Blogging From Nablus

One year has passed since I last went to the city of Nablus, West Bank, Palestine. This morning our family set out early in the morning to the bridge between Jordan and the West Bank. At first I was reluctant to go, I didn't want to leave my holiday behind.

And my Xbox 360 games were far away from finished. But that's another post. I had originally wanted to bring the Xbox with me, but then the Israelis would think it was a Qassam rocket launch pad or something.

I had originally purposed that I could go with my father to Britain, my place of birth and country for eleven years, instead of going to Nablus once again. Dad thought the idea was ridiculous and once he started on his we-haven't-got any-money lecture for me to go as well, I knew I had no hope.

By the way, according to the Israeli's, I'm officially a suspicious person: male, fifteen and Palestinian. I got asked my age at every check point and was asked to 'wait on a chair' as my family got their papers back at the border.

Thirty minutes later I was called and my mobile phone and passport were searched and wiped with some strange brush. Did they think I was hiding something in my passport?

Also, at one of the check points, the soldier asked the taxi driver.
Soldier: Are you hiding rockets?
Driver: No!
Soldier: Don't lie! Do you have rockets?
Driver: What do I need rockets for?!
Soldier: Just joking. Off you go!

I hope to keep you posted like last year, with more pictures as well.

Holidays Before Holidays

Some things are really strange in this world, like aliens, politicians and taxi drivers. But one thing that’s really strange is how Arabs decide their days off. Which is were my ranting all begins, when students decided that Thursday, the day before the Eid holiday which will last for more than a week, is a holiday for them as well.

There’s no problem in taking a day off, but why would anyone take off a day when you’ve got a whole week ahead of you. And just to add to that, my parents made me go to school anyway and I got bored to death, along with the other three students that came along as well, and did practically nothing.

Which asks the question, why on earth do we need holidays before holidays? The problem is that it’s grown too much its hard to stop this bad habit. My point is, there’s nothing wrong in taking a day off for some reason, but the problem is when you take a holiday for the sake of another holiday. It’s a bit like how everyone at school will come in their new clothes when we come back.

Picking Video Games

After almost three months of searching around the streets of Jordan for any solution for modding my Xbox 360, I have finally been defeated and have not found any shop at all. In the end, I had to go ahead and order original games for my Xbox from Amazon. I ended up spending my entire years’ savings on three games and a controller, for £150.

Before I go on and tell you about the games I chose to play for god knows how long, I’d like to give you some advice on how to choose a game. It’s a rather simple procedure that ensures you get the best game for your money and don’t end up getting disappointed you spent your well earned money on a pile of rubbish.

The main point you must always take into consideration, and is the biggest impact on whether the game is good or not, is seeing critics’ views. Looking up the game on a popular review website, like IGN or Gamespot, is the first part of choosing a game. As a general rule of thumb, even before reading the review, look at the games score. Generally, any game over 9 is excellent, and don’t take this easily.

For example, 8.9 is not excellent, and reviewers really do take into consideration everything to determine if a game really does make the point of excellence. Games over nine are the ones to go for first, but there’s nothing wrong in going for something over 8. Below eight, however, is a no-no.

There are things you mustn’t look for. One of the first is well awaited for sequels, or in other words a new release to a popular series. Just because the company did it right before it doesn’t mean that it’ll do it better again. In fact, sometimes it comes out worse, like Need For Speed Undercover. Another thing not to look for is over-hyped reviews, such as the ones from magazines, since they tend to give a perfect full score to anything they find seems good, which isn’t always the case.
Putting all of that into mind, picking a game is simple.

Even if you’re stuck on two similar games with just about the same score, try watching a video review. This shows you game play and also tells you what’s good about the game and what’s bad. It’s a two in one deal, and you’re sure to get out of it picking the best one.

Considering this all, I went ahead and picked three sequels to games that reviewers considered excellent, or above nine in the score. The first was Gears of War 2, a sequel to an already excellent game, with better stunning graphics the second time.

Next was Fallout 3, an RPG that wasn’t much heard of until the third made its way through and marvelled all critics. This is a game that combines graphics, with a good storyline and interesting styles of game play. Lastly was the latest sequel in the Call of Duty series, World at War. According to reviewers, even though this went back into the World War once again, it managed to keep its name and stay a brilliant shooter.

Enjoy.

First Week Of School

Now this was one long week, and I guess the reason was no other than because it was a school week.

A lot of new things happened this tenth year in school. My brother now comes with me to school, which is rather annoying, and we now go to school by car instead of by bus.

Quite a few of the old teachers had changed - well, we weren't really surprised. The Physics teacher was probably fired because everyone hated him, the Chemistry teacher was pregnant and had to stop teaching - how convenient. She was good and now they've got us someone worse.
The English teacher tried to get a raise but in this stubborn school, they disagreed and she left in search of a better school. About 10 students from grade nine had left and there was only 1 new student.

Last year a friend of mine was hit by an SUV and broke his thigh when he was leaving the school. The school had to fire the PE teacher, since he let him leave early - not that'd make a difference, but the school has to blame someone or else the parents (see: money) will start asking questions.

