Project GO Jordan 2017

We tried Vimto for the first time today. If you haven't spent Ramadan in an Arab country, Vimto is a British soft drink that became popular in Ramadan as a drink to enjoy at Iftar (breaking of the fast after sunset). I've been informed that Vimto somehow became synonymous with Ramadan, and is as far as I can tell, only available during Ramadan. It's a dark reddish/pinkish drink that's supposed to taste like a cocktail of berries with some spices. Why Vimto became synonymous with Ramadan is beyond me, so I did some reading. Apparently, the British gave a Saudi company the rights to produce and distribute Vimto. Because it was a very sugary beverage, it became popular during Ramadan to restore some energy after the fast. In fact, the Saudi Vimto apparently has more sugar than the British version. With the magic of modern marketing, Vimto spread from Saudi Arabia to throughout the Arab World as a Ramadan drink. When it's all said and done, it seems odd that a British...

Today was our excursion to see some of the sights of Northern Jordan. 1) On the way to Irbid, our first site was the Yabbok River/Zarqa River (نهر الزرقاء/nahr az-Zarqaa'). At this site, the Hebrew Patriarch Jacob is said to have wrestled with an angel sent by God in the night until the morning. God then renamed Jacob Isra'el which means "the one who fights with (isra) God ('el)". A boy at the site offered horse rides to some of us. Overall a pretty lowkey sight. 2) Our second "site" was driving through the city of Irbid, which is the second largest city in Jordan after Amman. As we drove in, we passed by the town called Al Husn (الحصن) which rapidly expanded from Palestinian refugees. The city of Irbid, much like Amman, is spread out and sprawls across a huge area which short and squat buildings. Irbid seemed to have a bit more color to it though. It featured less Western-style buildings and commercial centers and more of the type of roadside sh...

May 25 is Jordan's Independence Day/yawm al-istiqlal (يوم الاستقلال) so we had the day off. This day is a national holiday for schools/offices/government, but many restaurants and businesses were still open. After a lecture by Dr. Sullivan and Charles on the Syrian Refugee Crisis, we went to the King Hussein Park (حدائق الحسين) to see some Independence Day celebration. As a group, we took the bus to get to King Hussein Park in West Amman. The bus lines run on roughly straight lines on the main arteries of the city. At 35 girsh/ride, they're much cheaper than taxis, but if you don't know the streets of Amman well you could easily get lost. West Amman is definitely the newer and more opulent part of the city, with King Hussein Park almost at the edge of the city. From a distance, the greenery of the park stands out from the endless beige of the rest of Amman. New development like the King Hussein Medical Center are also located in this part of town. The Park itself is ...

It's great to be back in Amman. This week we arrived in Jordan on Tuesday, May 16th early in the morning. May 16: We started off our excursion with an orientation at Qasid by the Qasid director on academics and living in Jordan. Most of it was review but it was a good refresher after a year of living in anywhere but Jordan. We ate at the Al-Awa'il restaurant, which despite being right below Qasid I haven't ate at before, where we had mashaawi. We visited the Citadel in Amman, الجبل القلعة which is the site of a Roman temple to Hercules, a Byzantine church, an Umayyad palace, an Umayyad mosque, and an archeology museum for artifacts from early man to the Islamic period. We ended the day at Umsiat Amman, a restaurant near the city center. May 17: We took our placement tests today. For lunch we went to my favorite cheap falafel joint, Mat3am Hamadeh across the street from Qasid. In the evening, I ended up at Rainbow street in a cafe called Wild Jordan برية الأردن which i...