thanksgiving

My first Thanksgiving away from home; I had to have a big Thanksgiving dinner for everyone here. Sarah and I decided to have all of our friends over for a big Thanksgiving feast at our place. We, Tom Luke Sarah Ric and I, bought the turkeys and requested that everyone else bring their favorite Thanksgiving side dish. The dinner turned out to be a HUGE success; we had so much food! Everyone was full to the brim after eating, as per usual for a Thanksgiving meal.

On Wednesday, Eric came over and helped clean the turkeys and season them.

Then on Thursday we started the cooking. We were all running around trying to get everything cooked between our ovens, which are really small. It was so fun having the five of us run around trying to get everything cooked. We even had the boys moving around furniture in between our apartments so everyone in attendance could sit at one big table.

Before we ate, everyone went around the table to say what they were thankful for. Most everyone was thankful for the fact that we got to spend this particular holiday together, and for the family we are building here. I am continually feeling that I am truly setting up a life for me here.

Here's a pic of the fab four at Thanksgiving. These boys, Tom and Luke, live right above Sarah and I so we spend a lot of time together. We usually eat dinner with them at least twice a week as well as just hanging out in each other's apartments for at least a few moments every day.

However, I missed being away from home this weekend. I love spending holidays with my family, esp since I barely get to see Josh and Hannah outside of this time of year. Things I would have loved to have been at home for: pumpkin cookies, cutting down the Christmas tree, decorating the Christmas tree, playing endless games of cards, napping, watching the parade or a game of football, playing football, cooking with the fam, seeing a movie Thursday night, etc.

I'm most thankful that Friday morning I woke up to the sound of these wonderful boys cleaning up our mess of a kitchen. Thank goodness, because we all know I didn't want to do it.

haunted mansions

Last night for Halloween a few of us decided that we shouldn't just sit in our apartments, but get out and do something. We set upon meeting up for coffee and shisha (also known as hookah for my American readers). However, Yazan, our Jordanian friend who happened to be driving, had another idea in mind. Soon enough, the other four of us in the car realized we were not heading towards a cafe but rather outside of the city. Yazan then informed us that we were heading to a haunted mansion that lies on the outskirts of Amman.

The story behind said mansion: years ago, Jordan would house their "crazies" in this mansion, an insane asylum. However, one of the crazy people began killing off the other crazy people, and eventually ended up killing everyone. Now it is closed off because it is haunted with all the ghosts of the crazy people, and no one wants to live there or go anywhere near it. Apparently, the occasional drug dealer will house up there and use the mansion as a crack den, so if you go you need to be careful of these drug dealers and the potential for being shot at. Lovely. Where are we going again?

At first Yazan was being rather coy saying he didn't want to go up the driveway, it's too dangerous, scary, etc. However as we were backing up the car to leave he hit this huge rock, and couldn't move the car. Not sure if this was intentional or not at this point. So he had the three other boys with us get out of the car to move the rock. As soon as they got out of the car and moved the rock, he took off up the driveway with just me in tow towards the gothic, haunted mansion. Needless to say, the mansion was quite creepy and definitely looked abandoned. But I'm not sure how scared I was compared to the three boys standing out in the middle of nowhere in Jordan at the bottom of the hill of a haunted mansion. In the car, Yazan and I promptly turned off our cells so they couldn't call us. Good times. It definitely made for a fun Halloween night, better than expected.

Text I recieved while the boys were at the bottom of the hill: You mind calling us? This isn't too funny lol

Once we picked up the boys and they got over their hissyfits of being abandoned in the middle of bufu Jordan, we drove over to the top of the hill where this lookout is. We just stood there and looked over all of Amman, and could even see over to Palestine. It was absolutely gorgeous. Definitely one of those "woah, am I really in Jordan looking over the whole city and onward to Palestine on just another Sunday night?" moments. Couldn't have asked for anything better; I attempted to get a picture but they didn't come out and I'm sure a picture wouldn't have done this view anywhere near justice.