Day 2

Today was much better than yesterday which was spent registering for the Arabic class that I am taking. The process should have taken about 30 minutes but it took about 3 hours because hardly anyone in the registration office spoke English and it was very inefficient so I ended up waiting in many long lines and being sent around the building looking for English speakers who could help me. Today I had my first day of class which went really well. I met some people from my class who are from Switzerland, New Orleans, and even a guy who lived in Encino (which was pretty cool considering that of all the places in the world someone could like he lived in my town) and they invited me to get lunch with them at the university cafeteria. I got some shawarma which was the first middle eastern food I've eaten since I got here. It was pretty nice to make some friends here and it definitely made my day. After returning to the hotel I went to see more of the city with the hotel driver and we saw downtown, the citadel, and the roman theater. Both the citadel and the roman theater were very cool and they were the first Ran ruins I have seen in person and it was pretty awesome to stand in the same place that Romans and Umayyads stood. Now I am back at the hotel and I can hear the call to prayer from my room which is pretty cool sounding even though I have no idea what they are saying.