I'm here!

Hey kids, I am in Jordan and have been for several days. However, one of the many things that I am already learning is that Jordan is not well equipped with the internet. Our hotel has wireless, but my computer refuses to connect and it doesn't work at all if more than 5 or 6 people try to get on at a time-which is difficult to work around since there are near to one hundred of us.

Getting to Jordan was quite an ordeal. France was basically on strike the day that I was leaving and I kind of forgot. Thus, I left my hostel with about 3 hours to get there, plenty of time, no? So, I went to the Metro, took a few trains to get to Gare Du Nord to take the train to CDG. I stood there for about half an hour, worried because they are supposed to come often, but not so worried because there were a bunch of other people waiting as well. Turns out, they were all the other non-French speaking people who couldn't understand the announcements over the loud speaker that the trains to the airport were not running. Thus, I had to run, take another 2 metro rides to another station to take a train, but I missed one by about 3 minutes. At this point, I had a little over an hour left before my flight was leaving. And I almost had a panic attack. I decided to take a cab, but had planned so that I was out of Euros, and had to change most of my remaining US money over, called a cab and got to the airport with under 30 minutes to get through security and customs and board...

My plane was an hour late.

Turkish airlines was very cool. I may never travel in the US again. There was even an evil eye hanging when you walked on the plane. Plus the food was delicious and the wine was free, which was necessary to calm my nerves.

So, my plane arrived an hour late and I had another tight connection-30 minutes to get through the Turkish airport and passport checks. I went to a desk and they told me that I needed to get a visa, even though I told them I wasn't entering the country, yet they insisted, so I spent my last $20, went back and then I was asked why the hell I had done that, I was at the wrong desk and didn't need a visa.

By the time I got to my gate, it was closed. Luckily they let me on, but I was not in a happy place. But, fate decided to look kindly upon me, when my seatmate noticed that I was studying Arabic, he struck up a conversation with me. He was, without a doubt, one of the nicest people I had ever met. He was Jordanian, coming back from studying in Italy for his sister's wedding, he offered to introduce me to his family, gave me contact info for one of his friends and another sister, his phone number in case I had any questions.....And how he described Jordan just turned me right back around. I was ready to be enamoured with the country again.

I got in around 1:30am, barely containing my excitement when I got off the plane, seeing all the signs in Arabic (even though they were in English too), that I almost forgot the issue that I didn't have ANY money to buy my visa into Jordan. Ack.

I had to go out of the the terminal and give up my passport, in order to get to an atm to get some dinars, but luckily that only took a few minutes and I got my visa with little problem. And after a 45 minute wait at baggage and then having my bags come out at a different carousel than everyone else and thinking they were lost, I was met by two other CIEE students and a program coordinator. Success!

Headed in a van to the Funduq Manar (Hotel Manar), my home for the next week of orientation.

Well, this is being written on another person's computer, whose is actually working, who is asking for it back. I'll continue with a description of orientation that I'll write on Word and publish when my computer decides to cooperate or when I have time to get to an internet cafe. but don't expect frequent updates since I won't have internet at my homestay either!

But I'll leave you with a few interesting realizations:
1) One of the most difficult things is that, as a woman, when you walk around, you can't smile or make eye contact at people that you don't know unless you want negative attention. This is an issue since I do that whenever I feel uncomfortable or unsure of my footing-which is often here!
2) The secret police are your friends-and they are everywhere. Seriously.
3) There are Roman ruins everywhere, Switzerland, France, and now here!
4) You can't take pictures of the American Embassy. Intense.
5) If you don't speak Arabic, people in restaurants, though seeming nice, will find a way to overcharge you.

Despite all this, I really love it here. The people running the program are awesome, the university looks huge and beautiful, the classes are going to be exciting, I'm loving the food-the cucumbers are freakishly tasty, most of the people are cool-though many are also here for the wrong reasons, and overall, I have very, very high hopes for the semester

Where has the time gone?

Well, somehow my two weeks have disappeared and I am headed off to Jordan today. Sorry I haven't been posting here, but it has been relatively busy.

I've learned a lot traveling by myself. For one thing, when you are on your own, you have no one to tell you that you should take a break and rest every once and a while. Then, by the end of the day, you get back to your hostel, are exhausted, sit down for a few minutes before you are going to take a shower, intending to write a quick blog post and maybe put up a picture or two and before you know it, you pass out.

I loved both Nice and Paris, but in different ways.

