Lots and Lots of Planning

This past week wasn’t extremely exciting, work is really slow now that all of the students have gotten their acceptances or rejections from colleges, I’ve finished the major project that I was working on, and I haven’t gotten a new one yet. I think everybody is in need of a break. Luckily, spring break starts on the 21st, and I’ve been occupying my down time by looking at flights, cheap hotels, (which are not easy to find in Beirut) and worrying about all of the millions of little details that you have to take into account when traveling on your own. 

I can’t wait to get to travel to another country, especially since it’s Lebanon. I love Jordan, and Amman has a lot of things I like about it, but it’s not particularly pretty, it was most built in the 50’s with some older building in the old city, and many new constructions going up, and there isn’t that much to see in the city. So I can’t wait to go to a truly historical city, with lot’s to see and even more to do. It will be great to see another country, especially one with such an interesting history. My only concern is that I there are so many other places in the region that I want to see as well, however given the current political situations in most of the surrounding countries, I think I’ll have to make my way to Syria, or Egypt another time.

This weekend my boss had the office over to her house for dinner in celebration of my co-worker who is getting married on the 15th. It’s great to feel like the people who you work with genuinely like you, even if they are older. I can’t even express how lucky I was to end up in a fun office, with people I enjoy working with, and who make 40 hours a week of office work interesting. So the dinner was great, even though I felt a bit out of place because my office is made up of all women, and the dinner was for my co-workers impending wedding, so the night consisted of a lot of “how did you meet your husband?” and various wedding, dating, marriage, and family stories, though they were all very entertaining to listen to. 

I didn’t go out much this weekend because I need to save a lot for Beirut, however on Saturday I made my way to my favorite hangout spot in Amman. I discovered it a few weeks ago, and I’ve been going every time I’m in the area. It’s a cozy, modern, artsy tea/coffee joint, in the arts district of Amman. It reminds me of a tiny Northstar, with young Jordanians, who probably write interesting blogs, a lot of expats, and a lot of European and American college students who are most likely doing a study abroad in Jordan. So I spent a few hours there relaxing on Saturday, enjoying an iced coffee with friends. 

This week, I plan to spend my time frantically looking for cheap places to stay, buying plane tickets, planning my stay there, and figuring out any last things that I need to see before I leave Jordan next month. Time is running out really quickly. When people told me that walkabout goes by quickly, they were not exaggerating.