area placed the population at 1,690,557. That estimate includes all of Chatham, Durham, Franklin, Harnett, Johnston, Orange, Person, and Wake counties. And it's still over 700,000 short of Amman.

Jordan has an area of 35,637 square miles.

- North Carolina is 53,865 square miles.

- Jordan is slightly smaller than Indiana (36,418) and slightly larger than Maine (35,385).

Amman's weather isn't that different from Raleigh's.

- The average January high and low there are 55 and 39, respectively, while Raleigh's are 50 and 30. In May, Amman's high is 82 and the low is 58. For Raleigh, those numbers are 80 and 55.

- Main difference: rainfall. Raleigh gets over four times as much precipitation as Amman.

The University of Jordan has about 39,000 students.

- VCU has about 32,000, grad/professional/med students included.

- There are about a hundred students in my program.

Amman is seven hours ahead of Eastern time.

- The Super Bowl kickoff will occur at about 1:30 AM on Monday, February 8th.

- The Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics will begin at 4 AM on Saturday, February 14th.

- VCU's earliest classes will start at 3 PM, and VCU's latest classes will end at 4:40 AM.

- When I come home in May, arriving in Raleigh, at 11:40 PM, it'll feel like 6:40 AM the next day. Gross.

A long-awaited beginning.

I meant to do this over a month ago - last day living the dorm, last day living in Richmond, an important moment that I could write about. And I didn't. Then I decided I would start this blog on Christmas Eve - exactly a month before my departure. But I didn't do it then, either. So with less than two weeks left before I leave for Jordan, I'm finally starting up my blog. I promised this to family and friends over two months ago, as a way of keeping in touch while I'm gone and letting you read all about the fantastic and exciting life I'm about to live. At least, I hope it will rise up to all those high expectations.

For those who haven't heard me repeat this over and over for the past few months, these are the basics. I'll be leaving on the 24th of January to go to Amman, arriving there on the 25th. Yes, an entire day later. Yes, that involves an eleven-and-a-half hour flight. I'll be studying for four months at the University of Jordan, taking classes with other students from my program. There are just over 100 of us, and I don't know a single one of them. It's nerve-wracking. (Making friends on the playground was never my strong suit.) I will learn things, and I will eat things and breathe things and see things, and I will go places and meet people and come back with dusty shoes and tiny trinkets to give to everyone back home. Or something like that. I return to the USA on May 21st, and because the time change means that I'll be getting in around 7 AM Amman time, I will promptly collapse.

For now, I'm still in Raleigh, safely sitting in my suburban home. I'm writing this from my kitchen table, but it won't be as easy over there. The university has computer labs, and there are internet cafes. But there's almost no chance of having internet in my home, whether it's an apartment or a host family's house. I don't know when I'll have the chance to update this, or where, or... anything, really. Things I do not know: where I'll be living, with whom I'll be living, what my schedule will be like, what other students I'll be taking classes with, how much English my host family will know, how much Arabic I'll be able to remember, and much, much more. There's a three-day orientation program upon arrival, before any of us moves into our apartments or homestays, and all I can assume is that we'll learn everything there. I'll update accordingly. For now, though, all I can really do is cram: clothes into a suitcase, Arabic into my head, and four months' worth of the USA into twelve days. Eleven and a half.