Night 25: Dust, and not the good kind.

Amman is covered in dust.
I left the house yesterday morning to find the sky seemingly overcast, and everything was hazy and smoggy. At first I thought it was fog, but that would be impossible. In order to have fog, you need water and clouds, neither of which are present in Jordan. I have not seen a single wisp of a cloud since I left the States almost a month ago. It turns out that Jordan does not get fog, or smog, or haze. It gets dust, and it's unpleasant. Mostly because everything inside gets dusty, and it's impossible to stay clean. I doodled in the dust on my desk in class yesterday. Here are some pictures of the dusty sky from the view of the women's bathroom in the Khalifeh Plaza building across the street from campus (where the CIEE office is):

I wish I had a "before" picture; usually it's bright and sunny and the sky is really blue. All that gray? Dust. Also you can see the Main Gate of the University just behind the McDonald's sign and to the left.

 Dust. Also a couple of academic buildings. Not sure which ones, I don't take classes near there. 

Anyway, the dust was the major update of this particular blog post. A couple of other random things: 

Today I tried to explain/defend LARP to people. It did not work out. I'd forgotten what people dressed up as  fairies and vampires and Rokugani royalty could look like to people not at Beloit. It didn't help that these people were only familiar with socially awkward D&Ders and boffer LARPers.

Also, I forgot something on the "Like" list. More like the "Love" list. The coffee. How could I forget the coffee. Arabic coffee is wonderful and all coffee should taste like it. It's made me like black coffee, too. At home I put a decent amount of cream and sugar in my coffee, but I drink it black here and it's great. However, they also have Nescafe here, which is not tasty. It's basically coffee powder that was maybe made my Nestle... it's way too sweet even when black. 

Also, ALSO. I found Fall-ish leaves today. They're yellow: 

These were all I could find of the Fall-ish leaves. This is what I miss the most about the States: Fall. Autumn. The season where the leaves are gorgeous and the weather manages to be both cold and sunny. It actually pains me to be missing Fall, so if anyone has any awful things to say about Fall, please tell me. I can't think of anything. 

Lastly. I'm going to Petra and Wadi Rum tomorrow! No really--we're meeting at the University so I am unlikely to go to the wrong place. Also I will leave much earlier than necessary. 

Anyway, the actual itinerary means that I'm going to a hiking place tomorrow, then Wadi Rum on Saturday (as well as a castle somewhere), and Petra on Sunday. I will ride on a camel, sleep under the stars in the desert with Bedoins, and then wake up, drink Bedoin coffee, and go to the place where Indiana Jones found the Holy Grail in the 80's (or 40's, depending). Yeah. Be jealous.