Beirut, Lebanon

Not long after my last post, I decided to spend 3 days in Beirut, Lebanon with a some good friends of mine - Becky and Ekkardt. They lived there five years, while Ekkardt was studying. So I bought my plane tickets on Wednesday, and got on a plane on Thursday morning.

Becky and I flew out together, but since she had to work, I had the afternoon to wander around on my own for a bit. I set off with a map in my bag, in case I got really turned around, and no plans for where I would go. After a while, I ended up at American University of Beirut (AUB). I had considered AUB in passing when I was looking at colleges, but never really thought about it much. I wandered around the campus for a couple hours, and it was beautiful. Hands down, it is one of my favorite campuses yet. On the Mediterranean coast, the campus is filled with trees and flowers and winding paths. It's quiet, even though it's in the city. I could've spent the rest of my weekend there. But instead, I walked down to the Corniche, kind of like a boardwalk, on the coast and enjoyed the smell of the sea. It began to look like it would rain, so I made my way back to where we were staying, sat on the balcony with a cup of tea and enjoyed the downpour while waiting for Becky to finish up with work. Afterwards, Becky and I went out for dinner (at a small Lebanese restaurant), walked by the sea, then turned in for an early night. Ekkardt's flight was delayed, so he didn't get in until after midnight.

On Friday morning, we slept in, talked to former teachers of Ekkardt's, then headed off for coffee and croissants. After breakfast, we walked downtown, passing shelled out buildings, beautiful schools with elaborate rose gardens, stopped to talk to some adorable kindergarten-aged girls in a mixture of French and Arabic, making our way towards St. George's Cathedral. We found out that it was actually St. George's day, celebrating St. George's defeat of the dragon. We stopped first at an orthodox church, where we got a tour through the church, learning about recent excavations and the different levels of previous churches underneath the current one. While most of the interior paintings had been restored, you could still see bullet holes in one of the panels, left over from the civil war. From there, we headed towards the Place des Martyrs, a former gathering place for large demonstrations. The most famous demonstration there was held on the 1 month anniversary of Hariri's murder (the former prime minister), when over a million people came out to protest the presence of Syrian troops in Lebanon. There's a big statue in the middle which still stands, filled with bullet holes. We then went to look at some ruins next to a big parking lot, and afterwards saw Hariri's grave. Next to the memorial site is the Mohammed al-Amin mosque, where Hariri is buried. Becky and I were given garments to cover up, and we went in. The paintings on the ceiling were beautiful, and the chandeliers were massive, in true Arab style. This was the first time I had ever been inside a mosque. Afterwards, we stopped at St. George's Cathedral, passed by the Senate building, the Roman baths, and began to make our way back towards Hamra, where we were staying. At one point, I pulled out my camera to take a picture of what used to be the Four Seasons, now a shelled-out building. You can still see bullet holes and where grenades hit. All of a sudden, this guard crosses the street, yelling at me in Arabic about how I'm not allowed to take pictures. It turns out that we had just entered a really private residential neighborhood, home of a lot of very wealthy and influential people. There were guards posted every 100 yards. After some conversation and joking around in Arabic, we promised not to take any more pictures there, and were allowed to walk through the area. We stopped and chatted with all the guards, who would then smile and welcome us, promising to help us with anything we needed. We walked past the former Four Seasons, a stark contrast to the thriving Inter Continental right next to it, then past the memorial where Hariri had been killed. You could still see the impact of the bomb on the building next to it, which had been left as-is since Hariri's death. We passed the Yacht Club, the Hard Rock Cafe, and groups of old men huddled over games of backgammon before we stopped to enjoy the sunshine on the Corniche for a bit. After a late lunch, we walked back towards Hamra, stopping at the building that Becky and Ekkardt used to live in, now luxury apartments. We hung out for a while, then headed out for a really late dinner at a Chinese restaurant.

