"Americans love being tan, like Barack Obama..."

-Direct quote from Ojou. 

I'm a bad blogger and have yet to post about our excursion to Wadi Rum last weekend, so here goes. We left early Friday morning and after a four hour bus ride, we arrived in Wadi Rum. For those of you who don't know, it's a valley (wadi means valley in Arabic) in sandstone and the biggest one in Jordan. Lawrence of Arabia based his operations there during the Arab Revolt and one of the rocks is called the Seven Pillars of Wisdom after his book (see the photo of me sitting with it in the background). A lot of Bedouin tribes live there also. We then had a four hour tour in the backs of pickup trucks and made stops along the way so that we could climb the rocks. It was pretty warm during the day, but as soon as the sun went down it was freezing. After the tour we went to the Bedouin camp where we had a delicious dinner and spent the night. Don't be impressed, it was very comfortable and touristy, but fun nonetheless.

The next day we went on a three hour long camel ride... It was quite a sight since there were over 90 of us. I was really nervous at first but it ended up being a lot of fun and I enjoyed all but about the last half hour. Three hours is maybe too long to ride a camel. After that we had lunch and went home.

This week has been extremely busy. On Tuesday CIEE held a talk about GBLT life in Jordan. The man who spoke is an openly gay advocate for GBLT rights. It was a really cool opportunity to listen and ask questions about something that few people address here. Tuesday was also St. Patrick's Day, so some of us went to an Irish pub and had green beer to celebrate.

This weekend a few of us decided to go to the Dead Sea. It's only about a forty minute bus ride from Amman. We went to a resort and somehow got in for free, minus the cost to rent a towel and locker. We floated around for awhile and then three of us decided to get the mud on our bodies. It's supposed to be really good for your skin, but we did it because it looked cool. You pay some guy with a bucket of mud one dinar and he rubs you down, which, looking back on it, is pretty weird especially for Jordan. I told the ladies about it tonight and they found it wildly inappropriate that a man would touch women like that. Anyway, we had a lot of fun. 

Tonight the ladies and I watched Star Academy, the Arab version of American Idol. The whole cast was singing a song together and I thought the tune was really familiar... Turns out it was "What A Feeling" from Flashdance, translated into Arabic plus hilarious choreography. If it can be found on YouTube, I highly recommend viewing this.

On Sunday the ladies are hosting a birthday party for their great niece, Deena (see photos in a previous post). They have been preparing food for this affair all week long, forced Deena to invite me at least four times per week for the last month, and asked me when my classes finish approximately thirty times. From the sounds of it, this promises to be an epic event. I don't doubt that it will be entertaining with lots of delicious food, but these events are always awkward because I just kind of sit there quietly while no one talks to me. Although at the last one, one of the ladies' other great nieces drew pictures with me which I appreciated.

In other news, my friends and I have decided to go to Istanbul for our ten day long Easter break. I'm SO excited. We might also hit Egypt or Greece, depending on cost and travel time. So this week will be consumed with mid terms and Easter break planning. Next weekend we are going on an excursion entitled "Desert Castles". I have to be honest, I have no idea what it will entail but I'm a sucker for castles of any kind so I signed up.

Okay I tried to add photos but it didn't work... I am going to try and put all my photos on a website so that it is easier to access, because I don't think the Facebook thing worked very well.