Nice was smaller and less overwhelming. I didn't feel bad if I ended up sleeping a bit longer than planned, taking some time to have breakfast with other hostel homies or if I got lost or distracted for a bit because there weren't quite as many things to do. Just the Chagall and Matisse museums, the waterfront and climbing the Chateau for views. I even had time to make a quick jaunt to Monaco. That place was more than a little ridiculous. (Picture of me+Monte Carlo above, not quite sure how to work pictures yet, so it'll stay up there for a bit)
What? Travel to another country for a few hours? Without even getting your passport checked? Traveling the EU is definitely a nice change from trying to deal with the Canada border.

Paris, on the other hand, took a little longer for me to get used to. My hostel had none of the charm or welcoming atmosphere of the one in Nice-no friendly Australians serving up cheap 1 Euro drinks or running a shuttle into town, no chapel-converted to bar/common area, or other lone travelers looking for a friend to explore with, just a very modern, overly clean, big building with tons of Americans looking for a party.

Plus the town just has too much to do and see. At first, I felt that if I didn't get to everything, it would somehow be a disappointment, but then I realized that I was worried about not doing enough for everyone at home, not me. In Paris, I learned how I travel, and thus, here are JILL'S TRAVEL RULES:

1) Eat a big breakfast. Fill your plate with how much you think you should have. Then double it. You can't walk 15-20 miles in a day with one bowl of cereal without getting grumpy.

2) Accept being a tourist, get over the shame of walking around with a map and plan time into your day for getting lost.

3) Embrace being a tourist and get good at taking pictures of yourself in front of various cliche monuments. It is stupid and fun and the looks you get from people cheer you up.

4) Wear heavy socks from the first day on, don't wait for blisters to appear and always carry a good stock of band-aids.

5) Make best friends with:
a) your i-pod, listen to anything that pops up-even if it is Cookie Monster or Christina Aguilera (both of which happened to me), don't try to fit your mood, because on rainy days you end up getting depressed when you do that.
b) a friendly cafe owner so you don't have to deal with showing your bad French to a new person every day
c) your legs. seriously. They're amazing, I totally should have been on the Oregon Trail, I would have gotten through it in under a month. What up.

6) Give up on seeing everything, especially in a city like Paris. If you could do it all in four days and be satisfied, it probably isn't that great of a city to begin with.

Overall, I loved Paris, though it definitely did get lonely (besides my awesome visit with Gina!), it was perfect for my intense wandering tendencies. Even if you end up getting lost and going in the wrong direction for a while before realizing your mistake, you find something that you hadn't planned to see that may just be better than what you were looking for.

Anyway, I'm going to go in search of some last French treats to tie me over before my plane trip (though I have to say, my best food experience so far has been from a falafel restaurant in the Marais district. I know I should have liked the pastries more, but maybe this is a good sign based on where I'm headed....).

Wish me luck!

In which Jill has some updating to do...

Bon matin tout ma famille et mes amis. Je suis dans Nice!


I can't believe that my week in Switzerland went so quickly-and I was so tired out on a daily basis that I got halfway through many, many blogposts and may or may not have fallen asleep in the middle of writing them with my computer open on my bed, a la my entire fall semester. Whoops! Old habits die hard I suppose.


Before I run off on my first Jill on her own adventures, lets do a quick play-by-play of Switzerland.


Day 1:
-Wander Bern with cousin Kate
-Buy 4-day rail pass, little did I know what I was getting myself into. Details follow
-See the best way to scare small children into bending to your will: the 'Kindereater' statue, depicting a scary giant eating babies quite viciously. If you don't behave.....
-Discover the wonderful smell that is wandering Europe, pastries and street waffles everywhere, lordy!


Day 2 (railpass Day 1):
-Head to skiing world cup up in the beautiful mountains. Swiss people are really into their skiing, though that really shouldn't surprise me, what did, however, were the brilliant costumes that could be seen among the spectators. There were guys painted green with strange medieval costumes on, who apparently play in really bad bands, dudes with viking helmets on (these are treacherous, stay away at all costs, especially is you suspect that the wearer has been indulging in gluwine (hot, mulled wine-lovely on a cold day in the snow, especially if you've fallen down on the hill up there or if you simultaneously rock some roasted chestnuts. Too bad the US had a blight of their chestnut trees...) or other such substances, you will get impaled. On the day that Kate and I went, a Swiss won first but the US came in second and third, not too shabby. We celebrated with a picnic of cheese, bread, grapes and beer, all in the snow, watching the insanity unfolding around us.
-Realize that maybe, the rail system isn't all it's cracked up to be, or the fact that Kate and I are maybe just a little clueless and shouldn't follow crowds so much after boarding a train that took us up the mountain at the end of the day, instead of down, adding on over an hour of travel-but on the bright side, an hour more of observing the drunken fans, who all sound like Swedish Chef from the muppets.


