Hagia Sophia
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Pictures to go with the last blog post
Hagia Sophia
goodness I'm lazy
Well, I obviously fail at keeping a blog. I apologize if you were wanting to read this on a regular basis.
March flew by, honestly, all of a sudden it was spring break, and then I came back and it was the middle of April. Now, I only have exactly a month left here in Amman. That idea is both exciting and saddening. My host family is trying to convince me to come back for the fall, especially Christine. Honestly, I think I would because I love it here so much, but it's just not possible with graduation and courses that I have to take back in La Crosse, unfortunately. However, I know when I get home I'll be extremely happy and am looking forward to being re-united with everyone again. It'll be nice to be able to pick up the phone and call who I want, when I want and not think about the time difference, or have to set up skype dates and think about when the next time I have internet will be (I may have used up to much of my family's bandwidth last month so now I try not to use it often at home haha)
I went to the Dead Sea last month, such an odd experience, the floating. Everyone says that, but until you experience it you'll never truly understand. Honestly, you can't touch the ground, you just bob. If you do ever go do NOT put your head underwater, my friend made that mistake and it stung like heck lol...we did the mud bath though and let me tell you it works! My skin has never felt so smooth and soft, I want to go back at least once more before I leave, in shallah.
Also saw Kerak Castle. So huge and it's so strategically placed on top of this big hill, as we walked through the tunnels, I imagined torches lining the walls and men in armor running down the tunnels to their posts. Imagining is the best.
I had spring break over a week ago now. I went to Istanbul and Troy. It was a wonderful weekend, I was able to stay in a beautiful hotel for free thanks to connections my friends have, I felt like royalty all week. We made friends with our concierge, his name was Cank, pronounced Jank, yep for real haha and he was really sad to see us go, he was extremely nice and he loved when we would make him laugh, which was often haha
We did a lot of walking and rode the metro almost everyday, we were pros at that by the end of the week. Saw most of the Old City, including Topkapi Palace which is huge, took a half a day to see just that, but it was worth it. And of course, the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. Both extremely beautiful.
Did a lot of shopping in the Grand Bazaar and enjoyed the men trying to hussle us to buy their goods which are the exact same thing being sold right next door, honestly it amazes me how these people make a living when they're all selling the exact same thing. I bought turkish pants! And I'm really excited about them, if you can't tell, I'll definitely be rocking those back home this fall and next spring! I also drank a lot of apple tea while I was there because it is my absolute favorite! I brought some home for my host family, but they didn't like it at all unfortunately, so guess I'll have to stick to their cinnamon tea for the last month, unfortunately lol
Visited the archaeological site of Troy, unfortunately we didn't have a lot of time to spend there, but it was such an incredible feeling to be there, such fascinating history behind that area, in all time periods.
Now is the home stretch for classes, and the teachers are just piling it on of course. In my standard arabic class I have THREE tests this week and TWO presentations, cruelty I tell you, haha but I'm sure I'll survive. We took our oral re-entry to the USA test today for arabic and I can tell that I've improved drastically over the course of these few months. Holding a conversation about certain topics is so easy now, and I'm so much better at figuring out what people are talking about, even if I don't know the exact sentences, I can get the idea out of it by picking out the verbs, it's really exciting and makes me so excited! Hopefully I'll be able to continue in my arabic somehow this coming school year since it's not offered anymore after this level back in La Crosse.
I went to Aqaba this past weekend to celebrate my friend's 21st birthday-alcohol is duty free down there lol. It's the southern port of Jordan and from there you can see both Egypt and Israel, it's crazy how close they are. When you're sitting on the beaches of the Red Sea, Egypt is right across. We had beautiful weather and I even got a tan, YES, finally haha, the weather is starting to get nice even in Amman and I hope it stays that way, I bought some long skirts and I'm ready to wear them!
While we were in Aqaba we snuck into the Movenpick hotel's beach (the nicest hotel on the beach). Our friend said that we could jump off the pier and then swim around and up the beach then just walk onto it, however I realized that there wasn't a fence and my other friend jokingly mentioned just walking in. When I saw that the "guard" wasn't looking and was talking on his phone, I non-chalantly walked into their beach area and just kept walking, acting like I owned the place. I look back and my friends are laughing their heads off and giving me the thumbs up so I kept going. I had a mild panic attack when another life-guard/security guy approached me, but he just kept walking, I was in the clear haha. My friends soon followed suit and we spent a good two hours relaxing in their hot tubs. Unfortunately we realized you need a hotel room number to get towels and the weather quickly turned cold. So we saw a bunch on a desk and tried taking some, a woman approached us and asked for our room number. Awkward conversation ensued, but then we just said we were leaving and we left, easiest escape ever and it was a success!