On Saturday, we got up a little earlier, stopped by a grocery store, then went out to the Pigeon Rocks for a picnic breakfast. We had donuts, croissants, and fresh strawberries. The view was beautiful! The rocks themselves are really cool - they're large arches that you can take a boat through, and apparently one of the only natural features of Beirut. After breakfast, we walked back to the Corniche for some Starbucks, then grabbed a serviis to Ashrafiyya, the Christian quarter. We walked through an open-air mall for some shoe shopping, played with the new iPad, then walked down to see a church we had passed. You walked in through a row a trees, surrounded by grave sites and monuments dating back hundreds of years. We then took a taxi back to Hamra, I packed my things, then got in a taxi back to the airport.

Though it was a packed weekend, I absolutely loved it. The city is so different than Amman - I could walk around and blend in. There are loads of foreigners there, so I didn't stick out like I do here. I could just walk around the city. I miss that. The Arabic was also a lot easier for me to understand, maybe because I took French for so long. I had several really good conversations with locals, completely in Arabic, and understood what was going on, which was really encouraging for me. I could definitely live there.

A lot also changed over these three days. First of all, I received a phone call right before I got on the plane Thursday morning from the choir, asking if I would go to Germany with them, and that I would have to decide by Saturday. I also found out that morning that Aisling, my older sister, was taking an internship here in Amman and would be moving out for the summer. With my original orientation dates being in the middle of June, I was upset, because I'd miss out on being here with her. So on Friday, I called up UNCG, got my orientation dates moved to August, and decided to go to Germany. This obviously changed all my summer plans. I was supposed to leave on my birthday, but am now staying here. I leave in 2 weeks for a 10 day trip to Germany for the Musica Sacra International Festival, and am now working really hard to memorize all this music in Arabic.

Coming up: another long, detailed post on the epic 3 day hiking trip through Wadi Hissa. You can also see my pictures from Beirut here

Spring Break!

Another year, another break. With just 5 weeks left of Kelsey before I graduate (!), I'm trying to make the most of every moment. My break this year was quite different than last year - no near-death experiences, no painful 5 hour treks through the desert on camels, no laying out by the Dead Sea, watching the sun set. Probably the biggest difference was that my mother wasn't here, but I was determined to have a wonderful break nonetheless.

We had our big Easter service on Saturday night (the usual church service), after which I went home with my second family, the Schupp's, for dinner and to stay over. We would be getting up at 5:30 am to go to the semi-sunrise service, held at the Baptism site at the Jordan River. The service itself was really good. It was quieter, and the weather was beautiful, and we got to hear testimonies and see 9 people get baptized. Afterwards, we sat down as a group for a big brunch - enjoyed hanging out, good food, and some fun music. I went back to the Schupp's to watch Duke's final four game. We ate even more food, played some intense Dutch Blitz, and I learned how to play backgammon. More friends came over later in the evening, we watched the Princess Bride, then went home.

On Monday night, I went back to the Schupp's - I decided that it was totally worth getting up at 4 am to watch Duke play for the NCAA Championship. It was such a good game! We had Swedish pancakes afterwards. I had a dress rehearsal that night for the concerts, which ended up lasting a good 4 hours. We were really excited about the space - it was in a museum that had just finished being built, and the way the sound bounced around was really cool.

On Wednesday, we started our concert series. We had successfully sold out both Wednesday and Thursday, so the place was packed. Both nights went really well, and it was awesome to see how much everyone loved the music. Our hard work paid off!

