CIEE

Half way through Ramadan, CIEE took all 60 of it’s student and most of it’s employees on an all expenses paid trip to the deserts of Wadi Rum and Petra and the Water town of Aqaba. From September 18-20 I got to live with Bedouins, indigenous desert people, ride a camel, rock-climb, snorkel, and experience all the most famous tourist sites that Jordan has to offer. These sites aren’t just ordinary deserts, Wadi Rum is classified as world heritage site, Petra is one of the seven wonders of the world, and Aqaba on the Red Sea is a crossroads for four Middle Eastern countries: Jordan, I...

I am officially done with my semester at the Jordan University!  For a recap, I took three classes: fosHa, or Modern Standard Arabic, which included listening, reading, conversation, grammar, and writing; 3ameya, or Colloquial Jordanian Arabic; and Economic Transformations in the Middle East.  All of my classes were interesting and beneficial and luckily I did very well in all of them.  I have definitely noticed that my Arabic has improved, but my program, CIEE, had us take a test at the beginning and end of the semester that proved my advancement.  The test included reading, writ...

Marhaba! Today was absolutely amazing!!!  I started off waking up at 5:30 AM because I went to bed so early, then had breakfast at the hotel (hummus, lebneh, fool, orange juice), then loaded a bus at 8:30 to start the day.  We first went to a historic restaurant in Amman that had an amazing view.  They had a bunch of different desserts for us along with coffee, tea, and water.  View of part of Amman   Our program director first spent some time telling us how much we don't know Amman and how we don't know the culture and we're not in America ...