My Weekend

As many of you will know the week in Jordan goes from Sunday to Thursday allowing for the weekend on Friday and Saturday. This Thursday evening we went for a 'barty' around Pip and Kirk's swanky pad where we were shouted at by an elderly woman across the street who kept spitting on the ground in disgust. It was fair to say that on that night was perhaps cut short.

Friday came and I stayed in most of the day, but then in the afternoon Awat and I went to go and meet Jasmine on Rainbow Street  (شاريع راينبوو) where there is a special handicrafts souq (سوق) on Fridays. The street was buzzing and there seemed to be a lot going on. Awat and I saw a drumming group playing outside Subway, yes that's right there are Subways here too, but we didn't think a great deal of them. Then after we went to a shop called ملابس (malaabis) which means clothes. It is a really cool shop with great T-Shirts with funny Arabic puns on them. That night there was also an up and coming artist playing upstairs. His name was Perfect and Insane and this is one of his songs.

I really liked him and I really wish he had an album, because I would have bought it right there and then. He was kind of Newton Faulkner-esque, but sung in Arabic for the majority of the time which was great!

We then had a falafel and hummus rap thing, which I like to say is chickpeas with more chickpeas or fried chickpeas with a chickpeas sauce. It was actually very nice and we had a good time sitting on Rainbow Street before going to meet the other Exeter students at La Calle, which is a bar.

The next day the JLA put on a tour of Amman which meant that we had to be at the JLA for 9 which I was not a massive fan of at the weekend. However, the day was quite fun except for the hour we stood around waiting for the muslims in our group to pray. Actually I had pretty much seen everything that we were shown, but it was good for meeting people from the other universities who are studying with us and we also got a free lunch at Hashems, which is a really famous hummus and falafel place. (Yes you are right all they eat is hummus and falafel, no I'm only kidding they eat shawerma as well!)

Amman

Well I am one week into Jordan and I am loving life.

This week I has been my first week at school. We went to the JLA (Jordan Language Academy) bright and early on Monday morning for a 9am test. We sat down eager to show what we could do and it turns out we can't do very much. The test was nigh impossible! Nevertheless I wasn't immediately sent packing and the lessons began.

The JLA is a small building that is just off the 7th Circle, the people of Amman like to pretend that their road system is not complicated by saying that there is one main street with 8 circles (دوار) along it. However there are lots of main streets and lots of roundabouts and therefore this one street doesn't really help all that much. Just look at a map of Amman it is unnavigable.

The lessons were great and I am learning so much so quickly. The influx of new vocab is alarming and it is impossible to remember all of it, but the more I use it the more it sticks in my head. I have directions down now, so I can always tell the taxi driver where to go.

The Taxi drivers are great here! I nearly always chat to them. The other day I only had a twenty JD note and I told the driver this near the start of the journey, so for payment he pulled over and I bought him a coffee and some cigarettes.

There is too much to say as I have left it so long since my last blog so I'll leave it until I have done some more exploring and taken more photos to fill you in on the inner workings of Amman living, but for now I will leave you with two little bytes.

When everyone lives in flats sometimes the only way to get furniture into a building is a pully system up the side. This picture was taken whilst we were sitting at the JLA with the Manchester students who are all very nice. This was the building opposite where Amin is going to live so this may even have been his new sofa!

Tailoring is renowned for being for the wealthy. To have perfectly fitted trousers and shirts and jackets is a luxury. Not in Amman! Elias took Awat and me to downtown to buy Awat some new trousers. So he bought some for 9JD and then we crossed the street and went through a door flanked by two burly men who were sitting there sowing. Then up some old tiny stairs to a tiny room where we found this lovely gentlemen. He measured Awat up and within 20 minutes had shortened and tightened the trousers all for 1.500JD (£1.50)!! This is the price all tailoring should be!

Well the croissant stint of my year is over

Well the croissant stint of my year is over and I have begun the camel portion. Quite fittingly I saw a caravan on the way from the airport to my new home.

The packing process and everything was incredibly stressful and the last minute paying for my accommodation was just the cherry on the cake. However, getting to the airport really early and having an incredibly bad headache for the majority of the flight has not dampened my spirits.

The family who I am living with is made up of Mama Zein (ماما زين) and her son Elias (الياس) who works at the Serveton Hotel. I am glad that I had the airport pick up; it made the whole thing less stressful at this end. The family are Christian and very kind and welcoming. I was told several times by Elias that this is my house too and that they are my family. He just kept saying welcome home like I was some long lost brother. So I feel really comfortable here.