After the concert on Thursday, I went to Ruth's for the night - we would be leaving at 5 to get on a bus to the Dead Sea. There, we would be running the 10k. Friends of ours would be joining us for the 10k, as well as some doing the half marathon, and some of the youth doing their first marathons. I was really excited for it. So we got up at 4:45, started hydrating, got picked up at 5, and went to wait to get on the buses. It was ridiculous - no organization at all. There were thousands of people crammed in this small area, and no one really knew what was going on. And it was cold. We had left all our stuff in the car because we didn't want to run with stuff, which meant we had no jackets. We huddled together for warmth until close to 7:30, when we finally got on a bus. There were loads of people though who didn't make it down until after the races had started. Our bus got lost, drove the wrong way up off-ramps, passed our friends running the marathon, but finally got us to the starting line about 10 minutes before it started. The porta-potties were really far away, so we had to find bushes, then barely had any time to stretch before pushing our way to the front so we wouldn't get caught behind thousands of walkers. At this point, I was pretty nervous. I've never done 6 miles before, and I wasn't so sure I'd make it in one piece. But the gun went off, and off we went. I went as far as I could before switching to 3 minutes running, 1 minute walking, then stuck with that until the 6k marker, when my legs started cramping up. I had to take a couple extra minutes of walk time, then got back into my swing, running the last 1/2k to the finish line with a friend. I beat my goal of 1:30, finishing in 1:12. In my Vibrams. Awesome! We stayed for a while, watching friends cross the finish line, celebrating with them when the youth finished the marathon. We drove back, stopping at McDonald's for burgers and fries (we needed salt...), then I rushed home, having only 45 minutes until I had to be at the museum for the kids' concert. I was tired, sore, and a bit sun-burnt, but I got there in one piece. The concert went really well, the kids all seemed to love it.

Classes started up again that Saturday. It was a little rough. My legs were really sore. On Sunday night, we chaperoned a swing dance party for the youth. We got to wear fun dresses (I wore my yellow one from the Valentine's banquet!) and really enjoyed seeing all these kids dancing. We got to dance some as well, I got thrown and flipped, and it was awesome. I love swing dancing.

This week was interesting. I got to spend time with friends, and school seemed much easier. I got to teach our teacher how to make apple pie from scratch, went to a rehearsal for a wedding that some of the choir is singing in, and had a wonderful, home-cooked meal with some other people from Kelsey. My first roommate, Christina, moved back to the States this week. We had a dinner for her, and I got to spend some time with her on Thursday. She's excited about it though. It reminded me that my time here is running out.

I was originally going to be in Lebanon this weekend, but things got moved around, so I'm not sure when I'll actually be going. Hopefully soon. In other news, my cousin Liv and her husband Rich had their baby girl, Summer, this past week - congrats!!!

Coming up: hopefully, a quiet week. Choir starts back up, we'll be preparing for our next concert at the end of May. My younger sister turns 18 in a week. BIG wadi trip in 2 weeks, it's a 3 day hike. I'm excited!

Crossing the finish line for the 10K

At the kids' concert

with Maya, another alto

Pictures from the Wadis

Under one of the waterfalls in Wadi Manshala (Jeff, me, Julia, Ruth, and Janelle)

The view out to the Dead Sea

The oleanders smelled beautiful!

Hiking straight up a pretty steep mountain side

Playing around on rock faces

Ruth and I, before the rain set in

A brief moment of clear at the campsite

The clouds roll in

Wadi Dana, pre-storm

Janelle, Ruth, and I at Dana

*Please note: most of these pictures and a whole lot more are on my facebook, because there are sooo many, it's too difficult to post all the good ones here. If you're not on facebook and still want to see them, let me know, and I'll email you a link.

Cloud 9

What a crazy month! March has flown by, filled with school, choir, visiting friends... First of all, my Dozan concert was more like a guest performance. We sang traditional Arab pieces for about 5/6 minutes, then sat and enjoyed listening to an hour's worth more of traditional music. It was really cool.

We started having sight reading classes on Fridays, thanks to the generosity of one of the guys from Dozan. We've been learning about the circle of 5ths, how to figure out what the key signature means, all sorts of cool stuff! We also had auditions for places on the Germany trip in May, but unfortunately, I didn't make it. So no Germany for me. However, it does mean that I get an extra 10 days in Jordan. Our Easter concerts are next week, so the past couple weeks have been packed with rehearsals. We got to rehearse with the orchestra last week - they sounded awesome! I love singing with an orchestra.

Now for the news you've been waiting for - I have made my final college decision. It was a tough one. I will be attending University of North Carolina in Greensboro (UNCG) next fall. It's about an hour's drive from my parents (this made my mother very happy). As of now, I'm undeclared, but I intend to study International Relations, Middle Eastern Studies, and Arabic. We'll see how that goes. In the meantime, I get to work on housing options and meal plans, which is fairly interesting. While I'm sad to be leaving Jordan, getting all of this college stuff ready is making me pretty excited for the next chapter in my life.

