Because everyone love to see other people's travel photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2107953&l=91b7f&id=1013451

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2107955&l=bd7af&id=1013451

final moments

Well, for those of you who have somehow managed to keep up with my lack of posting the end of this semester, you are in for a treat.  A final treat, as I leave on Thursday.  I present, the chronicles of my trip to Jerusalem as excerpted from my journal (the one that got me into some trouble):

day one:

-turned away from border b/c border closed for holiday.  spent day in friends' house pretending to be in jerusalem.

day two:

-buy your stamp for the paper to leave jordan.  then, the old woman left her passport at the window (inside building), but she was on the bus to cross the bridge anyhow.  delay ensues.

-get to otherside after passing through the no man's land of landmines.  wait for 1st checkpoint.  arrive, passports scanned (5th time of the day).  see someone bribe the checker.

-inside, get visas (on separate sheet of paper).  victoria delayed for hour because of palestinian roots.

- get photographed & have digital fingerprints taken of both hands.  passports checked.

-in line to have passport checked for unclear reason.  i am singled out.  escorted to back room.  luggage & personal effects searched.  this book (i.e. my journal) found – arabic inside creates commotion – asked to wait.

-interviewed by angry man.  first question: "is this your second passport?"  proceeds to ask why i was in russia, how well i speak russian, why i'm going to israel, why i'm in amman, what i study, what religion in religious studies do i study (early christianity), why i'm studying arabic, why did i say i'm studying anthropology and religious studies but not arabic, how many years have i studied arabic, where did i study arabic, where in the us am i from, what do my parents do, who pays for college, do my parents work at home, what hospitals, national jewish!, am i jewish, do my parents know i'm studying arabic, what do they think about me studying arabic, am i still in college, how can i study in amman for three months if i'm in college, how can i get credit for my classes, do many americans study arabic now, why don't you study hebrew?

-"enjoy your visit to israel."

-returned to line.  passport checked last time (eleven times in total, in addition to inspection of student id from brown, jordanian residency card, us driver's license, atm card).  escape border.

-arrive in jerusalem.  walk from damascus gate to jaffa gate.  check in at east new imperial hotel.  fat palestinian christian worker gives us great room overlooking david's tower.

-go to lunch at papa andrea's.  food decent, but rooftop view well worth it.

-go to church of the holy sepulchre – huge – and see sites of the cruxifiction, washing, and burial of christ.  swarmed with russians.

-go to armenian chruch on the via dolorossa.  starts to rain.

-accidently go to coptic patriarchate.  see reservoir beneath.  hear chanting.  run back to holy sepulchre to see inside an overlooked side door.  group of monks chanting.  we listen alone in the rain.

-try to find armenian quarter, get lost in jewish quarter, eventually work our way into armenian quarter to see armenian orthodox patriarchate.  armenian quarter somewhat boring.

-cassie & i go to find sweets (success, but i prove to be allergic to them).  after sunset most things are closed.

-go to new city to find waffles (called babette's feast).  locate waffles.  everything in hebrew.  i realize i only know two letters in hebrew learned from a dreidel.  fails to help order waffles.  tiny store, but packed with the only people i've ever seen who have both braces and an automatic weapon.

day three:

-wake up early to go to haram al-sharif.  israel has closed haram al-sharif because of holiday.  go to wailing wall instead.  strange man proud of me for coming to holy land, takes my picture with wall when i'm not ready.  looks like i'm having an extremely intense jewish religious experience.

-walk to mount of olives.  take many pictures of haram al-sharif.  see garden of gethsemene (very old olive trees).  swarm of russians.  enter the basilica of the holy suffering.  swarm of russians.

-proceed up the mount.  visit jewish cemetery.  more photos of haram al-sharif.

-visit tomb of virgin mary.  swarms of russians.

-re-enter city via lion's gate.  walk the via dolorossa.

-climb mount zion (not hard).  see the supposed site of the last supper as well as king david's tomb.  i am skeptical that these are in the same building.  visit monastery of the dormition (mary didn't die and get buried in the tomb we saw earlier for these christians.  she eternally sleeps beneath them).

-see oskar schindler's tomb.

-return to old city.

-tour the tower of david.  bizarre animated film proving the right of the israelis to jerusalem.  film in hebrew, with english subtitles, but credits are in hebrew, english and arabic.  what did arabic-speakers get out of this film?

-cassie mistakes statue of king david for a little girl despite goliath's head at his feet.  does kind of look like a little girl though.

-wander into the jewish quarter.  find (type of present – not giving away what and for whom).  need to pass through throng of about 50 fully armed israeli soldiers (i am older than all of them).  felt very uncomfortable.  find bagel store – eat bagels in heart of jewish homeland next to the wailing wall.

-wander into canyon-ish mall in new city next to jaffa gate.  fail to understand what is in bakery (more hebrew), so don't purchase baked goods.