March flew by, honestly, all of a sudden it was spring break, and then I came back and it was the middle of April. Now, I only have exactly a month left here in Amman. That idea is both exciting and saddening. My host family is trying to convince me to come back for the fall, especially Christine. Honestly, I think I would because I love it here so much, but it's just not possible with graduation and courses that I have to take back in La Crosse, unfortunately. However, I know when I get home I'll be extremely happy and am looking forward to being re-united with everyone again. It'll be nice to be able to pick up the phone and call who I want, when I want and not think about the time difference, or have to set up skype dates and think about when the next time I have internet will be (I may have used up to much of my family's bandwidth last month so now I try not to use it often at home haha)
I went to the Dead Sea last month, such an odd experience, the floating. Everyone says that, but until you experience it you'll never truly understand. Honestly, you can't touch the ground, you just bob. If you do ever go do NOT put your head underwater, my friend made that mistake and it stung like heck lol...we did the mud bath though and let me tell you it works! My skin has never felt so smooth and soft, I want to go back at least once more before I leave, in shallah.
Also saw Kerak Castle. So huge and it's so strategically placed on top of this big hill, as we walked through the tunnels, I imagined torches lining the walls and men in armor running down the tunnels to their posts. Imagining is the best.
I had spring break over a week ago now. I went to Istanbul and Troy. It was a wonderful weekend, I was able to stay in a beautiful hotel for free thanks to connections my friends have, I felt like royalty all week. We made friends with our concierge, his name was Cank, pronounced Jank, yep for real haha and he was really sad to see us go, he was extremely nice and he loved when we would make him laugh, which was often haha
We did a lot of walking and rode the metro almost everyday, we were pros at that by the end of the week. Saw most of the Old City, including Topkapi Palace which is huge, took a half a day to see just that, but it was worth it. And of course, the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. Both extremely beautiful.
Did a lot of shopping in the Grand Bazaar and enjoyed the men trying to hussle us to buy their goods which are the exact same thing being sold right next door, honestly it amazes me how these people make a living when they're all selling the exact same thing. I bought turkish pants! And I'm really excited about them, if you can't tell, I'll definitely be rocking those back home this fall and next spring! I also drank a lot of apple tea while I was there because it is my absolute favorite! I brought some home for my host family, but they didn't like it at all unfortunately, so guess I'll have to stick to their cinnamon tea for the last month, unfortunately lol
Visited the archaeological site of Troy, unfortunately we didn't have a lot of time to spend there, but it was such an incredible feeling to be there, such fascinating history behind that area, in all time periods.
Now is the home stretch for classes, and the teachers are just piling it on of course. In my standard arabic class I have THREE tests this week and TWO presentations, cruelty I tell you, haha but I'm sure I'll survive. We took our oral re-entry to the USA test today for arabic and I can tell that I've improved drastically over the course of these few months. Holding a conversation about certain topics is so easy now, and I'm so much better at figuring out what people are talking about, even if I don't know the exact sentences, I can get the idea out of it by picking out the verbs, it's really exciting and makes me so excited! Hopefully I'll be able to continue in my arabic somehow this coming school year since it's not offered anymore after this level back in La Crosse.
I went to Aqaba this past weekend to celebrate my friend's 21st birthday-alcohol is duty free down there lol. It's the southern port of Jordan and from there you can see both Egypt and Israel, it's crazy how close they are. When you're sitting on the beaches of the Red Sea, Egypt is right across. We had beautiful weather and I even got a tan, YES, finally haha, the weather is starting to get nice even in Amman and I hope it stays that way, I bought some long skirts and I'm ready to wear them!
While we were in Aqaba we snuck into the Movenpick hotel's beach (the nicest hotel on the beach). Our friend said that we could jump off the pier and then swim around and up the beach then just walk onto it, however I realized that there wasn't a fence and my other friend jokingly mentioned just walking in. When I saw that the "guard" wasn't looking and was talking on his phone, I non-chalantly walked into their beach area and just kept walking, acting like I owned the place. I look back and my friends are laughing their heads off and giving me the thumbs up so I kept going. I had a mild panic attack when another life-guard/security guy approached me, but he just kept walking, I was in the clear haha. My friends soon followed suit and we spent a good two hours relaxing in their hot tubs. Unfortunately we realized you need a hotel room number to get towels and the weather quickly turned cold. So we saw a bunch on a desk and tried taking some, a woman approached us and asked for our room number. Awkward conversation ensued, but then we just said we were leaving and we left, easiest escape ever and it was a success!
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