Esther Brady Crawford - faintstarlite

Today is the end of my 3rd day, although its strange how it feels as if I’ve been here as long as I can remember. The U.S. seems like a distant dream… and I realllly like it here.. granted I will have rough times and some negative experiences I’m sure .. but all in all .. I know its going to be great – it already is.

Last night we all went to the International meeting and it was nice to meet everyone from the different companies who get together. This morning we went to the Arab meeting and it was really cool to experience everything in Arabic and see things from a different perspective – I wish I could say everything I want to about how neat it was. 

Then all the girls (the “nuns” who teach at the school and Christi and the wife of another guy in the company and myself) all went to a Turkish bath. Wow! If you’ve never been to an Arab country and been to one there is no way to really describe it. First off, its 15JDs ($20 US) for TWO HOURS! They have you sit in a sauna, then a hot tub, serve you pomegrande juice, then .. scrub you … from head to toe.. and I mean SCRUB you.  Then they wash your body off with warm water and massage you for the remainder of the time. Its all pretty intimidating the first time its done though. So maybe the next time I go I’ll be more relaxed about the whole thing, cuz this time I was a bit sketched out. But it was fun hanging with just the girls

Just now the last call to prayer is going off. That reminded me that this morning I actually slept through the second one and got 7hrs of sleep! The first one still woke me up, but I’m getting used to it – and I find myself humming the tune of the gas guy. Did I tell about that? Probably but anyways, every morning a truck goes through the entire city selling natural gas (everyone buys it for their stove) and it plays a sound similar to an ice cream truck).

Tomorrow will be my first tour of the campus .. and then on Wednesday I start orientation with the study abroad. I’m starting to feel more normal since the jet lag is wearing off and I’m recognizing landmarks around the city which is encouraging since its SOO huge. I thought it was about the size of Portland but its like twice the size.

I haven’t gone there yet, but Christi pointed out on top of one of the hills a group of ruins .. and she told me thats where David sent Uriah to fight and die. Isn’t that just incredible?!? Wow. Its seriously so amazing to be here where so much of the worlds history has taken place.

One last thing thats exciting news - a girl who was in Lebanon but is temporarily here, and myself plan on having a get together with college students and start a regular hang out time which is really awesome.

Keep me in your thoughts ..

Oh and the food is heavenly!

Ma salaama

I’ve arrived! I got here this morning at 2am .. but didn’t really fully realize that I was actually in Jordan until this morning when I awoke to the call of prayer. It was an experience I won’t soon forget. There are so few similarities to life back home. It is all so very different .. and yet, I feel very comfortable here. Today was also my 21st birthday, and honestly, it was great. I met probably 15 people and we spent the day doing various things – including going to a 40th birthday party, so that was funny celebrating someone elses birthday on my birthday.  It was really cool though.

Today we also got to go to an old caravan stop which is now a restaurant – and we dressed up in bedouin clothing and took pictures .. I’ll post it as soon as I can, but it probably will be another week before I’m able to post any pictures unfortunately.

I feel like I’ve already made some great friends and I’m excited just to get settled in and see more of the city. It’s really neat being the foreigner. I wasn’t quite sure how I’d feel about the stares and all that – but so far, its just funny to me. Especially since today there were like 15 of us Americans all walking around … we def stuck out but people were soo friendly.

The apts here are just gorgeous too! I need to get pictures of them – they’re so much nicer than in the U.S. – you can really tell that people take a lot of pride in their homes.

Another thing besides the call to prayers that shakes me up a bit is the sound of fireworks constantly going off. Apparently its quite common in the summer for night after night fireworks to be going off because they’re set off at weddings. And we’re talking HUGE fireworks that sound like explosions or guns, but they’re not cuz you can just look outside and see them – but still, its a strange sound.

It smells much different outside .. mostly because everyone smokes, indoors and outdoors. Oh, one last thing that I’ve never seen before … Friday is the national day off because its the day for mosque… so people like to do picnics before and after going … they light little campfires for tea and everything … except they do it along the highways. Literally, they just stop the car wherever they want and set a fire and have a picnic – 10ft from the road. And people do it allll along the highway.

Anyways, my schedule is a bit off, but I’m pretty sure that I’ll be able to fall asleep just fine tonight – and I hope that the call to prayer doesn’t do to me what it did this morning. They do a wake-up call (which is SO loud) and thats at like 5:00am and then they do the actual call to prayer a few minutes later .. and the mosque where the speakers are held is just down the road and the speaker is pointed to our house! So its incredibly loud.

