What's Been and What's Ben

I spent the last month stranded out on the Island, but am back in my old apartment – the fifth closest to campus. My walk has been shorted from twenty minutes to seven. Everything works. No more mold. I get to take a shower instead of sponge bath things! My apartment overlooks the town square. This square has transformed a great deal recently. It is now full of cars (the alarms go off from time to time) that are being sold. The square is full of restaurants like Burger King, Baskin Robins, Tamimi (safeway), quiznos, a shwarma place, an Arab place, an Indian place, a coffee shop, and a Pizza Hut rip off. Pizza Hut here incidentally is a fancy chain of sit down restaurants that you go to. Quiznos uses American cheese on sandwiches that taste better without and only puts on lettuce half the time. Baskin Robins is probably as common as McDonalds and Burger King combined in the Middle East. Shwarma is a delicious fresh-grilled chicken wrap with french fries inside made from chicken breasts constantly rotating in from of a fire with the cooked outside being cut off as it chars. Food, as you may be able to tell, it a big part of life here as there is not that much to do but eagerly await the showing of The Pink Panther 2 in a few days. Now we must eat in a cafeteria…well, we do, because it is free. The dining facilities here are too expensive for students. So I will be making my own meals when the cafeteria goes away at the end of the month. It will be nice now that I am back at my apartment. I am currently tearing up aluminum foil and sowing them up on string like popcorn for Christmas trees. I place these strands (one so far) in my window; illuminated by my LED accent lights that constantly pass through the colors. As the air conditioner blows air over my windows (bad thermal design?) it causes them to move around.

It was over 40 C here the other day when the high in Minneapolis was 40 F. I listen to the MPR (Minnesota Public Radio) ipod touch app to expose myself to some new music. The nights are cooler. The women on campus continue to live in the hotel on campus.