Mukawir and Umm al-Rasas

So... sorry for the lateness in updating this but my past month has been CRAZY busy, but awesome and I've learned more than I thought possible in this amount of time. 

So on October 13th, a group of us went to Mukawwir and Umm al-Rasas

Mukawwir was the place where Herod killed John the Baptist

Umm al-Rasas was a place where they have some pretty cool mosaics. 

Overall pretty fun and a nice half-day adventure so that I could catch up on homework and study before  my big week of exams after that!

Anti-Smoking campaign!

So I'm helping out with a play in conjunction with the Ministry of Health to teach kids not to smoke. We were able to go to the King Hussein Cancer Center and perform the play to a group of volunteers getting certified to become health workers throughout the country. It was a pretty neat experience and we'll be performing it again (hopefully) in Madaba and then in the Zaatari refugee camp. 

Here's our play!

P.s. posts will be coming about the awesome/intense trip to the south!

Random Jordan-ness

So this is just kinda  post that updates on the whole weird conglomeration that is Jordan. Some of these pictures are from the very beginning of the semester and each has a fun story that is so unique and awesomely Jordanian. 

So the first example is the Toll House cookie house. It's in a super fancy mall called (no joke) Taj Mall and basically a cookie costs about the same as a normal lunch for me. Since we had a large group, we did the whole get a discount with the 2 dozen cookies thing. It was pretty fun. It was also awkward because it was like our second week here and no one really knew one another yet. 

Keith, Christina and Eryn

So want to see what a $2 cookie looks like? (it's a normal palm size cookie...not even a huge one!) 

However, it was delicious and we were able to experience a Jordanian hang out night. (Seriously...people go to places like this and hang out there and that's their entertainment for the night.)

Another Jordanian thing (although it's also a Middle Eastern thing) is a shawerma. I've mentioned it before but man, they're good! It's basically a pita rolled up with (either) pickles or tomatoes, a sauce and meat (either chicken or lamb/beef combo). The Lebanese/Israeli way of having it is also by shoving french fries in it too. I always get weird looks when I ask them to put it in my shawerma. It's good!

So there are two places near our apartment. The one we like the most is called A'lia. It's yummy! Here's a pic of their shawerma: 

And my handsome hubby eating it. :D

However tasty our local one may be, our favorite is still (and with good reason) Reems Shawerma on 2nd circle. It's famous (like..seriously everyone asks if you've been there) and it's open 24/7. Super tasty and simple and there's always a line. I finally got a pic when we were there during the day (around 3 pm mind you) and we still had to wait like 20 minutes to get our food. 

The sign!

And what Reem's looks like. It's TINY. As in just a place to order and receive the food and then you eat it around the corner or wherever. 

In addition to yummy real food, they have something here called Fruit Salad which is AMAZING. Also located at second circle (in fact when we went here that night we stopped by Reems beforehand for dinner and this was dessert)

When we got there we found that we had run into the couples from our group and so we joined them for some dessert. It's a good thing we did. Even with 4 of us it was hard to finish this one dish: 

It was SO good!!! Nutella, fruit of all kinds and a dessert custard/ice cream/weird thing on the bottom. 

We shared it with the Garvins. I promise I don't promise we don't always hang out with only them, they just happened to be the ones we got food with. :D (and London is HIGHLY) photogenic. :D

So every Sunday I go with Drew and the wives to a French Catholic orphanage. While there Drew, LB (Dil's wife) and Leanne work with the younger kids. Joy, Carrie, Bristyl, Eryn and I all tutor some of the older girls in English. 

I originally didn't go but they needed someone to speak arabic and I really wanted an opportunity like this so we went. I love it! It's so funny trying to explain english grammar...in arabic by explaining what part of arabic grammar it is. I have a much greater appreciation for Dil now. I tutor Dima in grammar and Ghazal in English pronunciation and reading. 

I got a cool picture of Drew playing with the kids. :) They're great. 

Another fun thing is that Drew is learning to cook things!!! He's actually really good at making pizza and decided to try and make it here. We were even able to find beef pepperoni! I can have pepperoni again! Yay!!! 

Since Drew's gotten so good at it, he sells it to the students sometimes for lunch as a hobby. He loves making pizza and I'm not complaining when he makes lunch/dinner. 

We've also learned how to make tortillas and that's been a super yummy experiment where we can eat quesadillas again!

Yay for weird food cravings when you're abroad!!!! (Mexican food and orange soda...so WEIRD)

So Jordan's similar to Jerusalem in the sense that there are a TON of cats everywhere. Dogs aren't allowed in people's houses because they're considered unclean in Islam (i.e. if you have a dog in your house you can't pray and that causes issues) however, cats are fine. But the thing is that here they don't really spay or neuter pets and so there's quite a large feral cat population. It's not uncommon to find one jump out of the dumpster when you go to put in trash. 

