Whirl-wind week

Well, in the last week I've been in 5 countries. How cool is that?

I'll update about our travels in Barcelona, south of France, Switzerland and Italy (and Vatican city... which is it's own country) later. But for now, I thought I'd probably mention that we're coming home tomorrow (Monday). Nothings wrong, we're both fine, we just both really strongly felt that we needed to come home. After three days of debating it, we got flights home from Madrid. So I'll be back in Provo Tuesday or Wednesday-ish...

The world is great, and I'm glad I was able to see the little that I was. Next year, when I have even more saved up and hopefully the Euro crashes, I'll be back =]

The Rain in Spain? Not for us!

I wish I could post pictures and some of the movies (like of the flamenco bar), but I have too many and not enough time on the internet!

Well, we´ve been cruising around Spain here for the last four days, and it´s been BEAUTIFUL weather--clear skies and in the mid-80s. On Wednesday we took the late train rom Madrid to Granada and spent the night. The next day, we went to visit Alhambra (which I pronounce the arabic way--with out the B). That was probably one of the most BEAUTIFUL buildings I have ever seen! EVER! I´ve wanted to go for awhile and I was definitely not disappointed. It´s an old Moorish castle and fortress and the intricate carvings on the wall are just mind-blowing. We spent over four hours there, wandering around the palace and the green flowering gardens.

That night we trained to Sevilla and went straight to our hostel (which we LOVED, by the way). We walked around the entire city the next day, seeing every sight you can imagine. That night we went to a Flamenca bar. It was so so so so sooooooo cool. The dancer was amazing and the singer had the most hilarious facial expressions. According to dane, the guitarist was alright, but I thought he was pretty good ;)

The next morning we trained back to Madrid, walked around for a few hours, then took the evening train to Barcelona. We´ve spent all of today here, and we´re taking the train to Bern tomorrow. It´s gorgeous here, but HOT. And full of college age tourists wandering around in swimsuits. We spent a few hours at the beach after exploring the city, and people are definitely don´t mind nudity....

We saw La Sagrada familia designed by Gaudi, and wandered around the Gothic quarter (LOVE LOVE LOVE the architecture!) where we had THE best gelato I have ever eaten. It was so freaking good, we´re going back tomorrow before we leave.

I´m having such a blast. I´m so grateful I´m able to do this. Even if it was only this country or a couple more, it is definitely worth it. And I´ve been noticing the hand of the Lord in several of the things we´ve done (like getting in to the palace at Alhambra an hour before our slotted time). There´s no way we can always get so lucky by chance. Alma 26:37.

In Spain

So. After a VERY long day of flights and waiting at airports and sleeping in odd places in said airports... I finally got to Spain yesterday afternoon. I love it! After London, Madrid is quickly becoming my favorite city. I went to el Parque de Retiro and realized that I had forgotten what GREEN is! Really! After being in a desert of yellow and brown and red and white, seeing so many TREES and GRASS and BUSHES EVERYWHERE. Even the shade seemed green. It made the Cook's backyard look like a weed patch. Ohhh, I love trees =]

I met up with Dane in Alcala de Henares and he's shown me around a bit. The next few days we're going to go around Madrid a bit, and on the 18th we set off on our adventure!

When I actually take pictures, I'll try and put some up. But for now, that's about all I got. Hope all is going well at home!

PS: Happy Father's Day, dad! You're wonderful =] Love you!

The World-wide Church

Today I got to experience the Primary Program here in the Amman branch: rowdy kids mumbling into the microphone and singing "Scripture Power" and all the verses of "Follow The Prophet". Gotta love how the church really is the same wherever you go in the world =]

Jerash and Shwarma

Yesterday (meaning the 11th) was a good day. I had a laid back morning, where I sat out in the garden and read my scriptures and wrote in my journal and read. In the afternoon, two girls who were with me in Petra, Krystyna and Dana, came by. They had a flight to Germany last night, and had spent the previous night in a hostel... Which they said was basically one of the scariest things they've ever done. So they found haven at the church centre too. The Cooks are truly amazing, welcoming everyone in with open arms and a peanut butter sandwich.

