Rii7la Tweela

 The title of this post is the Jordanian chat language version of saying 'long trip'. Unfortunately, it was not as long as we had hoped, due to protests. It was only 2 days, one night, and we didn't get to go to Wadi Rum (my favorite place in Jordan) I was sad, but what can you do? Our plan was this: 7:50 am drive to Mount Nebo. Hang out for an hour, then head over to the Dead sea. Spend an hour there, then lunch, then trek on over to Petra! We got there at about 7:30 pm, had some time, then dinner, and studying! Yay going on the trip 2 weeks late, aka the week before finals!!!!! Then in the morning at 7 we woke up for breakfast, and 8:10am we left for Petra (a 5 minute walk to the entrance). We returned around 3:30 for a quick lunch and then back on the bus to Irbid :( No in more detail.

Mount Nebo
So last time, we got a big bus that was relatively comfortable. Of course, as we are only 7 people on the program and only 3 roommates came and 4 teachers and a driver, we were lucky enough to get the little shitty bus that is much bumpier on the terrible Jordanian roads. The roads are also pretty bad in Israel, I don't know what it is about this part of the world, but they don't have smooth roads.  Anyways, not really important. When we finally got there, it was fine...nothing super special to me, but a nice view. For those of you who don't know, Mount Nebo is a holy christian sight. This is because it is where Moses died. He lead the Jews for 40 years, so obviously, dealing with grumpy Jews in the desert made him rather annoyed at life, and when he asked G-d for some water, G-d told him to tap a rock with his staff. But Moses smacked the rock hard, and water did come out, but he was banned from the Promised Land...kinda a harsh punishment, but G-d is G-d and he gets to make the rules I guess. Anyways, I didn't quite get why it was a HOLY CHRISTIAN site, until my friend reminded me there aren't really Jews here, so I guess that makes sense. Anyways, this picture above is of me being Moses and looking out at the Promised land (actually its in the opposite direction, but no big deal) I've got my beard and my (invisible) staff, and I am sad to not be able to cross, and know I am about to die cause I've done my part. Yeah, I thought about this.  The picture below is of my and my favorite teacher, Iman. She was my teacher during the summer, and now I have Adella. I miss Iman as my teacher...she is from Syria which is a totally different culture, so she understands why its hard for us here...Her and Manal, the Academic Director, as well as Mazen the Residential Director, but

 he's a man so its not exactly the same, are all from Syria and all are pretty miserable here. The American CET staff based in DC don't like them talking smack about the city we live in, but I am glad they do. This is a pretty awful place, and knowing that Arabs have just as hard a time living here as I do lets me know that it is not my American habits and ideas that are the problem...its not that I am not open minded, and its not that I didn't try to like it. This place really does just suck. And that doesn't mean that everyone here is bad, but a lot of them. It is a very sexist and oppressive place, and I will NEVER return. Jordan, of course...as a whole, I really like Jordan. Irbid, is its own thing, its own little bit of hell. We joke that it is next on the list after Sodom and Gomorrah to be smited by G-d. Just you wait. We'll read about it in the news one day. Anyways, I really like the three Syrians, and would not have made it 6 months here without them, so American CET office can suck it. They should never have made the Syria program move here...it was a terrible idea.

Dead Sea
So this is officially my fourth time at the Dead Sea. Woot. It was Olivia and Katie's first times, so that was exciting. At first, I didn't go in because I wanted to study and didn't want to get all salty and dirty or wet. But you can't go to the Dead Sea and see all your friends (not splashing, that is such a bad idea here) rolling around and floating in the water. So I went in.

The four girls, from Left, Chelsea, Olivia, Me, and Katie, starring into the distance.

 This is maybe my favorite picture, because Chelsea actually looks really good and I ruin it by rolling over...it also looks like I got a million limbs all twisted up...I think its pretty funny, so I added it. :)

After the fun in the sea, we had to dry off and change (I was still salty and sandy like I thought, but oh well) then we went to have lunch at the restaurant and I bought my friend a souvenir from the gift shop. It was originally 10JD so I said oh HELLS no (Jordan is super cheap so no way was I paying touristy prices for some crap produced in India anyways) so then they said 5JD and I said okay. But since I was pretty tired and salty from the sea, I wasn't bubbly or smiling, which made the Jordanians concerned I was unhappy, so the man brought it down to 4JD...still over priced, but much less so...so I was okay with it. I was at the Dead Sea so I couldn't expect too much, but I brought it down over 50% so that is always a good sign and I didn't even try to really 'haggle'.


