Even in a country as welcoming as Jordan, it is, however, difficult, at first, to integrate into the culture. It is very tempting to hide in a group, and I was tempted to do just that, hide among my classmates. But this behavior defeats the purpose of traveling, which is not to spend all of your time with other Americans! To combat this temptation not to step outside my comfort zone, I did my best, while exploring the city, to find places that were not full of other study-abroad students. Since Amman is a small city, I eventually got word of where the locals went regularly, and purposely went to visit these places, too. While shyness can get in the way of integrating fully, many people approached me, because they were curious as to why so many non-Jordanians were in Amman. And their friendliness really helped me out! The people of Amman are very welcoming to students from overseas, and many Jordanians have shared with me their own stories of studying abroad or their hopes of, one day, doing so.
Now that social distancing has gone into full effect, I have found that using online apps has been a great way to meet friends in Jordan. Of course, you should always be careful doing this since anyone can pretend to be anything online; but finding people that I previously met in the city and chatting with them again online has gone well so far. I believe that a worry many people have before they study abroad is that the culture will be so different that they will not be able to make friends. However, this is simply not the case. I have met so many people here whose interests overlap with mine.
