Scavenger Hunt in Amman=Recipe For Disaster

As an exercise to get to know Amman and learn how to get around, we were forced to participate in a city-wide scavenger hunt today. FYI: Amman is a city of more than 3 million people, about half the population of Jordan... And in my four short days here, this fact is obvious. I forced myself to feel optimistic only to be disappointed. There were teams of 3 American students and 1 Jordanian student from the university. I was in a group with a freshman who didn't really seem to know much about how to complete our tasks, nor was she concerned with efficiency or timeliness. I was apparently alone in my frustration since the others in my group were fine with letting her take the reigns. We also had to take photos of our tasks and create a slideshow to present to everyone. This was intolerable, since there were almost 30 groups. It could have been really fun, I just got unlucky so it was all-around very aggravating and that's all I have to say about it. 

Also, this morning my roommate and I decided to venture out for the first time sans the usual 8-71 person entourage. I was tragically mistaken when I thought that perhaps we would attract less attention than usual, being two quiet girls rather than 10 or 71 loud and obnoxious Americans. Wrong wrong wrong wrong. It was unbelievable. Some men called out or spoke to us, like the old fat man with brown teeth who said "hellloooo" in what I'm sure was his most provocative attempt at an American accent. 

Tonight we went to a cafe and smoked hookah. Here they call it "hubbly bubbly", which sounds way better than hookah. It was really fun and I think I have a solid group of friends forming. I have met some really quality people so far. Obviously hubbly bubbly won't become a habit, but you can't help yourself when in every window you walk by, you see people sitting around, drinking coffee and smoking with friends looking relaxed as can be. It's also surprisingly cheap. 

Observations: 

-Yesterday I saw people smoking in the Ministry of Health when I went to get my blood test. God bless this country... And help my lungs.

-I am always cold. We have not figured out the thermostat in our hotel room.

-We went to the University of Jordan yesterday for orientation stuff and a tour... We were heckled a little by the greasy Jordanian (male) college students. I can't wait to be on campus there every day...

-I have not figured out how to put more minutes on my phone. Problem.

-I ate more delicious food today. No one will recognize me when I get home because I will be morbidly obese. 

-The single greatest risk to my life in this city is traffic. If I die here, it will be at the hand of an irate taxi driver. Traffic laws are nonexistent or completely ignored. Today I saw a turn signal for the first time here... And we have been driving around A LOT in the last 4 days.

-Turkish coffee seems to beckon me at the most inopportune times.

-Our Arabic placement test is tomorrow... I'm expecting to be placed in Intermediate 1.