Day 3 (railpass Day 2):
-Bad weather, so head to Geneva for some indoor fun! Went to the museum of modern art there and saw, among other things, a room with multicolored, fuzzy walls, weird flourescent blobbly things and mushrooms, and crawled through an installation that reminded me of Fraggle Rock (believe me, the muppet references don't stop here!). It was fun, but also, major sensory overload.
-Tried to continue on to other museums, but ended up getting on a bus (after also missing our train in the morning to Geneva) in which the driver neglected to tell us where to get off in order to transfer. Kate had words with the driver. En francais. I was very impressed.


Day 4 (railpass Day 3):
-Much more successful day journeying to the town of Montreaux, a cute, windy cobblestony road-ed town dotted with a plethora of lawn gnomes and beautiful views.
-Walk to the Chateua de Chillon in the rain along Lake Geneva. There were palmtrees. In Switzerland. I was very confused. There were also some interesting topiaries, of which I will post pictures of as soon as I can get an adapter so I can charge all of my US electronics.


Day 5 (railpass Day 4) aka. Obamarama:
-Head to Murten, a small, medieval town, that I'm pretty sure I'm going to retire to. The perfect place to be a very, very gossipy old woman, riding her bike around town to tell the neighbors about the latest scandal.
-Avenche: Roman ruins in Switzerland-again, surprise from Jill! I may or may not have pretended to be a gladiator with Kate's umbrella...
-Home early for an Obama party, complete with Mexican food-Obama's favorite, 'cause he's a down to earth type o'guy. Kate and I watched a good deal of CNN for the rest of my time there, especially reveling in the first time we saw the words 'Former President Bush.' Beautiful. Jetzt we can!


Day 6 (no more railpass-Kate and I sleep in!):
-Another day of wandering in Bern and getting Jill ready for her travels on her own. Scary.


Day 7:
-Up early, best bowl of oatmeal of the trip, head to the train station, get on the wrong car, as per usual, walk awkwardly from one end of the train to the other through first class, ramming into many Swiss people with my suitcase on the way, making a successful transfer on my own and 9 hours later arriving in Nice!


I know that was intense and list-y, but I will try to do a better job of updating in the future and pictures will come up soon, both on the blog and on shutterfly.


So far, I'm loving Nice, though I haven't even left my hostel yet! It's a pretty great place...


Well, here's to getting lost in France!

After 1 car ride, 2 airplanes, 2 trains, several mistaken subway rides and plenty of aimless wandering....

Jill is finally in Europe!

The last few days have been pretty unreal, lots to do and very little time to do it (I highly advise anyone who is going abroad to start packing more than a night in advance!). Definitely had some good last times in Seattle though, particularly a visit to Bayou on First (a Cajun restaurant in Pike Place) with Dad. One of the owners, Haji, who is Algerian was so thoughtful and actually had a present waiting for me. He told me that it was "better than all the piles of gold." It was a English/Arabic copy of the Qur'an, and though pretty hefty, I brought it along in my suitcase for some travel reading/refreshing on my Arabic before I get to Jordan. Haji also kept telling me how I was "going to become an Arab woman." He was very excited about it. Very excited.

Flights were not a problem, though I have to say, everything is was cooler on international flights. First class had weird spacepods, they came around with newspapers for us to read (I took a Wallstreet journal, wanting to look classy, silly Jill), and let me tell you, Coke tastes way better if the can is in Japanese (why it was on Japanese on a European flight? That's just how Lufthansa roles).

So, what I learned immediately upon arrival in France is that my French is not good. At all. I remember bits and pieces, but whatever I can't remember, I automatically try to fill in using Arabic, which makes me entirely unintelligible. I have thus gotten very good with "bonjour," "s'il vous plait," parlez vous Anglais?" and my favorite, "pardonnez-moi" as I have run into numerous people on buses, in train stations and on the street with my ginormous backpack.

I tried to find my way to the train station on my own at first and managed to get helplessly confused and a little grumpy-nothing that good travel snacks and 'une cafe' couldn't cure (though I have yet to get a croissant). Luckily the people are pretty helpful to confused looking American girls and after a couple interesting interactions with various machines in French, before realizing that I could switch them into English, I was on my way.

I didn't get to see too much of Paris today, other than an hour or so of a stroll while waiting at Gare de Lyon for my train out to Bern. I would have ventured longer, but was too weighed down with all my stuff. What I did see was pretty wonderful, lots of cafes, beautiful buildings, and a whole bunch of people rollerblading (normal?). But I'll have plenty more time to explore later.

Kate met me at the Bern train station and we came back to her place where I had the most satisfying shower of my life and am now about to crash from utter exhaustion (which you may also feel from reading this monster of a post).

Bon nuit all, or Gute nacht since I'm in a German part of Switzerland (I totally had to Google translate that-my German is worse than my French!).