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June 1, 2005

My Trip to Irbid

My family has been bugging me to go with them to Irbid since I got here in January and my schedule finally let me go last weekend. My family goes to Irbid quite often because they are originally from there and still have a lot of family left in the area.

We left Thursday morning and arrived at my Aunt’s house just in time for lunch. I had met her family before because they come to Amman quite regularly and stay with us so I was glad that I at least knew the people we were staying with. I spent the weekend eating, sleeping, sitting around, and going to café’s with my sister. It was a good time, although I ate way too much.

The striking thing, however, was that my family is the most well off out of any of the people I met. I thought that at least the grandparents would be moderately well off but they didn’t even have a western toilet! It was really intimidating to see all of this and how normal it is to people in Jordan. I know that people live much worse than my family in Irbid but I didn’t think that my middle class family would have relatives that lived like that. I guess there is opportunity for upward movement to people who work hard.

The highlight of my trip was definitely my stroll down University Street, which is in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most Internet cafes in the smallest amount of space. It really does have a lot of cafes but it also has shops and food and lots of other stuff to look at. It was like being in Amman except not as crowded. I don’t think I’m going to get a chance to go back but I definitely am glad I went.

Posted by rcollins at June 1, 2005 7:33 AM

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