holy shit, i am here

I knew I was in Jordan when I woke up at 4 am to a prayer call. I think I must be sleeping within 5 feet of a mosque. Looks like I will be having early mornings until I get used to sleeping through the meuzzin.

Jordan. Jordan! It's pretty hot here. Also, it's a little strange to be surrounded by Arabic and not know more than around 10 (useless) words, like hello, goodbye, ok, no, me too, thank you and Brazil. I may have to expand the vocab. I brought my Arabic book with me, and I am hoping I can teach myself at least up to the second year level at Northwestern. On the other hand, thanks to British imperialism, most Jordanians speak some level of English. The more wealthy people go to school abroad. So I am not completely out of my league...but I wouldn't mind not being such a gringo.

By the way, they still use real stamps in your passport here. Also, since it's a monarchy, all the money has these pictures of stately kings. The thing is, there have only been 3 kings of Jordan, so I don't know what they do for the rest of the bills - who do you put on the 100-dinar bill if the three kings are already taken? I may never know because I am pretty cheap, so the chances of me having a 100 are pretty low. The exchange rate is 1USD=1.4JD.

I'm so hungry...it's 6.22 am. That prayer call is a bitch.