Welcome to Amman!

Well, this is the first blog entry from the Reams family in Amman! I think this is probably the best way to communicate with everyone instead of sending 9 million individual emails!

We've been here just over a week now and are settling in..somewhat. The first shipment of our household goods should be here in a few days (HOPEFULLY) and the second shipment will still be at least another month or two. We can't wait for this first shipment to come, as it has all of our dishes/utensils/pots and pans, sheets, towels, pictures etc etc. It will really feel more like home once we have all those things. Our house is pretty nice, and a lot larger than the condos that both Brian and I have left behind in Nova. I counted - there are at least 21 different places to sit in in our apartment!!! Certainly feels palatial to us in that sense. It's also nice to have 2.5 bathrooms and a few spare bedrooms! That's for when you all come to visit us!

As I'm sitting here, our house is actually being painted. Anything beats those sterile white walls, so we are so excited to get some color into this home!

Our neighborhood is interesting. It's a very nice neighborhood in the sense that we live near other lovely apartment buildings and beautiful homes, but we still have herds of goats that sweep through the streets, which is a bit surreal. We have also seen the goats walking down the normal streets of Amman, which Brian likened it to seeing goats walk down Wilson Blvd in Clarendon! So weird!!

So far, we've just been trying to figure our way out around the city. Brian has started work and we are currently a one car household, so I stay home a lot with the pup! Thankfully, we have several friends of ours that were already here, and we've made some great new ones, which has helped the transition immensely. Nothing like seeing a friendly face in a strange place, that's for sure!

I am planning on getting a part time job (no clue what that will entail yet), but more importantly, I am planning on doing some volunteer work while here. There are numerous options for me, but I am interested in doing something with children/babies.

Thankfully, many things in our neighborhood are in English -- signs, labels, street names, which helps us so much. We went for cupcakes last night to a place that Brian actually read about in the NY Times and had a nice conversation with the owner who grew up around Americans and had a very American accent! We are also constantly on the lookout for the best shwarma around - which is essentially shaved chicken, beef or lamb in a pita with tahini sauce and pickles... fantastic mid east fare. You can get variations at home (Leb Taverna, anyone??), but everything seems to taste better locally!

That's about it for now. Off to roast 9 lbs of potatoes for a potluck dinner tonight. Have to give some love to one of my favorite websites -- will let you all know how they turned out!

Recipe here: http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/11/mustard-roasted-potatoes/

Much love to all of you - hope you had a wonderful weekend and that fall is in full bloom at home!