Christmas in J-Town

Merry Christmas to all from Amman! If anyone had told me last year this time that I'd be spending my next Christmas in a Muslim country, I'd have said they were crazy...

So I woke up yesterday morning at 5am to sun-up prayer calls, followed a little later by a call from Ahmed at the front desk wishing "Mr. Geoff" a Merry Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, my Jordanian contact, Malia Asfour invited me to Christmas dinner at her parent's house. Malia's family was extremely generous, I don't think I could have eaten much more than I did. Oddly enough, Malia and her two sisters are all married to Americans, naturally we had a nice little discussion about the NFL playoff picture. Dinner was served around 2:30pm, followed by a little dessert, then a trip downtown to pick up pirated DVDs. Malia's husband, Harry, had a list of about 75 DVDs to pick up, comprised of everything from Disney movies to the latest movies in the theaters. For all of 1 JD a piece, you can get pretty much any DVD your heart desires, most of which are good quality.

Following our trip downtown, I went back to the hotel and took a nap before meeting up with my buddy John. After stopping by the liquor store, we went over to our friend Alex's apartment. Alex hosted a little Christmas party of 10-15 people. Shortly after arriving I was introduced to a guy from Detroit who just so happens to be a junior at Miami!

Otherwise, everything else is going well. Classes are pretty much review, at least the first couple weeks will be. John and I are still looking for apartments on the side. We've started looking outside the Sports City area (near Qasid), in a district called Abdoun. This is the most upscale, westernized part of town. We've be dealing with this friendly South African real estate agent who is constantly joking about how Johannesburg is such a craphole. Anyways, hopefully John and I can settle on something this weekend.