happy new year y'all!! i spent new years eve in nearby wadi musa. treated myself to ice cream at the movenpick. chocolate chocolate chip. i know... sounds like a ragin new years right? the interesting thing about my night is how tight security was. the movenpick is a luxury hotel right next door to petra, and is in the tourist part of town. the street was blocked by the police about a block up so that cars could not get to the hotels. then after we walked to the hotel we had to go through a sort of check point where we told the police why we were there and where we were from. then we had to have our bags searched and go through a metal detector. i think the extra security was there to protect the new years eve party that they were having. i peeked in on the party before leaving and it looked to me like a crown of 50+ year old britons bumpin it to hip hop. pity i had to miss it. and my rockin party consisted of ice cream and burning cds. again, excitement off the charts. the cab ride home also brought tons of police cars out patroling. high security night. and no ball drop. but far and away better than new year's last year.
i suppose the only other news is what i did for christmas. i went to amman 2 days before christmas. my friend and i left at about six am. when we got on the bus, to our surprise, it was full of foreigners. i think only two or three jordanians were riding with us. my friend thought she would be all sly and tell me in arabic about how she thought the guy sitting in front of us was cute. she assumed they didn't speak arabic because they were british and quite obviously travelling. then, not more than five minutes later, he turned to a jordanian and started speaking arabic. and quite frankly it was better than ours. at least the embarrassment wasnt mine. we helped them get to where they needed in the city by bus rather than paying a ton for a cab (and to give you and idea of what a lot is in a city cab here is - 3 or more jd. how on earth am i gonna pay for cabs at home?) then we went our separate ways. i met up with a couple volunteers that i hadnt seen since swearing in and we went cafe hopping and sort of caught up with each other. my big news to give was that a man from my village has been kidnapped in iraq. he was working there. he has two wives and thirteen kids here in town, and one wife and son in iraq. the kidnappers demanded the release of the woman who was the unsuccessful bomber in amman. beyond that, i dont have any news about him. the western media hasnt been covering it.
christmas eve, i went to the peace corps christmas party at the country director's house. my first real taste of christmas here. complete with small children singing christmas carols. a six year old american irl told me boys are stupid and she hates them. i told her that she was going to love jordan. and my christmas present? a flu shot! how exciting. i have always wanted one of those. christmas day was mostly spent on various busses. with a stop at safeway. did i mention there are safeways in the big cities here? kind of like a temporary step into america. very surreal. i almost died the first time i saw one. and leaving my friends was sad. it is always so exciting to see people, and then to leave is kind of a let down. especially when you have to ride for hours through the desert on a bus to do it. but looking forward to the next one kind of keeps you going.
the weather is still dry. and since jordan has no water to speak of, all the farmers around me are starting to get really anxious. they havent had this dry a winter since the seventies, apparently.
and now, i feel that i am out of things to say. so since i spend a lot of my free time making lists of various things, i will give you a taste of the craziness:
Things i miss:
- the daily show
- daily showers
- driving
- spicy food

things i dont miss:
- hangovers
- people who support bush

and with that, ive gotta split. hope something interesting pops up soon so i can let you all know about it. here's to the big jordanian guy next to me belting out my heart will go on (the song from titanic, they freakin love it here!) hope your new year's rocked.