Last weekend, a whole bunch of us from church went to Wadi Dana for the weekend. I was looking forward to this trip for weeks - after a stressful month of school and choir and college stuff, I really needed to get out of the city. If you remember, Julia, Bethany, and I went to Wadi Dana at the end of Ramadan. It's also where the really cool photo at the top of my blog is from. We would be staying 3 days, 2 nights, and were planning on doing some really cool day hikes while we were down there. Janelle and I rented a car for 4 days, stuffed it full of food and stuff, and drove down with a few other people early Friday morning. It was a little cooler down there, but when we arrived, it was beautiful and green. We took our stuff down to the tents and got ready for a short afternoon hike near the camp. We got a little over half way to the top of the mountain when we turned around to see huge storm clouds rolling in over the top of the mountain, moving swiftly towards the camp site. We were protected by the side of the mountain at that point, and it wasn't raining yet, so we decided to keep going. After maybe 10 minutes, it started raining. We sat under a overhanging rock for a while to wait it out, and after another 10 minutes or so, it stopped raining. In true Patterson style, we kept going. Well, we got to the top of the mountain, and lo and behold, it started raining again. We were inside the cloud at this point, could barely see 10 feet in front of us. And it wasn't like little drops of rain or anything, it started pouring. We scrambled to find shelter under bushes and rocks, which were few at the top. We finally found some drier places, and waited out the rain. It stopped less than an hour later, and we set off to finish our hike, soaked. We came across a bunch of youth towards the end playing around on some slick rock faces and decided that it looked like too much fun. We joined them, testing out our cool shoes. (I was wearing my Vibrams the whole time...) It started raining again, so we ran back to camp, put on dry shoes and socks, and huddled around the campfire to warm up. There we roasted marshmallows, and later grilled vegetables and rosemary thyme chicken for dinner. Janelle prepared the chicken - it was delicious! There were brief periods of time without rain, but even then, there was still incredibly thick fog. We were dry for the most part overnight, but when we got up the next morning, it was raining. It continued to rain for the rest of the morning. Ruth, Janelle, and I went on another short walk near the campsite after breakfast, started out dryish, but then it began to pour again, so we were soaked by the time we got back. We decided that it was not worth the money we'd have to pay to stay another night in the cold and rain, so after lunch, we packed up and headed back to the city. There was crazy fog on the drive back - I was driving, and I couldn't see 10 feet in front of me. Of course, being Jordan, the roads aren't well painted, so I couldn't really tell where my lane ended. There were a few incidents with trucks driving in my lane, but they moved in time, and we got through it safely. I have never seen fog like that in this country. It was ridiculous. When we got back, we locked ourselves in the house, made Thai food for dinner, curled up and watched the 6 hour Pride and Prejudice (thank you, BBC) with cups of tea and chocolate chip cookies. The perfect way to end the evening.

Since we didn't get to do any of our fun day hikes at Dana, we decided to do a big day hike on Sunday. Janelle is the super-duper wadi person. She has done this wadi (Wadi Manshala, near the Dead Sea) like 8 times by now, and it's usually a two day hike, but we decided just to do 7/8 hours of it. So Ruth, Janelle, Julia, Jeff, and myself piled in the car early Sunday morning, drove down, and hiked out. This was supposed to be a moderate/difficult hike, so I was a little apprehensive about it, but I decided to wear my Vibrams anyways to see how they'd do. And yes, I will shamelessly plug Vibram FiveFingers for pretty much the rest of my life. I absolutely love them. Anyways, we hiked past waterfalls, climbed over crazy rocks, scrambled up steep sides of the mountain. We had lunch on the edge of cliff, looking over the Dead Sea, seeing clear across to the other side. We got to this clear pool of water, which I bouldered around, hiked further up and further in to see palm ravines, beautiful oleander bushes, and more green than I thought possible in this country. It was absolutely beautiful. The hike itself was challenging, but so rewarding. I had too much fun with my Vibrams, climbing all over things that I probably should not have tried, but hey, it was an adventure. We got back to the car around 6, after watching the sun set over the Dead Sea (beautiful!) and drove back to the city, tired but rewarded.