That evening Pres. and Sis. Cook took us all to Jerash for the high school graduation of one of the girls in the branch. The Relief Society of the branch, Elaine, came too. Sidenote on Elaine: She is the coolest woman! She works for BYU, but she's also the director of the nursing PhD program here at the University of Jordan. She's lived in Jordan the last two years, though she's spent time here off and on before that. She's spunky and independent and had the wittiest sense of humor. I hope I like that when I'm in my 60's.

Anyway, we got a bit lost trying to find the entrance, so we got a nice whirlwind tour of the modern city of Jerash. Finally, after asking a policeman for directions (who ignored me when I asked in Arabic), we found where to park. Technically, only Pres. and Sis Cook and Elaine had invitations, and thus could get into the park for free, while the three of us probably should have paid the 8 JD park fee... But they didn't check and we ended up getting in for free.

The graduation was in the ancient Roman amphitheatre. How cool is that?! It was awesome to sit there on those ancient stone seats and wonder about how it may have looked back when it was in it's prime (And apperantly they do concerts there too). The school was the American Community School, though there were only three Americans out of the entire 35 students of the graduating class. The highlight was when they sang their class song, which was "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". How often can you say that you've heard that song sung by a bunch of graduating high school seniors in the ruins of an ancient Roman amphitheatre?

When it was over, me and the two other girls rushed out to explore the ruins for a few minutes. We paused for a moment at the entrance to the amphitheatre, where there were Jordanian guards playing the bagpipes. How awesome is that? Supposedly, it's an old Bedouin tradition.

We went down to the ruins just behind the amphitheatre, then went down to the main plaza. I took some pictures, then headed down to the main road. There were a bunch of guards sitting there, but I figured if I couldn't go past them they would stop me.

They didn't stop me =] So I continued wandering down the main road, taking side trips to explore the various buildings. Strains of the bagpipers playing Amazing Grace and Yankee Doodle drifted down the hill.

It wasn't until I got to the main crossroads that I realized two of the guards were following me. They were about my age, and when they found out I could speak Arabic, a fast friendship was born =] The really talkative one, Mohammed, barely spoke any English, but he would go off in Arabic, explaining things about the roads and how there were water channels underneath, etc. I understood most of what he was talking about, even if I didn't understand most the words he said. The other guard spoke much better English, but he was kinda quiet. They walked with me down the rest of the main road, Krystyna and Dana trailing behind. Apperantly, the park was closed, but they basically let me wander around for about a half hour. Sometimes, it pays to be a cute white girl who can speak Arabic ;)

Eventually, we had to stop and turn around. They looked like they would have let us keep going, but their senior guard (I'm assuming) had kinda given them a hard time about letting us get even that far. But it was very kind of them =] The walk back consisted of them showing us how the columns move ever so slightly when you push on them (by levering a key at the base of one and watching it move up and down... Hard to describe, but the column moved!), and Mohammed trying to instruct me on how to properly pronounce "kh", or the letter that sounds like you're clearing the back of your throat. I thought I did it fine, but they were laughing so hard at me. But it was fun =]

The adults were waiting in the car, and we had a nice drive back to Amman (it's about an hour). We dropped Elaine off, stopped by Burger King for us three famished youngsters, and headed back to the centre.

Today, the Cooks showed me Abdoun, the posh, "Beverly Hills" area of Amman (the church centre is right on the edge of it). They took me to an amazing shwarma place, and we got delicious ice cream =] Then we drove around and looked at all the huge houses and Pres. Cook joked about how they were going to by this one or that one for the church and look! They already have a baptismal font! (meaning the fountain out in front). Then we went grocery shopping, and it was amazing to see real American food in a very American-esqe grocery store. Abdoun made me almost feel like I was back in America... Except it was still quite different (obviously). but compared to where I've been living, it was an extreme contrast.

Tomorrow we have church, and in the evening the Cooks are driving me to the airport for my flight to Spain!

Oh, and I added pictures to my Facebook.

