Overwhelmed by free time?

So today was an awesome day.  I was prepared to be surprised by many things.  One thing that I did not anticipate, however, was an adverse reaction to free time!  Really, I've been going non-stop since January.  After finals I went home to CA for 3 days before I went to DC to work for 2 weeks and then I came here.  When I woke up this morning with absolutely nothing on my to-do list, I had no idea what to do with my life.  And it didn't help that, courtesy of jet-lag, I was wide awake at 7-freaking-am.  So, I reviewed Arabic vocab for a while, read my scriptures, organized my stuff, made my bed (?!), fixed the TV, sat on my bed doing nothing, paced, and looked out the window ponderously.  Then my roommates finally woke up, and we went to run some errands.  We took taxis everywhere today, which was very ego-boosting.  You see, taxi conversation is very simple, and so my Arabic skills aren't overwhelmed by the task.  Not only that, but after 5 different taxi trips, I became a semi-pro at the "where's your family from" routine.  We went to the mall (yawn), ate lunch/breakfast at a Lebanese place (SO GOOD), went grocery shopping, napped (at home), picked up my cell phone (local calls only, sorry), got Arabic pastries (Mmmmmm), visited our facilitator, and generally wandered about.  I continued to geek out about my surroundings (OMG that's a great view of Amman!  OMG I can read that Arabic billboard!  OMG I love the smell of the spices!) 

I also learned more about where I'll be going in a few days.  You see, I'm only in Amman until Sunday (at the most).  I'll be moving about an hour away to a rural bedouin village (I'm still not sure of the name) where I'll be teaching English.  For the first 2-3 weeks I'll be living with an Arab man (I have no idea how old) who speaks no English.  Time to see how creative I can be with my Arabic skillz!  After that, the details of my living arrangements are still blurry.  Don't worry though, I'll keep you posted.  Oh!  And one more story before I go.  Remember Mahmoud, the 14-year-old next door?  He stopped by today to invite us over again.  Sadly we weren't able to come this time.  However, I'm realizing just how persistent these AMAZINGLY generous people are!  A simple "no thank you" wouldn't do.  I had to produce an explanation for why... in Arabic!  So, I think I told him that we had errands to run (which we did), although from the somewhat confused look on his face I can't be sure.  But I think he saw the desperation of effort and took that.  But once our errands were done we went over for a bit.  This time we met their mother and another son, whose name was (I think) Hammed.  They are the nicest people ever!  They brought out Pepsi for us, and some nuts, then some chamomile tea (with plenty of sugar!) and cookies, AND THEN invited us over for dinner Friday, which is a big deal because it's their equivalent of a Sabbath meal.  They helped us out with our Arabic, we helped them out with some English, an we've decided to become Facebook friends!  Sigh... I'm happy to already have awesome Jordanian friends.  Well, that's about it for now!  Love y'all

يرمي