Water, no water, water, no water....

The tab water in Amman is not drinkable. We heard that the water comes from Israel, and although there is a contract that under no circumstances will Israel cut the water flow, this contract does not state what kind of water they are to let through. So people drink bottled water or cook it, even locals. For household purposes there is a water container on the roof, and when it empties in some 2-3 days (we are 5 girls living here, also we do laundry..) there is a switch we are supposed to push and let the pump run for an hour, and then there should be water. I got a rather unpleasant wake up yesterday morning. Even though I though I had done all correct and turned on the pump the night before for an hour after all the laundry we'd done that had emptied our water container, I woke up to no water, not a single drop, tried all the tabs but all I get is the sound of the pipe system. Not a good morning…

Luckily the day was better. At the IC-lecture we formed groups for the coming group project. I work with Karin, Heba from Jordan, Marco from Germany and Jon from Finland, and we will study the differences in things work related between the different countries: work ethics, salaries, benefits, dresscode and finding/applying work. At Multimedia we had the first lesson with Haibo, and he had quite a high level so that we got to ask quite a lot to hang on, it's all about signal transformations again: good old Fourier, I wish it wasn't so many years ago I took the signal course...

In the evening Boel and I ate dinner with Lucas, Pashi and Mikko at this place right next to the uni. The seating was on the floor, just thin madrasses, and just some big sheets of paper in the middle to mark the table area. It was kinda cosy, but the absurd thing was that this was the first restaurant I've been to here where the waitresses were wearing suits! The food was good, huge plates of Mandi chicken and rice with lentil soup and some hot sauce. Not bad for 2EUR!

Afterwards Boel and I joined the guys for some football. It was so tought to run cause it was still quite warm, but the worst thing was maybe how the field dusted: no nice green grass, not even dry grass, but red sand… It was great to do something active, and although I didn't directly impress anyone with my football skillz, I still managed to have fun. We played until it got dark, and then it was time for shower, strething and a well deserved rum&cola and book.

We've been at the two huge malls here now a couple of times. Not maybe the size of the Edmonton-biggest-mall-in-the-world, but big enough for us to get lost in the shoe stores. The mission was to find a hat to protect my head from the heat at the desert, our trip to Wadi Rum and Petra will take place next weekend, but I ended up buying also sandals and a skirt :) It's cheap, but not supercheap, so no more shopping until next week… I'm planning on finding more nice pashminas, because they are cheaper here and you can find all possible colors and patterns.

Well, I'm off to school, will probably post this in the afternoon cause there is no internet this morning (we are smooching off some neighbors unlocked wireless at the apartment).