In Beautiful Amman

So. I'm in Amman. Oh my goodness. It's literally like finding an oasis after being in the harsh barren desert for so long. Grass! Trees! Beautiful flowers of every color! Violet, fuschia, periwinkle, orange, light pink, and JASMINE! I love the scent of jasmine flowers--we have a huge bush in our front yard in California. I wrote in my journal while sitting on a quaint stone bench in the shade (Shade!) of an olive tree. The air smells like laundry and car exhaust.

The missionary couple is so nice! They just welcomed me in and gave me a room with a double bed =] And they fed us (being me and Katie, who got picked up by Brian, our old Arabic teacher who is our age. That was fun seeing him). Guess what we ate? Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!!!!! It tasted SO good! Real bread! Peanut butter! MMMMM!!!

The Jerusalem Centre kids came by this afternoon for a little devotional thing with Pres Cook just to hear about the church here in the Middle East. It's pretty interesting. Did you know there's a stake in Saudi? It goes from Kuwait down to Yemen and over to the UAE. And they're making the Middle East/North Africa Arabic speaking area, from Syria and Lebanon to Egypt over to Morocco. It's not quite a mission, but it's getting close. Oh... It includes Jerusalem! That's a big step for the church. I've seen a lot of Arabic study abroaders too. Everyone in from the JC and study abroad is like "...Wait... You're not in our group... Who are you?". Kinda fun =]

I don't know what I'll be doing the next few days, but I might be shown around a little by the missionary couple, if they aren't too busy. If not, maybe I can get one of the study abroaders to come with me somewhere? Man, I hate being a young white woman sometimes...

But I'm safe, I'm happy (I got to play the piano!), and I will be in Spain on SATURDAY!!!!

Photos

For those of you without Facebook, here's a link to see my new pictures:

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=17801926&k=ZZE26ZURPVXMZFFGWF26R

Let me know if it doesn't work!

I had a fun little field trip today. Dr. Johnson took a few of us into Wadi Musa to see the Spring of Moses. Yes, the rock that Moses struck and water flowed from it for the children of Israel (Numbers 20:11). Who knows if that’s the real one, but it is a spring that flows out from under the rock, and it’s in the general area where it happened. Just like how the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem may not necessarily be the real tomb of Christ, yet that’s the accepted tradition and it makes it a special, sacred place.

The spring isn’t really that sacred… There’s graffiti on the walls and tons of gift shops outside (“We have good gifts! No charge for look!”). But it was still cool to see. This spring is the one that gives Wadi Musa all of it’s water. It’s interesting how a small spring can bring so much greeness and life. We got there the same time as an Italian tour bus, and it was quite interesting seeing them descend on the place like a flock of pigeons, bustling about, snapping photos, and cooing to each other, then just as sudden as they had come, they flew back to their bus, and drove off.

Then we went to a baklava shop… Huzzah! The old man there didn’t speak English. Well, he knew a couple words, but basically none. He was so nice!!! And he was sooo excited that I could speak Arabic! I was giving him my order and picking out my box of baklava (which is about the most delicious thing in the world), and he kept making me try all these other things they had—and I never turn down a free sample ;). He told me he was from Cairo (hence why he could understand me so well, since I know the Egyptian dialect) and then I helped the others girls get their boxes and helped some people from Australia get their tea. It was really fun. And the other, younger guy that worked there was hitting on Jordyn the entire time, joking about going to America with her. She had no idea what was going on and just stood there looking confused and slightly bewildered the whole time, haha. But I really enjoyed talking with the old man!!! It was fun usuing my Arabic, and I could understand him. It was great =]

Jebal Haroun

Today was our last field trip. We went to Jebal Haroun, the traditional tomb of Aaron. It started out not so good for me. We had a half hour truck ride along bumpy windy dirt roads. I sat in the back of one of the trucks with Cameron and Caleb, but the bed had a roof over it. It was like being in the back of a station wagon, facing the other way. There was also a water container in the back that leaked, but only on my side. Thus, when we finally got to the trail head, not only was I totally carsick, but the bottom of my backpack was soaked, along with the seat of my jeans. The hike up was fun, we followed our Bedouin drivers and just climbed straight up the mountain side. It would have been more fun for me if the world hadn’t been tilting the entire way. Needless to say, it took me a bit longer to get to the top.

