This past weekend was our CIEE sponsored trip to Petra and Wadi Rum which I had previously done three months before with the summer program. While I still had a good time, I quickly realized that doing it with a grand total of 32 individuals is much more fun then the 150 that were on the trip this time around. I don't feel like rehashing the details, especially a second time around so we won't go into that. Plus, I enjoy talking about the fam more - my host grandma, or as I've began to call her "teta" (Jordanian for grandma), is so much more interesting.

Some short stories:

On Friday morning I was in my room doing homework. Teta walks in, hands me a pair of new socks, says "for you", and walks out again.

She moves furniture around in the house daily. My room is different every day. Every. Day. Furniture goes in, other furniture goes out. Also, I came home yesterday to find the two twin beds in my room covered in matching comforters with massive tigers on them. I feel like a bad ass. Or a 10 year old boy who likes Ed Hardy and motorcycles.

When I got home from my trip yesterday I went to bed almost immediately. Teta didn't get home until later. Today, when I got home from school I thought she told me that she had prepared a "feast" for me yesterday, but I was sleeping. I felt terrible. Thankfully, she repeated herself later and I realized she had said "fish" not "feast" and it had been sitting in the microwave all afternoon. That made me feel better. I already felt bad about ignoring my family last night; I would have been really embarrassed if they had prepared dinner for me and I slept through it.

ETA: While I was eating my dinner this evening, Teta decided to tell me about how the maid was on her period. And how she felt so sick she thought she was a bird apparently. Great story Teta, keep them coming. Which reminds me - almost as funny as yesterday when she asked me if there were camels in America, and Maher, her son, gave me a fantastic "sorry, she's crazy" look as he told her no, there are no camels in America.

While I pretty much hated Jordanian/Middle Eastern food this summer, my opinion has completely reversed since living in a Jordanian home. While many parts of the homestay are hard for me, eating the food definitely isn't. Things taste much better home cooked. Plus there's definite variety. It's always rice and a lot of times chicken, but still awesome. Especially because this is one of those food cultures where things taste best all mixed together, which is my favorite. Even a simple meal of rice, yogurt, and salad (tomato, cucumber, parsley, olive oil) all mixed together is zakee. Today, Teta made an Egyptian dish (the name escapes me) that was possibly my favorite so far. You start with a bed of rice mixed with lentils and something that I think was caramelized onions. Add plain macaroni. Then hot sauce. Then peppers. Then salad. Top off with homemade baba ghanoush. Mix together. Actually I may be completely bull shitting you. What happened was, I came home at 7pm. Teta got a bunch of tupperware containers out of the fridge and showed me what they were. I know the rice, macaroni, and hot sauce go together, but I'm not sure about the rest. Teta seems to get confused when I ask her things in Arabic. Not sure why; I've been told my Arabic is very clear. So anyway I ended up just dumping a little bit of everything into the bowl. No one else was eating, so I may have appalled her with my love of just mixing everything together. In fact I probably ruined her famous Egyptian dish by doing something else. Whatever, it tasted good to me . . .

The past couple of weeks were pretty hard for me, but I think I've finally returned to my normal state of being. I'm still stressed about when I'm going to find time to do grad school applications, but other than that, things are going pretty well. I have a routine down that includes gym time. I was able to do some bonding over the weekend, so I feel closer to my fellow American classmates. I just bought my plane ticket to Beirut for our week long holiday in November. I'm running a 10k race through Amman in three weeks. I figured out that the internet at my home is fast enough to download streaming video, so I can now watch the new season of my favorite show (will not be named to save face). I just got an extra $100 from CIEE to cover transportation costs to and from my job - what they don't know is that I figured out how to take the bus, which is a mere 42 cents per ride. My host dad, Maher, is making baby shrimp soup this weekend. Etc, etc, etc. I'm just glad I've settled in. I was worried for awhile that I wouldn't and I'd hate this entire semester.