Amman...?
Salaam,
Alhamdulillah im now in Amman. Or i think so...
Alhamdulillah the flight and everything went ahead fine. The first little incident was at Manchester airport where , because i was a bit late, i saw no one at the check in counter and went straight there and got my boarding passes. After breathing a sigh of relief that i had got there in time, my sr then pointed out what had happened; basically there was a good 200 people queuing for my flight, but i had gone past all of them and went to the area reserved for business class and "priority" passengers and so had my luggage checked in before all of them...so through a mistake of my own (it Was a mistake) i saved a good half hour of waiting around.
Despite the 8 hours wait in Frankfurt where i was excrucitaingly bored, i arrived in Amman at 2am. Or was it...?? As i looked through the window of the plane what did i see...? puddles of water on the tarmack with raindrops falling. RAIN. It was raining!!! not even raining but a proper downpour, Burnley "it rains 24/7" style...i'd been warned that it can get pretty cold in the mid east in the winter but this was one thing i was Not expecting. I Hate reality TV programmes but iv been watching Space Cadets on C4 (where they took a bunch of ppl and told them they were going to Russia to train to go to the moon but actually flew the plane round in circles, went to Ipswich and then a flight simulator). So i was like, did i really get on a plane to Amman? am i still in Burnley..? Whats going on?
So this is the first big thing i noticed. And it continued throughout the night, including thunder and lightening, and all today. But there is something to be gained from this. Iv learnt today that apparently Jordan is one of the driest countries in the world where water is always rationed due to its scarcity and for the last few months it hasn't rained at all, so there was a big crisis as to what was going to happen. Due to this all the imams of the mosques were requested to read salaat-ul-isthisqa (the prayer for wanting rain) every Friday in the main mosques-and hey presto! So even though im dissapointed that i wont be getting a tan in Jordan, i think pretty much the rest of the country is rejoicing at the rain. So subhanAllah it shows that even though something might not be to you liking, there might be a lot of others benefitting from a certain event or literally, that theres a silver lining in every cloud...(sorry, poor, i know...)
Anyway, Alhamdulillah, im very impressed with the Qasid set up so far. Iv been very lucky as the place where im living in is brand new - a four floor floor block of apartments where im sharing one of the apartments with 3 others. The flat is Really really nice as well.. Maybe im just comparing it to with what i expected Jordan to be like, but its well furnished (everything is brand new with half of the furniture still in its original wrapping), a washing machine!, and my room itself is really nice and spacious too. And a lift in the building too..! (sorry if it seems like im getting excited over menial things, but my initial couple of weeks in Cairo was pretty tough ). Although part of me wanted to rough it out Tabligh style where you eat basic food, sleep on the floor etc, i think im quite happy at the set up as i can now concentrate solely on my studies.
The area of Amman im staying is one of the wealthiest parts too i think (im sure i saw a ferrari parked outside one of the block of apartments..). Again i was a bit unsure as to whether this was a good thing or bad thing cos one of my aims of this trip was to see how "real" muslims and "real" arabs live and i dont think i'll be seeing much of that round here. But as above living in this area does make my life easier wrt shopping, transport etc leaving more time to get on with my arabic.
Anyway thats enough for now. My official orientation begins on Tuesday (with an entrance exam...!) and classes start next Saturday so till the next time...
Salaam
Alhamdulillah im now in Amman. Or i think so...
Alhamdulillah the flight and everything went ahead fine. The first little incident was at Manchester airport where , because i was a bit late, i saw no one at the check in counter and went straight there and got my boarding passes. After breathing a sigh of relief that i had got there in time, my sr then pointed out what had happened; basically there was a good 200 people queuing for my flight, but i had gone past all of them and went to the area reserved for business class and "priority" passengers and so had my luggage checked in before all of them...so through a mistake of my own (it Was a mistake) i saved a good half hour of waiting around.
Despite the 8 hours wait in Frankfurt where i was excrucitaingly bored, i arrived in Amman at 2am. Or was it...?? As i looked through the window of the plane what did i see...? puddles of water on the tarmack with raindrops falling. RAIN. It was raining!!! not even raining but a proper downpour, Burnley "it rains 24/7" style...i'd been warned that it can get pretty cold in the mid east in the winter but this was one thing i was Not expecting. I Hate reality TV programmes but iv been watching Space Cadets on C4 (where they took a bunch of ppl and told them they were going to Russia to train to go to the moon but actually flew the plane round in circles, went to Ipswich and then a flight simulator). So i was like, did i really get on a plane to Amman? am i still in Burnley..? Whats going on?
So this is the first big thing i noticed. And it continued throughout the night, including thunder and lightening, and all today. But there is something to be gained from this. Iv learnt today that apparently Jordan is one of the driest countries in the world where water is always rationed due to its scarcity and for the last few months it hasn't rained at all, so there was a big crisis as to what was going to happen. Due to this all the imams of the mosques were requested to read salaat-ul-isthisqa (the prayer for wanting rain) every Friday in the main mosques-and hey presto! So even though im dissapointed that i wont be getting a tan in Jordan, i think pretty much the rest of the country is rejoicing at the rain. So subhanAllah it shows that even though something might not be to you liking, there might be a lot of others benefitting from a certain event or literally, that theres a silver lining in every cloud...(sorry, poor, i know...)
Anyway, Alhamdulillah, im very impressed with the Qasid set up so far. Iv been very lucky as the place where im living in is brand new - a four floor floor block of apartments where im sharing one of the apartments with 3 others. The flat is Really really nice as well.. Maybe im just comparing it to with what i expected Jordan to be like, but its well furnished (everything is brand new with half of the furniture still in its original wrapping), a washing machine!, and my room itself is really nice and spacious too. And a lift in the building too..! (sorry if it seems like im getting excited over menial things, but my initial couple of weeks in Cairo was pretty tough ). Although part of me wanted to rough it out Tabligh style where you eat basic food, sleep on the floor etc, i think im quite happy at the set up as i can now concentrate solely on my studies.
The area of Amman im staying is one of the wealthiest parts too i think (im sure i saw a ferrari parked outside one of the block of apartments..). Again i was a bit unsure as to whether this was a good thing or bad thing cos one of my aims of this trip was to see how "real" muslims and "real" arabs live and i dont think i'll be seeing much of that round here. But as above living in this area does make my life easier wrt shopping, transport etc leaving more time to get on with my arabic.
Anyway thats enough for now. My official orientation begins on Tuesday (with an entrance exam...!) and classes start next Saturday so till the next time...
Salaam
posted by Me at
7:03 PM
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