We had breakfast at the hotel on our second day. I woke up at 7am and went down to the dinning area, where I met a waiter. The waiter showed me every item of food that was laid out and even had a conversation with me in Arabic. After talking to him, I grabbed a plate and made the tough decision of what to pick! I settled on hummus and bread, labneh ( a yogurt spread), Jordanian spring rolls, and some fruit. While sitting in the dinning area it was very quite - partly because I was the only person in the room for a good hour but the TV they had was also off. I took this time to look through the folder that Amideast gave us. The folder was jam-packed with valuable information, including an Arabic and Amiyah survival guide! After an hour my roommate and the others came down and at 9am we had our first meeting of the day. Throughout our meetings we talked about safety, host families, school, stipends, etc. We ate lunch at the hotel, which was relatively the same.
At 5:30pm we all piled into a van a went to meet our host families! My roommate and I were the first to get dropped off. We live in a building with multiple apartments. The elevator is possibly the scariest thing I have ever been on in my life, but it's part of the experience. My host family is made up of a single mother and her three adult children. The house is beautiful and although it is hot outside inside is a lot cooler. When we first arrived we met the sisters and our host mom. We talked about what we were interested in, our ages, our favorite music/tv shows, etc. Then the brother came home and we all kind of sat in an awkward silence with occasional conversation in Arabic. After a few hours we came into our new room. The bedroom is very nice with a lot of storage space our own bathroom area and a desk. We also have a porch where I have been spending a lot of time which has a beautiful view of the neighborhood. Jordan does not have a lot of water, actually the are the second poorest in terms of water resources - so that night my roommate and I had to figure out when we would take showers. On our third day in Amman, we left our host family in the morning to go and get our Visas at a police station. It was kind of a scary experience - the police station was old and it just seemed like a place you would hope to stay away from. We all had to have our finger prints taken and were told to wash our hands in a coed bathroom- that was a strange experience. We then headed back to the Amideast center and had another meeting before having an Arabic lesson, which was a lot of fun! We learned how to conjugate words. Soon after this an officer from the US Embassy came to welcome us to the country and tell us about her experience. The real highlight of the day though was going on our tour of the city. When we finished meeting with officer from the embassy we piled into a van with one of the coordinators and a tour guide and learned all about Amman. We visited the Citadel and the multiple other sites, as well as the Roman Amphitheatre. Both locations were breath taking. It's crazy to believe that you are standing on top of thousands of years of history. After visiting the sites we went to Rainbow st to get Falafel Sandwiches. Although the original restaurant we were supposed to go to was closed, we found another one called "Falafel and Potato" . The sandwich was delicious! While we were eating the call to prayer cam flooding the streets. That is one thing I have kind of fallen in love, getting to hear the call of prayer no matter where you are. Once we were done we went back to our host families house. We sat on the sofa for a while with the family then went to bed.
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