I sadly returned the rental car on Monday. I love driving. It can be pretty scary in this country, but I love it nonetheless. That weekend was just what I needed - it was a chance to recharge, to take a step back and remember why I'm here. This week itself was much less stressful. I actually understood what was going on in all of my classes. I have this crazy grammar class that exists solely to frustrate me, but I got the better of it this week, which was so encouraging. I had also pretty much decided about colleges, but was waiting to hear back from USC until I confirmed anything. I got that out of the way on Wednesday, enjoyed some great times with friends on Thursday, which was also the beginning of my Spring break. I am so excited to have this next week off. I was originally planning on traveling, but my concerts take up almost the entire break. So I will be staying in the city for the most part.

Coming up: Sunrise Easter service tomorrow at the Jordan River, Duke's Final Four game, Easter concerts, and the week after, I'm planning on going to Lebanon for a long weekend. Oh, and I'll be running a 10k at the Dead Sea (in my Vibrams, of course!) this Friday. That'll be interesting...

A Whirlwind of Activity

The Valentine's Banquet (with Ruth)

only my new favorite dress ever. (with Janelle)

Alright. So I thought I'd start off with some fun pictures from the Valentine's banquet, which was a huge success. We served about 45 people, the kids were great, and we all enjoyed dressing up. It was 50's themed - most of the girls went more for the poodle skirt or Pink Ladies look, I simply looked like a housewife. Works for me! I found the dress last minute in a little shop near my apartment, and fell in love with it.

Earlier that week, we had our house-warming party. I invited about 25 people, expecting maybe 2/3 of them to actually come. I was wrong. All but 3 people showed up, so we had a very full house. I made lasagna (a Pioneer Woman recipe, slightly altered), which was a huge hit, and loved being able to host a party. It was great to have people over, and to show off my new apartment. The Superbowl was the next evening, and was also so much fun. A whole bunch of us were at a friend's house, with loads of junk food, watching the game projected on the wall. Janelle is a huge Colts fan, and sadly watched as the Colts lost. Now, I'm not an avid Saints fan or anything, but Reggie Bush plays for them, and I love USC players. Should one eventually end up with Dallas, however, I won't root for them. That's a little much. And while I'm on the subject of football, I got some devastating news this past week - the Eagles let Brian Westbrook go. Westbrook is one of my all-time favorite players. I absolutely love him. So when I saw this, I just about cried. All I can say is that as long as he stays away from Dallas, I will root for whatever team he plays for, should he decide to continue playing.

Ok. Outside of school, loads of homework, and a lot of choir rehearsals, I've slowed down my weeks considerably. I found that I was way too busy, and I wasn't handling it all that well. So I kept my schedule relatively free, and went on a day-by-day basis again. I spent time with some old friends, hanging out and cooking and talking, and had a lot more quiet time.

A little over a week ago, 5 of us rented a car (that was a debacle. seriously.) and skipped out of town on Saturday to go hiking. I did the wadi last November, but it was a chance to get out and spend some time with friends, as well as an opportunity to try out my vibrams. We left at 730 in the morning, drove down to the Dead Sea, and set off. It was a beautiful day. My shoes were awesome for rock climbing and bouldering. So much so that I went off climbing crazy rocks that my mother would not approve of, and it was so much fun! Last time I got wedged in this crack trying to get up this rock, this time, I did it with ease. I really love my vibrams. You should all try them out. We enjoyed lunch by the waterfall, I had some great one-on-one time with one of the other girls, and then we headed back around noonish. As we approached the end of the hike, we ran into a bunch of goats and some kids on donkeys leading them around. There were also some incredibly adorable baby goats that Janelle and I got to pet. Then the goats chased us. Or maybe the kids were telling them to, I don't know. But it was kind of funny. We drove back to the city, dropped everyone off, and I went off to meet with some other friends before church. It was a wonderful time away.