But oh my goodness. The view! The view put the one at the Monastery and the High Place to shame! Absolutely phenomenal. You could see all the way to Israel

There’s a little shrine built at the top. The tomb itself was a big stone box like thing with Hebrew writing on it. Next to it was a guestbook, which we all signed. The shrine is a holy place for Muslims, and it can double as a mosque, as was evidenced by the presence of a qibla (the niche in the wall of mosques that points towards Mecca) and rugs. You can climb up on the roof of the shrine, up very narrow steep stairs, and that’s where we ate our snack and hung out. The breeze up there felt wonderful, and getting some food and water in me helped get rid of the dizziness. Even though there wasn’t as much to see as some of the other sites we’ve been at, I think it’s one of my favorite places we’ve been to.

I made a comment while we were up on the roof, gazing at the desert spread out before us, “Can you imagine wandering around here for 40 years?”. The Old Testament seems a bit more real where you’re looking at the desert where the Israelites lived. And the Bedouins in their tents are probably very similar to how the ancient people in the area lived.

We stayed up there for awhile, then hiked down. Just FYI, the hill was steep. Very steep. And the Bedouin drivers leapt down it like they were one of the goats they shepherd. On the way back, Caleb, Cameron, Thomasina and I grabbed the back of an open truck. It was dusty and bumpy and MUCH more fun:



Interesting cultural note: The old man in the back wouldn't talk to me or Thomasina. He only greeted Caleb and Cameron, and when he asked a question about me (how tall I was, how old I was), he didn't ask me, he asked Caleb. And when I answered, he didn't look at me. It's so different. The only attention we get here is catcalls from young men in the village when we walk by ("Very nice!!!"). Other than that, we're pretty much ignored (except by some very kind shopkeepers =]). I can't wait to get back to a place where I can walk down the street and I don't have to avoid looking men straight in the eye, and I can wear shorts, and if someone catcalls me I can do something back, and I can talk to men and be treated like an equal. It's so frustrating.

In his defense, the old man wasn't trying to be rude or put women down. He was actually acting in what he considered a very respectful way. But still...

Four more days here. Wow. How does time go so fast?

So I thought work last week was hard...

Oh no. We’re trying to finish off our site this week, and we were hoping to have it done yesterday, but it was so hot and everyone was so snippy that we didn’t get as much done as we needed to do. Everyone is ready to go home, and while there haven’t been any big fights yet, there has been a lot of people getting irritated. Today was better, mostly because it was the LAST DAY OF DIGGING! And we didn’t even really dig, just swept up all the loose dirt from the bedrock while the wind basically counteracted our progress… Sigh. Archaeology is sometimes just a huge lesson in futility and redundancy.

I have shoveled and hoed so much dirt… But I am definitely getting some muscle from it. I’ll hardly be recognizable when I get home, I’ll be so buff and tan. Josh commented on how defined my abs are, haha.

Now that I’ve been out here a few weeks, I remember why I love it so much. It takes a bit to get into it, but there’s something about digging that’s, well, fun. Especially when you have a site that yields cool things. Unfortunately, this last site did not, but how could you not enjoy swinging a pick and wielding a shovel and lugging 20 lbs of dirt in each hand across the entire site in 90+ degree heat? Strangely exhilerating, I must say

Some random things from Life In Jordan.

The family that owns the house lives on the floor below us, and someone down there is constantly smoking hashish (aka, pot, or its cousin). I can smell it right now as I’m typing. It comes randomly during the day. Isn’t that fun?