Well one day my friend Christina (actually one of the ones in the picture up there) found a kitten in the middle of the road. He was tiny and actually didn't run away when she went to pick him up/pet him. So she decided to take him home and now we have Bissa! Our little adopted kitty that's going to go to Ustaath Faadi's house when we leave. He's super fun to play with and is a nice kitty. 

So one thing I love about the fall here is that there are olive trees everywhere! I took this beautiful picture while waiting for the bus to return to Amman from when I went to district conference. How gorgeous!!!! And olive oil is great. Even if I still won't eat olives or pickles. Blech (But mom I now eat tomatoes!!!) 

So that's some random Jordan-ness in a nutshell. I'll post more when Drew and I get back. We leave for the big trip to Petra, Wadi Rum, and Aqaba tomorrow and I'm super excited!!!!!

Jerash, District Conference and Wadi Mujib

*note* This is a super long post

So...for my birthday weekend I decided to do something fun. The ministry of tourism was having two free days at all national monuments for those who are staying here longer term (i.e. students like me!) and for Jordanians. They just so happened to occur on the day before my birthday and on my birthday. My birthday was on a friday this year so since that's the sabbath here, I knew that I couldn't really do anything other than district conference and then there was a BYU alumni thing as well. So after class on thursday, Drew, Sarah, Kyle, Bristyl and London all joined me to head to Jerash. 

I've been there once before (with the Jerusalem Center) but it was one of my favorite places and I really wanted Drew to see it and see it with him. Since we wanted to do it on the cheap we took a bus up there. 

I got a great shot of Drew and Sarah behind me on the bus (I was sitting next to the window in case I got a bit carsick...yay long rides!)

But finally we got to Jerash and it was just as awesome as I remember!

I love taking pictures of the Garvins. They're the best and London is super cute. 

So they have a big ampitheatre where a guy plays the bagpipes...so Roman I know. 

After that I got to explore a part that was closed off the last time I was at Jerash. It was neat to see the temple and get an awesome shot of the forum. 

So Drew was super sneaky with my birthday present. He knew that I had seen a necklace in the mall near our house and I had mentioned it like once or twice. When we were at Jerash, I put on sunscreen and I took off my necklace. When he gave it back to me he had switched out my pendant for the one that I had wanted. It was so sneaky! I was super surprised and happy. I also got a pretty silver key necklace as well. My hubby did a great job.

Oh man was it hot though. I was glad I had told Drew to bring so many water bottles with him when we were meeting up since we were the only ones who had more than a water bottle and it was HOT. But gorgeous and totally worth the trip. Especially since there and back only cost a total of 5 JD. Not bad for a half-day trip. 

We got home and decided to celebrate my birthday by going to Mecca mall and seeing what was there. We had heard that they had really good food options and so we went to check it out. It was funny because we ended up eating at pizza hut because it was the only sit down restaurant with room. It was actually super nice and definitely filled a craving. 

The next day was district conference. It was pretty neat because it was the first time that a conference has been entirely held in arabic. It was nice and afterwards we all ate. I got some pictures of the group and it was neat to be able to visit the Irbid branch. 

The Andersons and Sister Youngberg. The Andersons are hilarious and I've love working with them on various things. (Sister Anderson L, Sister Youngberg M, Brother Anderson)

That night was a BYU alumni dinner at a restaurant called The Vintage near the 2nd circle. It was AMAZING. And it was really neat to get to talk to the different alumni about their experiences at BYU. At my table I had the daughter of the guy in charge of elections here in Jordan and a couple who both went to school in the US and met in Jordan and got married. (She went to BYU he went to Arizona). 

The food was so good. I didn't even get pictures of half of the food. They brought out 3 different types of salad, a pasta course, a meat course, one with chicken, one with shrimp and one other one, and then a cheese course thing? And that was just the appetizer round. We were all relatively stuffed after this. Drew actually left at that point because we were babysitting for another couple so that they could go to dinner with Arab friends. Drew wanted me to stay and talk to them some more so I did. And then they brought out this for dinner:

Overall, a super fun experience and a much nicer birthday dinner than Drew and I had planned/or could have afforded!

The next day we went to Wadi Mujib. Oh man...it was amazing!!!!

Look!

Drew was super excited for this trip. :)

And for good reason. The hike is entirely in the river and you have to climb UP a series of waterfalls and rapids and it ends in a large waterfall. :)

It was funny to see Drew's reaction since he had never seen sandstone like this before and he was just awed by the rocks. 

The waterfall!!! It was so nice!

So overall, an awesome and so far the best birthday weekend. :) A definite plus and now Drew can't stop talking about Wadi Mujib. I think that if we ever return to Jordan (and it's warm) that we'll be returning. Super fun!