This week has been crazy in its own right, but in a good way. I got to spend a lot of time with Ruth on Tuesday, hanging out for a bit, staying for dinner and a movie. Another friend of mine celebrated her 25th birthday this week, and I loved being able to celebrate that with her and some other friends. I had 3 choir rehearsals this week - Monday, as usual, Wednesday, a sectional, and last night, in preparation for a concert next Wednesday. We had off of school on Thursday, which was really nice. I also left Thursday afternoon for the youth retreat, getting back last night. The retreat was awesome. The speaker connected really well with the kids, and was really funny, the worship team did an excellent job, and the kids really enjoyed all the activities we planned for them. There were about 80 kids there, and they loved the shirts. I was really nervous about that, but it went really well. It was so much fun seeing my pieces of art everywhere. It was raining the entire weekend, so we were constantly wet, but we didn't let that dampen our spirits. We had a castle activity - there's an ancient castle in Ajloun, where we had a challenge to find leaders, collect puzzle pieces, all while several team members were blind-folded. It was good fun. We also had a photo scavenger hunt and a talent show, in which the leaders all performed a number from the Sound of Music, to the kids' great amusement. We had a game of ultimate frisbee, lots of Dutch Blitz, and finally, packed the kids onto the buses and shipped them back to the city. I was in a van with a couple other leaders and some of the equipment, leaving right after the bus. Except we couldn't start the car. We ended up push-starting the car, which was a funny sight. I got back, unpacked, finally had dry feet for the first time in 3 days, then went off to choir rehearsal. I was exhausted, but managed to make it through. Luckily, I have today and tomorrow to recuperate before going back to school on Tuesday.

In other news, Horton, one of my favorite teachers from high school (she taught the Autistic kids and was the JV coach for lacrosse), had a baby boy this past week. Congrats!!!

Coming up: wadi pictures!!!, my first Dozan concert, and a trip to the Royal Academy of Culinary Arts for free pastries and conversations with the chefs.

New Apartment!

Finally.... Here are some pictures of my new apartment! Lets start on the roof.

...the view...

Now in the apartment, we've got a dining room table!

The formal sitting room

The informal sitting room (also known as the warm room)

When it's cold, we put up farshi to insulate and block off the warm room to keep it nice and toasty

Now, this kitchen is huge. SO much better than the last one. We can fit a whole ton of people in here, and there's even enough room for a table! And there's counter space....

Big perk: a real washing machine!!!! No more filling it with water by hand or draining into the toilet...

My room!!!

I have a desk! And lots of pictures. They make me smile :]

... and I finally have a mirror that isn't hidden inside of my wardrobe.

So that's about it for pictures! Janelle's (my new roommate) room is out my door to the left, and we both have our own bathrooms. I absolutely love the roof access, it's great to sit out there in the sunshine and read a book, or do homework, or just to sit and enjoy the quiet.

New update coming soon. Until then, enjoy the pictures!

I'm....... Moving Out!

OK, so its a been a while. Things on my end have been absolutely crazy. First of all, the Eagles did not win. They lost, again, to all their fans' disappointment. It was a sad night indeed.

As most of you know, I like to paint shirts. A whole lot. It's a hobby of mine. Last summer, I hand painted more than 20 shirts for Aisling's ultimate frisbee team. It was so much fun, though quite time-consuming. This winter, I outdid myself. Before I left Jordan, we had a leaders' meeting about a youth retreat in February, and next thing I knew, I had volunteered to make and bring back all the shirts for the retreat. In the taxi on the way, I was kicking myself. Sure, I love painting shirts, but 85? What was I thinking? But when I got home, and started making designs and buying the shirts, I knew exactly what I had been thinking - that this was gonna be awesome.

So we bought 85 shirts. Black for the leaders, then yellow, teal, purple, and green for the team colors. Then we worked on the design. The company that makes my screen printer (Yudu, the best birthday present ever) makes some cool base designs. We took one of those and added theme words from the retreat to it, then made the screen. We grabbed the paints, my very wise mother made me cover the floor with plastic, and then started painting. After a while, I got into a system, and cranked out all the shirts in a couple days. We then decided that the shirts needed a design on the front as well, so we played around on photoshop for a while, made a new screen, stuffed all the shirts with newspaper, and cranked them out. The sweatshop opened and closed with plenty of time to spare. See more pictures here...

