Vacation Weekend

I realize that I am officially the worst blogger ever. Hopefully what I lack in frequency I make up for in length and wit. Hopefully.

This past weekend some friends and I went to Aqaba, which is a beach town about a 4.5 hour bus ride south of Amman. We left on Thursday because we had reservations at a large party on the beach, something that I guess is pretty common there. The party was at a really nice hotel literally right on the beach and we had a lot of fun. Friday we wandered around the city in the morning and went to the beach in the afternoon. If girls want to wear bathing suits, they have to go to a private beach, and the one we went to was nice. It was interesting to see the fully-covered Muslim women swimming in the water or sitting in the sun, usually just wearing normal clothes like jeans. It was also interesting to see the European tourists wearing... much less. After our day at the beach we went back to our hotel and got ready for dinner. We ate on the rooftop terrace of a delicious restaurant. After that we walked around and found a cafe right on the beach where we smoked hookah. People would put their chairs in the water and just sit. I thought that would have been too cold but they seemed to enjoy it. We stayed chatting and people watching until pretty late that night.
Saturday we had made reservations to go scuba diving. I had never been before and have an intense fear of drowning, but I thought maybe this would be a good day to overcome it. We went out on a boat in the morning and stayed out until maybe 5pm. Each person only dove for about twenty minutes total, and the rest of the time was spent relaxing and sun bathing on the boat which was wonderful. I went diving with Chris and at first when we got in the water I had a very minor panic attack, but our instructor was patient with me and held my hand as we went down. The most incredible thing about the experience was not so much the scenery as it was being able to breathe underwater. I would definitely do it again and recommend it to anyone, I had so much fun. All-in-all it was a perfect weekend, and when we missed our bus we all momentarily considered staying just one more day.

Sidenote: after all that time in the sun I developed a pretty decent tan, which I had hoped would help me fit in better with the Jordanians... Unfortunately at the same time my hair seems to have lightened. One step forward, two steps back. Then I realized that maybe it's sad that after two months I still haven't resigned myself to the fact that I will never fit in here.
In other news, we fly out to Istanbul on Friday morning! Unfortunately I have an imtihan kabeer (large exam) on Thursday plus cover letters and resumes to send out for internships this summer, so I can't get too excited just yet. We don't have much of an itinerary laid out other than the obvious tourist attractions, but something tells me we will find a way to pass six days in Turkey. I can't wait!