12/31/10 Update: Ok, so it's not as bad as I thought. When I got off the plane, no one understood any of my attempted gibberish at all, which was, needless to say, depressing and scary. But, after a few days, Jordanians been striking up conversations with me that are more along the lines of "Where are you from?" and "I have family in Missouri," than "Are you stupid?"
I'm not dumb! I just haven't been here in two years!
Amman is more or less the same. Some new restaurants have opened, and some old ones closed. Everyone still uses unleaded gasoline and looks angry all the time. I have already found the Amman version of Bucktown (which is where I'm looking into living), and I landed a gig teaching conversational English twelve hours a week at a language academy near the University of Jordan. Not bad for three days in the Hashemite Kingdom!
This is more like what I was doing in Chicago after getting back...
