Night 22: Things.

Okay, so. Pictures from Um Qais!

Oh wait, I didn't go.

Yup. This was bound to happen eventually. I am Meg, the person that managed to get to the South Beloit bus station (a 10 minute drive, not even, from Beloit) over an hour after I left campus. I have driven to Rockford by accident, and I once almost drove to Milwaukee instead of Beloit. See twenty two nights ago; I accidentally went to France. I get lost. I'm good at it. However, until Saturday, I had not gotten lost while in Jordan. I have taken taxis and buses to and from school and not gotten lost a single time. I got used to it. Silly me; I will never not have issues getting places and should not forget this fact. I got up on Saturday morning, headed to the bus stop and I was 20 minutes early. Awesome. Except that it was the wrong bus station. Long story short, I called a friend, found out I was at the wrong bus station, jumped into a taxi, took forever to communicate my destination to the cab driver, and got to the bus station.... about 2 minutes after the bus had left.

I ended up going back home to bed and slept for another four hours. I also watched some Glee and ate quite a bit of chocolate.

Anyway, on to what this post is actually about: Things. Specifically, things I like and don't like about Jordan.
Supposedly over the course of study abroad, you're supposed to go through four study abroad stages: the "Honeymoon" stage, where everything is lovely and new and exciting (I experienced this stage for about 20 hours). The second stage is the "Frustration" stage, where everything is stupid and you get really cranky, and some people even get physically ill. Then there's the "Acceptance" stage and finally the "Acclimation" stage. Honestly, I think these stages are full of crap, but they serve a purpose for this blog post.

I want to talk a little bit about the "Frustration" stage here. Supposedly, during the Frustration stage "You might reject your new environment and begin to have a lack of interest in your new surroundings." Don't worry, I'm not experiencing this stage to its fullest extent right now, but it made me think about Things here that Frustrate me. I'm going to include a list of Things that make me happy about Jordan too, because optimism and positivity (totally a word, stupid red squiggly line) are important parts of not being Frustrated. So, on to Things:

Things I Don't Like About Jordan:
1. Traffic/Cars: 'nuff said, I did a blog post about this already.
2. Lack of Lines: From lines on the road to grocery store lines, no lines are to be found in Jordan. I've gotten used to the fact that lines on the road--cross walks, car lanes, what have you--are largely ignored. When I get into a cab, I put my faith in the cab driver and just let go. If I didn't, I'd have to stop eating cheese for fear of being at an even greater risk for a heart attack (and that's not happening. I love cheese). Lines of people waiting for things, on the other hand... I am really, really starting to get sick of. In Jordan, people can be very "me first" and as a result, structure here is lacking. The rule at the cash register at the coffee shop is "whoever gets their money onto the counter first gets to order," instead of "wait in line until you are served." I left an entire foot of space between me and the register today getting coffee. Two women managed to stride up to the counter and whip out their wallets before I could order. Grr.
3. The fact that in Arabic, my name doesn't exist. "Margaret" exists, but that's not my name. It's Meg. But no, here it's either "Mayg" or "Maag." That's معغ or ماغ (read from right to left).
4. The inconsistency of traffic. Yesterday, I left the house at 7:20 and did not get to class until 8:05. Today, I left the house at the same time and got to the University at 7:43. How am I supposed to plan ahead in getting to school on time? I don't even.

And on to...

Things I Do Like About Jordan:
1. The food. Yeah, they may sometimes give me too much of it, but it is really good. Meat, potatoes, cheese, and recently, quite a bit of cake. What's not to love?
2. My host family. I will say it again: I lucked out with this family. They're fantastic and quite possibly my favorite part of this experience. I love how excited my host mom gets when I learn new Arabic words, and Lara is the best host sister ever. When I was feeling down the other day, she could tell even though I was trying really hard not to be obvious about it, so she told me I'm awesome. :)
3. The fact that the guys at the coffee shop know my name. Sure, they call me Maggie, but whatever. At least they're consistent about calling me the wrong thing.
4. The view. Everything here is limestone, and you might think that that sounds boring and drab, but it really isn't. I really love the view from the hill on bus route on the way home from the University. There are hundreds and hundreds of buildings and minarets as far as I can see, and it just looks so incredible. The monotone of it doesn't actually feel monotonous, if that makes any sense at all.
5. The people. Yeah, yeah, I just spent a paragraph ranting about how Jordanians are "me first" and can't understand the concept of waiting one's turn. What's your point? They're also super welcoming of Americans; I've been told "Welcome to Jordan!" so many times in the last three weeks. Also, it's really fun to people-watch here. I like watching how Jordanians walk and talk, what they wear (the women have really cool coats that look ridiculously impractical in the heat, but also very pretty), what they eat. I may be too shy to imitate them, but I like absorbing it through watching it.
6. I think it's hilarious that every single market that I have been to in Amman has Shaun the Sheep backpacks.  Also Spongebob backpacks and I've even seen one Yoda backpack. I just love Jordanians apparent fascination with cartoons. Especially Shaun the Sheep. On a similar note, I love it that every market I've been to is really cheap. Bootleg DVDs for 2 dinar? Okay.
7. The culture. This is so difficult to describe, but I love it that there's a distinguishable sense of culture here. The hodge podge that is the United States is too spread out, too big to have an obvious sense of culture. Someone from the South could potentially have a very different idea of what being an American is than someone like me, from the North might. But here, it's pretty easy to get a sense of what it means to be Jordanian. They're proud of their country, and they're proud of the relatively stable place their country has in the craziness that is the Middle East. I love it that they have isms here. There are hand gestures and flicks of the tongue here that mean the same thing no matter where you go in the country, and I really like that.

Oh, hey, look. The "Things that Frustrate Me" list is smaller than the "Things I Like" list... It turns out I like more things here than I dislike them. What do you know, maybe I like it here after all. :)