And thats that. This year is externals year for the IGCSE - something equivalent to the tawjihi. Thats great, just great. More pressure. :)

Anyway this weekend my family is off to THE AQABA, city of buildings made of gold and a woman blowing sand onto them. Hehe. I'll hopefully be blogging from there, so see you then.

Summer Till Now

Two weeks of summer have past and it’s already fantastic. Not only is it because schools out, but I’m doing quite a lot of activities that make summer worthwhile.

The gym I told you about in a previous post is great. The coaches are well trained and the place is full of rather interesting workout machines. It really is something worth the money.

I’ve watched quite a few films till now, since the last review of Iron Man, I watched Indiana Jones 4, 21, Street Kings and Oceans 13.

The date of the Xbox 360 is coming close, which is in four more days. I don’t exactly know from where to buy it from, does anyone know a place in Amman and its prices?

Other than that, I learned four more pages of Koran, visited lots of relatives, ate lots of food and made lots of milkshake, which my coach advised me to do.

Ah, and my dad went this morning on a one month trip to London.

So that’s all, how is your summer holiday going?

A Hectic Thursday

I came back from school on Thursday, tired and wanting to relax, when my mobile rings.

Its my friend, asking me if I want to go out today. As helpless and tired as I am, I tell him I'll see if I can.

You see, all my friends find life at home the most boring place to be. They actually have computers, Internet, satellite and usually even game consoles, but they can never make those things enjoyable.

I only have a few things but find life at home perfectly perfect.

After a few minutes, which was plenty of time for me to consider the twenty two million considerations I must put into mind before even thinking about the actual thoughts I would think about going out, the mobile rang again.

I accepted, surrendering to the anxiety and jeer pleasure of staying at home, add to that the tiredness I had from a week of enduring school.

My parents weren't in, neither the mood nor had the energy to take me out by car, so I decided to walk to my 'very close by friends home'. Here, close by means a bit over two kilometers.

The weather was great and so I actually enjoyed the walk. It didn't seem so long. Actually, now I think about it, it was a bit long.

By the way, we didn't do anything that exciting at the mall. Other than being kicked out twice by the single celled security guards, then begging our way back in.

And that was how I spent my Thursday.

How did you spend your Thursday?

A Journey To Nablus

As I said in the previous post, I am now on holiday in Nablus, Palestine (West Bank), for three weeks. In this town live all my relatives from my mums side, including my grandmother, as my grandfather passed away 3 years ago (allah yir7amo), and is also the town of my still living 100-year old great grandfather, whom I will go and visit hopefully this holiday.

In these posts, which I will be posting daily inshallah, I will include my daily actions in the city of Nablus. I will also try to include some photos, if I can. Some kind of 'live-blogging', if you want to call it that. Enjoy the first post of my visit to Nablus, the city under occupation.

Were to begin?

At seven o'clock in the early morning, the sun still barely coming out, the family was wide awake and on its way to the Jordanian bridge. The "bridge", for you that aren't familiar with it, is a building that you enter to cross between the two neighboring countries, Palestine and Jordan.

Two very close-by countries, but very far in political situations, for one is in war, and one isn't. And not just any war.

Almost five years of crossing the two countries, using this type of uncommon travel, I was used to entering the whole cliché of 'the bridge'. Everyone who has tried crossing the bridge will know how badly unorganized it is. And by saying that, I really do mean it – chaos, mayhem, disorder.

But not this time. Allah was on our side, and we had chosen a perfect timing – in between the two terms, and just before the end of Tawjihi exams. And I must warn you, never ever think about going on the bridge in the summer holidays, because it will be total mayhem. We have learnt our lesson, and now go in between the two terms, when it is calm with barely any people.

Now let's get along with things, shall we?

We went through the Jordanian bridge, got on the rickety bus, and it began to drive. Looking out of the window, I could see the Israeli flags on the gate that we were approaching, with the pale men wearing sunglasses, green clothing and guns in their hands sitting in the bunkers.

After having to take off jackets and belts, removing mobiles and purses, and handing passports and papers, I entered that weird device that sprays you with some weird chemical (maybe air, or maybe bug spray). If anyone has been in that device or knows about it, can you explain what it is, because I felt a bit queasy after it. :D

Then, we got onto even more buses, who took us to the city of Jerico, or Aree7a, as it is called. There we tried to find a taxi who would take us to Nablus, but of course, they were taxi drivers, the worst species on earth. This time we had a driver who was a mixture of a dirty pig and a cheater (refer to post), because he tried to take 10JD extra from us to go early. Maybe he thought we were 'the rich idiots' or something.

Anyway, Nablus was quite easy to get to, this time the checkpoints were simple, and the driver did a good deed for once in his life, and took us a through a longer but checkpoint free route.

And now we ended up in my grandma's house. Of course, I typed all of this onto Word before pasting into Blogger, because this house still doesn't have the luxury of ADSL. It’s a good thing my grandma has dial-up. ;)

I'll keep posting whenever I can, maybe with some photos as well. Thank you for reading, and comments are welcome.