-go back into new city with cassie for dinner.  find falafel (not as good as jordan).  hebrew overwhelms us again for ordering.

day four:

-border much easier in this direction.  go figure.

i remember when i updated my blog...

To Whom it May Concern,

I'm kind of surprised that you, whoever you are, are still reading this blog. Because Lord knows that I'm not very good at posting on it apparently.

As for my updates, lots of work. Lots and lots of work. I have now (somewhat) successfully written the first draft of my first 20 page paper in Arabic. While the language used is probably more appropriate for the medium of crayon on construction paper than typed and printed, it has been completed. I am proud.

In celebration of this (well, not really, but I'm celebrating it), all of us (i.e. the 9 people I see all the time) are heading to Madaba this weekend for a night of R&R. To a surprisingly nice hotel. So yeah, Holy Land round 2.

Other updates that I thought people should know: what Arabic television is like.

1) Ton of Cash. This is my favorite gameshow idea ever. In order to win a "ton of cash" the two teams of contestants literally just carry a ton of cash around obstacle courses in the same remote desert beach locale each episode. They don't really ever do anything new. Just move the money from place A to place B, then kick someone off. It kind of reminds me of the Phantom Tollbooth with the Demon of Trivial Tasks, who assigns them to move piles of sand with tweezers 5 feet away, then back. This show is pretty much the same thing. Which is an amazing punishment for people who want to be on reality television. Note: this show is really boring to actually watch.

2) Public Service Announcements: Abu Dhabi television has launched a new PSA campaign that air all the time. They all tend to show a group of 20-something, laughing Arab women gathered in a house around a copious amount of tea, pastries, sweets, etc. Then the maid walks in and starts laughing with them. They all stop laughing, glare at her, and she returns to the kitchen, where she begins to cry while scrubbing the floor. The voiceover then reads an ayat from the Qur'an to us about how all life should be respected, then the campaign's slogan comes on: "Maids are people too." After recent accusations of Abu Dhabi citizens virtually enslaving their Filipino or Indonesian maids, this is probably a good idea. It's still a very weird commercial message to encounter. Especially because it looks like an ad for a soap opera.

lesson learned

Previous comments on rain, all sad little statements. I was trapped on campus yesterday because the university flooded in the deluge. I tried to forge my way to the library, was blocked by a river of water about 6 inches deep, then was trapped in a crowd of people trying to get to the university administration, which, for whatever reason, has a somewhat sunken foundation, so there was about two feet of water between them and the door. Benches had been dragged in and people one by one were walking across. Defeated, I returned to the Language Center and skyped Megan. When it was perfectly sunny an hour later, I sloshed through the mud now coating everything, and tried to find the books I wanted in the library for my term paper. There was one. In the French translation. So somewhat of a waste.

I think I'm utterly unprepared for winter in this country.

and i want to know...

It rained yesterday in Amman (get the reference? anyone? maybe? I don't get to make jokes to often these days because they're in Arabic and even I fail to understand them). Which is the 3rd time I have seen rain in the last 6 months (once before here, although that was a very light drizzle at best, and once in Denver between Morocco and Jordan). Yesterday it was actually cold and wet though. As in, the rain had substance to it. It was a very off-putting experience, and forced me to realize that I am probably totally unprepared for winter in this country (there was no thought in my mind of even considering to pack an umbrella). Well, we'll see where this goes for my next two months...

And a clarification of the previous photos:

The Roman Show is this bizarre tourist experience in Jerash (one of the largest sites of a Roman city in the Middle East) that is mostly staffed by retired police officers. Basically, they all dress up in the AUTHENTIC ROMAN COSTUMES as seen in the photos and "re-create" gladiator battles and chariot races for us, the spectators (please don't think I paid for this. It was one of our many voluntary-obligatory experiences in Jordan. Though this one was totally worth the free I paid for it in its oddness). So, anyhow, the entire time we get a commentary by the one ROMAN who spoke some English (although he had that interesting speech condition kind of like a lisp but where all Rs become Ws. Like the bishop in the Princess Bride. Is there a word for this?), mostly about how fierce his legion was in this, the time of Hadrian, while the others ran around responding to commands in Latin. Then the slaves were dragged in to do gladiator battles, which the officers, who otherwise seemed rather bored, got really excited for, as they could pretend to hit each other with tridents and throw nets over each other before the announcer asked us if we preferred life or death. Our audience was in generally fairly not Roman, at least by my standards, and tended to prefer life, but I think he was obligated to show us what death looked like, so he began to ignore our verdicts and kill the gladiators anyhow. Finally, we got our AUTHENTIC ROMAN CHARIOT RACE, which consisted of about three laps while the soundtrack from the movie Gladiator played. I kid you not. After the show ended, we were encouraged to go down and take pictures with the Romans. There are certain things I never expected to do in the Middle East. Then I do them.

more photos (i.e. dead sea and THE ROMAN SHOW)

This time, I'll actually post photos with that cryptic remark:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2102841&l=6284b&id=1013451

more photos (i.e. dead sea and THE ROMAN SHOW)