It's strange to think that just two days ago, I was barreling down I-5 headed from Seattle to Portland, listening to American music, seeing English road signs. (NB: I started this post yesterday (the day before?) and am just now catching up.)
Everything here is different. The city, Amman, has grown by leaps and bounds. There are new neighbourhoods, new roads, new bridges... and the biggest change of all... there are now street names, street signs, and addresses. Yes, until just recently, this entire city, and quite frankly, the better part of the Middle East got by without address. How still boggles my mind, but somehow they did it. There seems to be a sense of order -- not the stand-in-a-straight-line-wait-your-turn-kind-of-order that we're used to in the States -- but a smaller, slightly more chaotic sense of order that has befallen the country here. People stop at red lights, they drive the correct way on a one way road, and now use turn signals instead of the horn on their car. It's amazing, really...
Family-wise things are okay. We have a large family, many with boisterous voices and a couple who are hard of hearing. Couple that with the Arab tendancy to speak all at once, one over the other, and a discordant cacophony arises -- one, that quite frankly, gives me a headache. Nonetheless, I still love them and am happy to be visiting here with all of them. My cousins, on the other hand, are fabulous! Certainly it's been an amazing reunion for the older generation -- the Aunts and Uncles -- but it's been a great reunion for us in the younger generation as well. Last night, we had the first in a series of pre-wedding parties. We ate, we drank, we danced, and we laughed... good times were had by all. Here are a couple pictures from the pre-wedding party. (The bride is in pink and the groom is in a checkered shirt.)
More about Germany later...
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