Visiting School

Hi
We went for a visit of Jacob and Abi's school - the International Community School of Amman, today. This is the view at the front of the school:

Abi's going into year 7, there is definitely one British girl she knows in her class so that's good. Her form tutor is the music teacher who seems very nice. Jacob's tutor is the ICT teacher so he seemed quite pleased. School looks good, will wait and see what the kids think in a week! They are both doing French and Spanish, Abi was going to do Arabic but the head of languages really talked her out of it. Thinking we might just get a tutor to come to the house for all of us. So school starts Tuesday, they are straight on the bus. I get to go to a coffee morning on Wednesday so hoping to meet some new mums then. I am taking another British Mum with me, well she's French but married to a Brit.
We had a few people over for drinks on Friday, lovely up on the roof terrace. There seems to be a boys night each week so I think I need to organise a weekly girls night too. We tried the Brit Club, it was nice to have a decent glass of wine!

1st few weeks in Jordan

Thought I'd put on a few more photos of our first couple of weeks. So here are some of the Dead Sea and us out and about in Amman. We have tried a few restaurants, 2 quite local and one down town. We have enjoyed all of them. Alcohol is definitely more expensive than food but you can get it in most places. We are only drinking at weekends, trying to lose the 6 lbs I put on during our final month in Belgium - oh and we have joined a gym and pool at the Meridien Hotel, it's very good. Still enjoying the sunshine.

1st Birthday in Jordan

Well we have celebrated our first birthday in Jordan, it happened to be mine - we will have to work hard on bettering

this one! I started the day with an early morning coffee in bed as Allen was off to work at 7.30am. The kids then made me pancakes and we had a very relaxed morning with Abi making cakes. We had to unpack the last few boxes as the company came to pick them up on my birthday! So I had a relax on our roof terrace until Allen came back around lunch time. He had got his work car so we opened my presents, had lunch and then had cake - all on the roof terrace.

Once the boxes had gone we headed off to the Dead Sea. We stayed in an amazing hotel, we have since heard that it is the best hotel in Jordan. We could not complain about a thing, and that is an achievement as Allen always has some gripe! We had cooling strawberry towels handed to us as we laid by the pool, someone cleaned my sunglasses as I lay there and we also were given watermelon on sticks to enjoy by the pool. We had interconnecting rooms that opened up onto a huge pool, our terrace lead down to the pool area, there were at least 5 pools to choose from. The 2 meals we had were excellent and the champagne buffet breakfast was brilliant. No call to prayer so I slept through the night too!

So we were all thoroughly spoilt for the weekend. On our return we had been invited around for drinks at someone who works in the Embassy here. I now have a list of restaurants and bars to try out. We ordered a curry from one of their recommendations tonight and it was delicious - eaten up on the roof terrace.

This coming week I will hopefully be able to start driving although we now have a taxi number to use, taxi's have refused to take us anywhere so far - apparently they are not keen on picking up white women. Luckily we can walk to most things so not really a problem. I do want to take the kids to the water park, will see if I manage this week.

Definitely have space for people to visit so book those flights.

Rachael.

Leaving the UK and arriving in Jordan

Well we said goodbye to the UK in style with Mum and Dad hosting a farewell BBQ for us. It was great catching up before flying to Jordan - sorry didn't take any photos!

We flew from London at 5.30pm and arrived in Amman at 12.30am on Monday morning. All was fine, I watched 2 films so it took my mind off the bumpy ride - at no point did the pilot turn on the fasten seatbelt sign - not sure the Jordanian's would have taken any notice anyway!

A huge dust storm had hit Amman earlier in the evening so we arrived to a haze with everything covered in orange dust, the moon looked very strange. Arriving to 30 degree heat dressed in jeans and boots made me look like a local, thinking my jeans will be put away for a few weeks!

We got to our apartment at 2am, it's only 30 mins from the airport so not bad, driving is to be experienced - that is all I am going to say! Abi managed to ring the bell of one of our neighbors at 2am thinking it was a light switch! We all rushed up the stairs, I did shout down sorry when they opened the door and we went and apologised the next day.

Our apartment is nice, dated and small. No dishwasher, will be buying rubber gloves ASAP. The best thing is we can walk to 3 shopping malls, one of which is brilliant, an inside games places, ice skating and go karting! I had a falafel lunch today, food and drink and it was 1.30 Dinars - just over a pound.

Our roof terrace is amazing, you'll just have to visit to see it, but for now here's a photo:

Marion's 70th Birthday

So after Cameron's 21st we had a family day and night out in Glasgow. Allen and I really enjoyed it, Jacob asked why hadn't we left them at Grandma's! We stayed in a very nice spa hotel, met up with friends for a meal out and then did the spy trail in the University district.

Grandma's 70th Birthday was a great weekend. We started on Friday with the girls going to the spa for nail treatments. On Marion's actual birthday - the Saturday - we had a relaxed day with afternoon with cupcakes, made by Abi, and pink champagne - from our trip to the Champagne region last year.

At 6pm we headed off to the venue and enjoyed 4 and a half hours of food, drinks, friends and family. A fun night was had by all. Most people then returned to Marion's and the party continued until about 1am!

Cameron's 21st Birthday

We had two reasons for coming over to Scotland, the first being our nephew, Cameron, turned 21. We

had a fun family meal out and then went back to Louise's (Allen's sister), for cake. The last time we were here to celebrate Cameron's birthday was when he was 16, not sure I put it on this blog, but if I did you can definitely see a huge change in Cameron! He now has a beard. He is hoping to go traveling  after he finishes University. It was great to see them all and the cousins enjoyed being together too.

English Conversation

Well I did my last English conversation yesterday. I have been helping out and then leading an English Conversation group for the past year and a half. It has been lovely to meet ladies from many nations who I now count as friends. I hope I can keep in touch with them all and that we will meet up at some point later in life! You never know maybe I will be able to set up a conversation group in Amman. I really enjoyed taking part in a French conversation group too. The photo below is of some of the ladies, not the whole group was there!