I think one of the funny things about being abroad and meeting ex-pats are the gut-bustingly hilarious stories about things that they miss about home that they share - including missing Velveeta singles slices so bad (it being ridiculously expensive here, which is all the more odd considering it's NOT EVEN REALLY CHEESE - we're talking about $8 for those small packs with the 12 slices of cheese) that one friend here asked for one package of Velveeta cheese for her anniversary present (and is now considering asking for a package for Christmas :) )! Or about how one was missing a particular brand of scented candles so bad, that they brought a whole suitcase FULL back with them, and then had the customs agents individually smelling each lovely candle, with the scents of pumpkin pie, sugar cookie, french vanilla, etc etc wafting through customs at the Queen Alia airport... or how one person brought over a 10 lb ham in her carry on purse...
However, this is more for language learning today. Actually, I don't really think I know that much, but I am trying to use and learn Arabic as much as I can (I've already attended one Arabic class), and people around me are saying that I'm picking it up relatively quickly (so why can't I learn Korean or Spanish, then?).
So, I've already learned how to conjugate some verbs, how to ask for several different items, and some other useful phrases. But here's a small spattering of some phrases that I've been using over the past week or so:
shoukran: Thank you
Salaam alaykum. Kifkom: Peace be upon you. How are you doing today?
Biddi mayy: I would like some water please.
heloua tifil: what a beautiful baby boy.
la, ma biddi finjaan qafwi: no thank you, I would not like a cup of coffee.
Some of the other stuff I've learned is hard to transliterate into English without pronouncing it as well, and most of the other stuff is just random words cobbled together. I figure I've still got time to learn more as I go along...
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