Elias has told me all about his past lodgers, a pair of Americans who sound great fun! He showed me pictures of all the parties they had in the house, where they played ring of fire and got horrendously drunk ending in Elias having his tenth car accident, nothing serious I may add.

After dinner we went cruising around Amman in Elias’ pimped out car. When I say pimped out I mean that it has a massive amp in the boot of the car from which he blares out tunes as we drove around Amman. This city is none like any I have seen. It is buzzing with energy and people, but also seems incredibly residential and almost half built. After all it is a very new city.

We drove past the enormous hotels looming over the eight circles (دوار) which are used to navigate the city. We drove past the lines and lines of parked, pimped up cars that wait for the streets to be empty to drag race up and down the main road. When I say pimped up, I mean pimped up. The engines of average cars are exchanged for massive ones, new hubcaps and spoilers are added and all the drivers are sitting at the side of the roads smoking shisha.

We stopped off at a famous coffee place which was just a van in a car park. Finally we went to Rainbow Street were we had a couple of beers.

I thought the night was drawing to close as we got back in the car, but no. We then went to Elias' aunt's house where I met more of the family who were preparing for a birthday tomorrow so were making some puddings. I tried some Arabic sweets and I was corrected on my accent.

My knowledge of Arabic is slowly returning, but I can feel that I am going to learn so much so quickly by being immersed like this and I can’t wait to go to school on Monday.

Giverny

My last weekend in Paris I decided to get out of Paris and go to the country. So I took the 45 minute journey to the house and gardens of Claude Monet in Giverny.

Giverny is a beautiful little village. All of the house and gardens there are spectacular. The weather on the day I chose was in fact the worst weather I think I had during the whole two months of being there, but it did not ruin the experience at all. Monet's house itself is gorgeous. It's not oversized, although his studio was quite something. The walls throughout the house are adorned with his paintings as well as Japanese art, which he was particularly fond of and his contemporary Impressionists. The kitchen was covered with blue and white Dutch tiling and the brass pots hung along the wall in size order. It was just perfect and you could imagine how Monet created his masterpieces there.

However, the main spectacle was the famous gardens that we all know from the infamous paintings that Monet completed over his long life. The gardens directly behind the house are excellently kept and the lavish plumes of colourful flowers lined the narrow pathways. As you followed the unfortunately crowded pathways you find the passageway that leads to the momentous water lily pond that inspired Les Nympheas. even in the rain this pond is glorious with amazing reflections of the trees and the clouds that Monet captures in his paintings. The Japanese style bridges that imitates the bridges he saw and fell in love with on his travels.

I think it is safe to stay that I thoroughly enjoyed my visit although I did not stay long, I would recommend it although perhaps not in peek season as the several tour groups made it somewhat hard to move at times.

The Lock Out

I'm sure many of you have heard by now the troubles I had in my last week of living in Paris. Having managed to last seven weeks without a single hiccough in my trip I found it hard to breath after this tremendous one. It was Tuesday night and I decided that I wanted to go out thanks to the Cheesy Tuesday weekly withdrawal symptoms I suffer from. (For those of you who don't know Cheesy Tuesdays is a club night in Exeter where they play cheesy music and it is my favourite night out in Essex, so much so that I didn't miss a single cheesies the whole of second term.)

On leaving the flat I realised I no longer had my keys. For the next I don't know how long I tried to contact the landlord who I assumed would have a spare key. I knocked on so many doors including his for an extended of period of time before giving up and calling a locksmith. This was probably the biggest mistake I've ever made. Certainly the most expensive.

The locksmith arrived and he said without a second glance that he had to break the lock to get in. I being tired and foolish and never having heard of a locksmith before that night agreed without thinking. To cut a long story short, because I have dwelled upon that night non-stop for the last week and I really don't want to dwell on it for much longer. I paid 303€ for the forced entry and 1100€ for a new lock. I know it's ridiculous, but I assure you that the lock was a very expensive lock. I looked it up online to check that I wasn't being completely screwed over.

I am liaising with the insurance company currently to see if I can get some of my money back, because as it stands I have managed to spend the entirety of my loan for this term leaving me with ziltch especially as I haven't been paid by PNB Paribas yet for working with them over the summer thanks to the misspelling of my name on the cheques!

Anyway I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Paris and I can't wait to return to the City of Lights. The incident with the lock has taught me valuable vocabulary about locks and DIY in French and as my sister said; "it's about time something went wrong for him."

#Characterbuilding