We all have assigned laundry days, and it takes a day or two to get your clothes back. Mine was on Saturday, and on Sunday I realized that I didn’t have any shirts, socks, or sports bras to wear. So I snuck into the backyard (we aren’t supposed to go there) and just took some of my clothes off the line. It’s kinda fun seeing everyone’s clothes hung up for the world to see. They’re all plainly visible from the upstairs window (somehow everyone knew that the bright red bra was mine…). And sometimes laundry gets mixed up and put in the wrong bag… Katie came into our room a couple weeks ago, holding a pair of Brittany’s underwear and laughing her head off. Apparently, Scott (one of the TA’s who is a tall, gangly, and slightly awkward redhead) had found it in his laundry and was super embarrassed, hahaha.

Remember how I mentioned that all of the houses here are technically still under construction? (So they don’t have to pay taxes). Well, they just leave the rebars up on the roof, sticking out all crazy-like. The other day I was distracted and walked right into one. I have a HUGE bruise on my shin, and the scrape looks like it has the imprint of the rebar. It’s kinda cool.

Our showers are three stalls all in the same room, so sometimes I’m in there with Caleb and Josh, and we always have great conversations as we’re showering, like about how they want to shave their entire bodies and using a hose instead of toilet paper. It’s definitely a different experience.

Sometimes for dessert we have these little baklava pastry things that come in a big red box and they are sooo good. Because our room is right next to the kitchen, sometimes we do roommate raids; peeking out to make sure no one is around, sneaking out the door, dashing to the kitchen and stealing some from the box, hehe. We don’t have to be sneaky or anything, but it’s fun.

My shirts fit all my roommates. None of them had a clean shirt for a special dinner we had the other night, so I let them all borrow one of mine, and they all fit and looked good. It was kinda fun =]

The special dinner was one hosted for us by a family in the village. It was absolutely delicious!!! There’s this traditional dish they make, where they cook huge quantities of rice with various vegetables mixed in, like eggplant, friend cauliflower, carrots, potatoes, peppers, etc. Then they cook chicken, put it all in one big pot and cook it some more, then turn it out onto a huge platter. We’ve had it for lunch a few times at the house, and usually one is more than enough to feed all 29 of us. This family showed the usually Arab hospitality and made us three. Plus there was a cucumber and tomato salad and amazing flat bread. And we had fresh fruit for dessert. We sat on cushions on the floor in the traditional style and ate until I literally felt like I was going to burst. It was so awesome. It’s one of my favorite experiences that I’ve had here.

There are wild cats everywhere here, and we’ve been hearing a couple of them fight a lot lately. One night last week, they were fighting in the stairwell, so it echoed like crazy (seeing as how everything here is built out of linolium and concrete). I finally got out of bed in the middle of the night (well, it was about 11:30, but we had all been in bed for two hours) and shooed them off. “Yalla, q’uta!!! Ya salaam!”.

Lots of times, we’ll see/hear trucks driving around the village, honking their horns really loudly, or kids will be shouting things from where they sit in the truck bed. It took us awhile to figure out that they were selling things, ranging from propane to shoes to watermelon. When I saw one that was selling watermelon, I ran downstairs and told Brittany, who chased it down. Fresh fruit is so sought after. I had a dream the other afternoon about eating a whole bunch of big, round, juicy grapes. Today I had an apple, and it was heaven.

My professor accidently walked in on me while I was just in my sports bra and shorts. That was awkward, hahahahahahahaha.

We are getting so many bug bites. I didn’t get any the first few weeks, but now I’m getting them everywhere, probably because we sleep with the window open because it’s getting so hot. Bug spray to bed!

I read another book today (well, I started it yesterday). Life of Pi by Yann Martel. It was really good and I would recommend it. It’s very different from most other books I’ve read, plot- and style-wise, but I liked it. It’s about a boy that survives at sea in a lifeboat for 227 days with a 450-pound Bengal tiger. And it’s a true story. Now I need to find something else to read… A never-ending quest…

Since we’re done digging, we just have a lot of write-ups and mapping and lab stuff to do. Ugh. They say that archaeology is 10% field work, and 90% research and lab work. If that’s the case, God help us all. Bismallah ir-rahman ir-rahiim…

But in less than a week we’ll be in Amman and in a week and a half I’ll be in Spain! YAY!!!!