The Journey Begins!

Before I left the states I tried to put into words the feeling I get before leaving on a trip like this. The best comparison I can make is how I feel before seeing someone with whom I am freshly in love – that giddy, happy nervousness that makes your stomach dance and steals your breath and your sleep.

On the way to Jordan I stopped in Vienna, Austria, where I will return in a few weeks time. Flying into the city is beautiful. The strangely, geometric organized landscape look to me like an impressionist painting, dotted with abstract clusters of villages.

It could not be a greater contrast to the landscape flying into Amman. Jordan is enveloped in a desert so dwarfing in scale that from above I though buildings were clusters of rocks. The landscape is as wild and strange as Austria's is meticulous.

Amman rises out of this desert like a mirage. The uniform white of the endless apartment buildings make it seem dreamlike, unreal somehow. But also very beautiful. It is a soothing city, in its own way, the clean cool white only broken by the occasional brightly colored sign advertising the endless western chains that line the main streets.

Jetlagged and watching the sun rise over the hills. Well worth being awake at 3 am.

Two days into Amman daily life is fantastic: my family is lovely and my school is excellent. More to follow later though, I only have internet at school and it is almost time for class.