PETRA
Petra, the best place of all. We arrived and had a little time before dinner so I took a proper shower. Of course, this is Jordan, so the temperature was only scalding hot to freezing cold and back and I really actually had no control over it...I turned on the water and it changed on its own. Still, the pressure was descent so I can't complain...it was the best shower I'd had since Amman. Dinner was great, with a ton of veggies, although the hotel owner guy had a really hard time wrapping his head around vegetarianism. He kept asking me how I ate, and what I wanted to eat for breakfast (In Jordan, breakfast is generally cheeses, lebne which is like yoghurt, veggies, and breads with normal spreads, and hard boiled eggs...all of which I eat, so I was confused why he was confused)  he also asked several times about lunch (which I will discuss later as it was a huge success in my book). After dinner, we asked Mazen if CET would pay for the girls to get internet (3jd per hour! way expensive) since we had to do work for school since it was the end of the semester. He agreed, and I got pretty far in my research essay. My research essay for my fos-ha class (Modern Standard Arabic) was 5 pages single spaced in Arabic. We got to choose our own topics. This summer (5 pages but double spaced) I wrote about Petra, but it was kind of a cop out because it was sooo easy and I just translated a few on-line sources. The essay isn't about the research it is about how well you use Arabic, so after I ran out of things to say about Petra I discussed it's appearance in popular culture, films like Transformers and Indiana Jones. This time, I didn't want to do that, I wanted to write about something real that I was interested in, actually put some effort into it. Since we learned all these violent and sad words, I decided to write about he holocaust and World War 2. Since our only rule was to relate it to the Arab world, my topic was the participation of Arabs in World War 2. It was actually quite fascinating, and I found out about this author who researched and  documented stories of Arabs who had saved Jews in North Africa during the holocaust. I wrote about both sides, as there was a strong anti semitic group of Arabs, especially in Palestine (the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was pretty good pals with Hitler) as well as other countries who didn't care about the Jews plight or not but they wanted to be free of their colonial powers and joined the opposite side as their colonial country. Again I ran out of things to say (my Arabic vocabulary is not that great so my sentences were pretty concise) so I discussed holocaust denial and other things of the sort. I got to 3.5 pages by the time I stopped, and went to bed.

The next morning was so difficult to wake up. I actually convinced myself to skip going to Petra because I've seen it, but then realized that was not something I wanted to do, and got myself up. Breakfast was fine, but there was salt in the coffee and I was way sad. Two of the girls didn't get up, and I had to go wake them. We finally walked over to buy the tickets to get in, but there was some mix up and we had to get a fax from the university to get discounted tickets, and it took about an hour to actually get inside. Finally, we walked in, and being in an archaeology class, my homework had been to read the chapter on the Nebateans (who built Petra). Thus I gave the girls the walking tour (at least through the Siq - the big skinny canyon you walk through, about 1km until it suddenly opens out and you see the Tomb of the Pharoah) Pretty cool huh? This was built in AD 100s. Their view point was go big or go home. They went big. The amazing thing is they didn't start small either...they have some basic cave houses, and then several huge tombs and churches like this...huge! Its crazy, I can't really believe how awesome this is. There were some pretty grumpy 'Roman Soldiers' standing around trying to make money, so we took a picture with them, trying to look grumpy like we were captives...

 After that, we walked around. It really is amazing...my roommate Lara, Katie and I climbed the Khubtha Trail (I think that is what it was called). It was 612 stairs (I counted on the way down) and we nearly died. We took many breaks, and finally we made it to the top. There was a great view, but nothing else...just rock. Slightly disappointing. It was sad because Olivia didn't feel well so she didn't explore too much. Below will be a series of photos of the amazingness of Petra:

Katie taking on of the many breaks on the way up to the top of the Khubtha trail

check out the ceiling! its like that everywhere! Fucking Amazing!!!!!

Like I said, buildings just pop out of the rocks, Like Daisies!

Here is a picture of Katie and Lara looking through what could have been a window...who knows for sure?

here is their amphitheater...a lot of things were pretty badly damaged by earthquakes, but the ruins are still pretty cool

Rommie picture! Lara, my roommate and I play games in the houses

Here is me, playing on the ruins...because you can do that in Jordan

This is high up, but still not the top of the Khubtha trail. Its hard to see, but there are Katie and I standing on the rock waving.