I"M HOME!!!

I am FINALLY home! This is the view from my window. Ok, it was actually a two hour drive from my house. You can probably understand now the reason for the name of this blog. I have been enjoying my time here. The weather has been nice for me. It has been a little werid from what I hear. Yesterday, a sandstorm (haboob) settle over the city all day long, which made it cold here. Today, it actually rained for about 10 minutes...CRAZY!!

The first day here was a bit crazy. We arrived at the apartment around 4:30 am. After settling down from the hipe of being in my country, I finally got to sleep around 6am. I woke up to the smell of coffee that my roommate had made around 9:30 am. For the rest of the day, I unpacked and organized my room. I felt pretty accomplished because it was put together by that night...what a relief that I was finally settled and not living out of a suitcase anymore! Here is a view of my room all put together! Warning: You will need to wear you sunglasses...it's bright!

First Birthday Overseas

For the very first time, I got to celebrate my birthday overseas. I had an awesome day! First, I had class until about 10:00 am and then worked on a project until 1:00pm. Second, I got to just hang out in my room for a bit with my awesome roommate. Next, the girls went and got manicures and pedicures...it was AWESOME!! We had a quick dinner at McDonald's (this bought back memories of having parties there as a kid). We then met and had a time of worship. Finally, we came back to our hotel and had this awesome cookie cake. It was the BEST! The picture shows the cake and it says Happy Birthday Teresa in Arabic. My friends made sure that there was orange icing on it. The man in the bakery really couldn't understand why they wanted orange instead of pink. I don't think I could have asked for a better overseas birthday.

Visiting History

For the past two weeks, I have been studying by day and visiting history by weekend. Last weekend I went to Jerash which is the ruins of the Greco-Roman city of Gerasa. The earliest inhabitants were in the Bronze Age. It was a great experience. The grooves from the carts from back in the day are still on the streets.

I also went to Petra. This city is most famous for it part in the second Indiana Jones movie. Indiana was seen riding a horse thru this exact same spot. Some of us went into the theathre which am not sure that we were supposed to. I have to say that was one of my highlights. My weekends have been full of lots of history. It is so amazing to see where the Romans lived.