Well, I guess I'm committed now.

So today was a good day. Rollin and I signed a 6 month lease in Jabal Weibdeh! We could have gotten a longer one but we decided to do six months just to be on the safe side. In all likelihood we will be renewing it. It is a really nice apartment. Fully furnished and a good price. We move in tomorrow! Wanna see?

Rollin's room. They are bringing sheets tomorrow.

My room (note the balcony).

Bathroom with washing machine aaand a bidet...

Kitchen. And when I say fully furnished I'm talking pots, pans, utensils, toaster, cleaning supplies, water cooler, iron, TV, satellite, internet, etc. Basically the works.

Dining area

And my favorite, the living room. 

Next week the land lord is going to replace the TV with an LCD big screen  (you KNOW I brought my Nintendo wii) and bring us another couch. Also, don't forget rooftop access with a great view of Jabal Amman, good neighbors, nice garden out front, quiet neighborhood, 20 min walk to work or less than a Dinar taxi ride, plenty of shops nearby, so yeah I'm pretty happy.

I saw an interesting bird this morning:

It made a noise like a crow.

Today's Thursday so... Happy Water Day!!!!

"So fresh and so clean clean!"

Tonight I went to Jabal Amman with Carly and James to celebrate.

 After Iftar people come OUT.

We went to Books @ Cafe, a nice bookstore/ restaurant. We got margherita pizza and lemon mint drinks. Delicious! Really fancy place but a good price. Spectacular view. The bookstore actually had comics but they were really crappy ones like "Supergirl." I almost bought a Batman that looked cool but it was too pricey. If I can just find a good comic shop and figure out what grade I'm teaching I'll be all set.

Then we wandered downtown:

At the end of yet another long, steep staircase.

It was like NYC crowded out here. 

There were street vendors elbow to elbow selling tons of bizarre stuff, lots of shoe stores too. We went to the bootleg DVD store and I got Bored to Death season 2 and Boardwalk Empire season 1. Carly got them to knock 2jd off the price (thanks Carly). I'm definitely going to wander back here in the daytime and get lost for a while. 

There's graffiti in Amman but it's not very good. Usually crude, childish or just messages scrawled in Arabic, but coming up the stairs from downtown I found some cool stencils.

What up Che?

This one gave me a chuckle.

But this was the best.

I've noticed a trend of pictures of Hollywood actors on barbershop signs:

I need to get a flick of the Brad Pitt one. It is TOO much.

To top it off we stopped at the store on the way home and I got a nutty buddy and some 7up.

It's the Ramadan special!

So overall a pretty good day. I've got tomorrow off to settle in to my new place and I start work Saturday for real (Insha Allah). 

I guess I'll throw these pics in too while I'm at it:

View from the window of a different apartment we looked at.

And more stray cats. I'm telling you I've been tripping over these things!