The lease on our house is up in July, so I had to pack up all my things before I left (things would've been thrown out if I hadn't...). I enlisted both Helena and my mother to help out, and got everything packed. I also threw out enough junk to fill a small dumpster. Turns out all sorts of things had accumulated in my room over the 2 years that I lived there.

My mother demonstrated her amazing packing skills once again by fitting all the shirts and my own clothes into 2 duffel bags, both just over 30 lbs each. How she managed to do that, I will never know. With sad hearts, I left to go back for my last semester at Kelsey. I got through security with no problem, got on the plane to JFK, when we were told that the AA terminal at JFK was being evacuated, everyone was being de-planed and re-screened. There was no telling when we would be able to get there. I managed to get to the front of the line to try to get me there in time to make my connection in time, and managed to convince the guy that it was of the utmost importance that I be on the last plane to JFK that evening. So I was. I made it to my connection just in time to board. The flight was long, as always, but we got there and all of bags arrived.

I spent the next week in the house on my own, seeing as I no longer had a roommate. I still hadn't found a new one, and I was starting to look at other options. I registered for my 4th semester classes (!), lead my first small group solo, and took a short trip up to Ajloun to scout out the youth retreat site. On Thursday (the 21st), I heard from my small group co-leader, Janelle, and she told me that her roommate had suddenly moved out, and wanted to know if I was still looking for a roommate, since she now had an opening. We talked details over the weekend, I talked to my landlord about my lease, and by that Monday (the 25th) it was official: I was moving out. I started packing, and by Tuesday night, almost the entire place was packed and ready to go. I started school on that Tuesday as well, but I'm not so sure about what happened in classes, I was a little distracted. After class on Wednesday, I moved all my stuff into Janelle's apartment. Our apartment is huge, compared to my old one at least. I have my own bathroom, you can fit like 10 people in the kitchen, there's roof access, and I even have to take more than 3 steps to get from my bed to my desk (I have a desk!). It is a little farther from school, about a 10 minute walk in the morning instead of a 3 minute walk, but I really love the location. I'll get some pictures of it up soon :]

On the 25th, I also officially became a member of Dozan wa Awtar, a prestigious choir here in Jordan. I originally had wanted to try out for it a year ago, but was thwarted by the mono invasion. I also got to go on the choir retreat to the Dead Sea that weekend. We left early Friday morning, and started off with some hilarious ice-breakers, involving cartwheels, yelling, dancing like various pop artists... We sang a lot, and the music sounded awesome. I can't wait to hear what it sounds like when we know the music! We performed a few pieces for the guests, went out for dinner, and then had some dancing lessons on the grass later at night. I even taught them how to "strip the willow". (For those who don't know, it's a popular reel-like dance in Scotland, a ceilidh thing) We went to bed late, got up early, sang some more, then had group skits. We were split into groups, given a piece of music that we had to learn, and then had to perform as part of a skit. They were ridiculous. We're all a little weird in our own ways, which definitely made things interesting. We left Saturday evening, having made new friends and no longer feeling self-conscious or shy around any of the other members.

Yesterday was a bucket of fun. I got to hang out with Ruth and Janelle over a pot of chili and biscuits made from scratch. This week is also "Wild Scotland" week here in Jordan. I went with some choir friends to the Cultural Center for a night of Scottish Music. It was excellent. Musicians from Scotland were flown in, and worked with some local artists, who learned some of the Scottish pieces, as well as the Scots learning some Arabic pieces. It really made me miss those rolling green hills and that thick, Scottish brogue. Today, we had a "snow" day. There was apparently snow in West Amman, so classes were cancelled. No snow where I live, but hey, I'll take it.

So, coming up: this Saturday, we're having a house-warming party!, baking in a real kitchen, a Valentine's Banquet for the parents at AIC (put on by the youth), more choir rehearsals, and the Superbowl this Sunday!!!! It will be awesome. It starts at 1:30 am. Here comes the all-nighter.