Well I’m so excited to be here .. I’m glad I came a few days before school started to adjust because of the 10hr time difference and all the little things to get adjusted to. I know that this year is going to be a huge learning experience and will be a lot of great fun as well. I love seeing all the signs in Arabic, and even though its sort of annoying to not be able to understand anything people are saying – its exciting because I will be able to understand by the time I leave. One of my promises to myself is that when I leave I will be able to read the newspaper and write my journal in Arabic. It sounds basic, but thats really advanced – particularly compared to my 100 word vocabulary, lol.  

I love everyone and am so glad I can share my life here with the people I care about over there. Keep readin – its only gonna get better. =)

well here i am in the frankfurt, germany airport …. blogging… lol:  my first päart of the flight was good and im reallz tired thogh:   sorrz about the mistakes with typing, apparently germans use a different tzpe of keyboard and its reallly tough to useö  anzwazs :: i tried to go find museums and cathedrals but got lost and ended up walking around for 2´´3hrs and now im exhausted!

its sooooo crazy thinking im in europe :: its waaaay different here: like just walking about 2blocks i saw 3 gigantic adult shops :: ive never seen anything like it in my life ::: plus its much harder to get around since everything is obviouslz in german.  i like it thoughö its challenging for sure :: so i can onlz imagine what itll be like in jordan. the language barrier is tough to overcome, so iäm reallz motivated to learn arabic as quicklz as possible.

it was fun just getting lost in frankfurt and then finding mz way back to the airport somehow … i def had some help from above cuz i couldnät figure out the maps for anyzthing!

cant wait to tell you more later :: its finally begun and iäm overseas! woo hoo

  Thats about how big my eyes are right now. Once again .. can’t sleep and can only think, question and wonder about life overseas. Today was my 21st birthday party, as well as my going away party. Seeing everyone (my friends from XA and my family) altogether was really nice.

I’m about a quarter of the way packed thanks to my restlessness. For some reason I’ve really been putting off the packing. Somehow thats like really facing the music that its happening.

I got another email from my family in Jordan and they seem like such sweet people. I get so giddy seeing an email from them – prob cuz they’re my best glimpse into life there for now.

It was really awesome! Alisha, Jamie and I went to K-Mart to look at digital cameras. As we’re standing there, two Muslim ladies were talking in Arabic behind us. Usually I’m not very shy, but for some reason I had to be pressured into talking to them. After a few introductions, the girl from Saudi Arabia ushered me into a seculded aisle to give me instructions on how to properly wrap a hijab (head covering). For my birthday my sister had gave me a scarf but I just could not make the thing look right. 

I’m SO glad I talked to them. They were the sweetest ladies, and my only regret is that I hadn’t ran into them sooner because the four of us all wanted to get to know each other more.

Anyways, the day went really well .. despite the downpour that resulted in a last-minute change of location for the party.

Only 3 days left.

Wednesday is fast approaching. It’s weird. Surreal. Have you seen that show, the Surreal Life? I’m not sure I’d recommend it, but I got caught up in a marathon a few weeks ago and ended up seeing several episodes. It’s about ex-Celebrities who are now all washed up. A bunch of them are put in a house and forced to live together and basically embarass themselves in order to probably get a few bucks.

Anyways … today I was able to accomplish a ton of stuff. I went to Freddies and bought lots of extra shampoo, deodorant, etc. It’s really freaky how expensive that stuff is! You’d think they’d want everyone smelling yummy and so they’d keep the prices on hygiene products quite low. But no. It’s like $4 for a bottle of body wash. Rediculous.

The last week or so I’ve been scheduling appointments with friends to go out to lunch or just generally hang out before I leave. This whole experience of “leaving” is beginning to feel a bit drug out. I get the feeling that lots of my friends are shocked that its actually happening. Doing something like this is one of those things that ya talk about doing, but it never actually materializes. Or at least, that’s how most trips have been. I don’t know how many times Katie and I planned on moving to some exotic location. Well, I guess Vancouver, BC and Los Angeles aren’t exactly “exotic” … but nonetheless … they felt big, mysterious and exciting in those moments late at night when we discussed it. What we really wanted was to experience the world – see and feel everything it has to offer.

Today we talked for the first time all summer and it made me really miss her. I feel a twinge of guilt for doing something so amazing without her. Yano, growing up is hard. You’re supposed to make new friends and not mind leaving your old ones behind; but its just never that simple. As much as I enjoy change – I hate it. Being stretched is good and necessary, but is a bit painful as well.

Anyways, I think I’m being all melancholy because I just watched a sappy movie and I’m tired. Tomorrow is Kristy’s graduation party so I should get some sleep. I’ve been staying up rediculously late. A word of caution: hanging out over at Josh & Dan’s is not a good idea if you want to be in bed before 2am.