anyone been there?

I got invited by school into an immersion program. I am going to be studying at Yarmouk University for 5 weeks. Its a huge campus in northern Jordan with about thirty thousand students.

Schools footing the bill for everything except food and anything I want to buy, which they say should be around 750$ for 5 wks.

Im pretty damn excited to go. One of my minors is in Middle Eastern studies and I have taken two semesters of the arabic language.

congrats man. sounds like it should be an amazing time

be careful man jordan isn't the type of place to go fuckin around and being dumb not sayin that you will becuase i don't know you but your going to place were the bad guys like to hang out, get any info you can from the state department they should give you a list of areas to avoid. other than enjoiy man

that sounds badass man. Good luck over there!

bring your ak

Stay out of the clubs.

Jordan isnt like the rest of the middle east, its probably the safest place to go. Id never do anythign delibrately disrespectful to the people. The culture interests me so im going to do my best to blend in while im there.

Im real excited to go, its a pretty good thing to have on a resume in the future.

Have fun, but watch your back. One of our missions out there when i deploy is to watch the Jordanian and Syrian borders for insurgents bring guns and IED's in country. Defiantly get a briefing from the state department before you go, I was given a very interesting intel brief before I came back to the states last week. I cant go into details, but there are people there that want to hurt Americans there

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Amman_bombings

Have fun and be safe!!

not going to Amman anyway, and "Among the dead were thirty-six Jordanians, mostly from a Muslim wedding, including the fathers of both the bride and groom. The rest were six Iraqis, five Palestinians, four Americans, two Arab-Israelis,[6] two Bahrainis, three Chinese delegates of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), one Saudi, and one Indonesian citizen."

There are bombings in Spain, Italy, Britain (etc) and other parts of the world as well.

Swin, Ive read that The north where Im heading is alot safer. The southern near iraq is where I read that you need to be extra cautious. Seems like that corresponds well with what youre saying.

officially headin over there in 3 wks. found out today. pretty damn excited

Be safe man and have a blast

but not literally

ahaha that was pretty funny.

i have a friend that went over in december and loved it. went to the same place Im going. He said the people were extremely nice and friendly. Ill try and steal some of his pictures and post them up. the place looks really cool

Be sure to wave as you fly over the United Kingdom.

Hello from jordan.

Ive been here for almost a month. Its pretty nice where I am staying. I am in Irbid, studying at Yarmouk University. Its an intensive program for students learning arabic as a foreign language. We take five, one our classes a day. Its fucking tough. I havent taken arabic in over a year and the language is real difficult.

Im mentally drained from being here. Im ready to be back in america in about 12 days. We do the 5 hours of class thing 5 days a week, and we have to speak arabic everywhere so its like we never leave class. Its hard.

The area is fascinating though. If anyone ever gets a chance to travel to the middle east I highly suggest that you do. The people are very nice. Beyond nice even. Americans/europeans stick out from the rest of the people so people are always saying hello and welcoming us to Jordan. women will get stared at, commented at, but the same happens everywhere.

Its really interesting being here during some of the recent news thats been going on. (Israel - Palestine stuff) Where I am has a large Palestinian population. I think theres actually more palestinians where I am than Jordanians. We get the other perspective of the news in teh area, its pretty interesting. It has even made some people change their mind about Israel - Palestine.

Enjoying myself for the most part though. I have had burger king, pizza hut, hardys, mcdonalds and Fudruckers when ive needed a taste of homebut the local food is pretty good too.

I was just wondering where have you been, I haven't heard from you in awhile. Glad to see you are doing well over there.

Feeling better I see?

yeah i was really fucking sick for a few days. new bacterias/diet/climate. Ended up in the hospital one night.

its real damn hot here some days. There are days at a time where I dont even see clouds. Id be terrified if it rained here. Eerything is made out of stone and its slippery as hell. The cars here are pretty beat up and the raods are slippery from oil too. Almost like a slick track. They drive like crazy people here too. Its the biggest danger here in Jordan.

Ive been to Petra. It was pretty nice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petra

We did a bedouin camp site one night. We had a campsite setup in the middle of fucking nowhere. We ate, dsanced and sang with the locals. They did a traditional wedding for us too. It was alot of fun. It was a little more organized that I thought it would be though. The view was amazing there, sunset and sunrise too
http://www.jordan-travel.jo/Jabal_Rum_Camp

We visited Aqaba. Its a southern city that borders the red sea. From my hotel you could see Egypt, Saudi Arabia and ISrael. It was amazing. Our hotel was 50 yards from the red sea. We snorkled there and just relaxed. Aqaba is like their miami i guess. sorta, ish. Theyre really building it up to promote tourism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqaba
hotel
http://www.aqaba-hotels.com/

We visited some ruins sites.

Umm Qais
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umm_Qais
Jerash
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerash

Dead sea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea

Mount Nebo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Nebo_%28Jordan%29

Aljun Castle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajlun_Castle

Madaba
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madaba


Ive only been to the capitol once but I am heading htere this weekend. Ive taken alot of pictures but my laptop is dead at the moment. Ill get some up when i get back to the states.