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Location: Monterey, California, United States

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Like a sailor, sailing over Jordan

Well, the last day is here at last. Actually the last couple hours. I fly out from here back to Frankfurt for a six hour layover. If you have been watching the news you know about the foiled attack on the Frankfurt airport and the U.S. military base there. Hopefully this will not cause too many difficulties with security and such. We have one paranoid Sgt with us (my roommate actually, and second in charge) who thinks there is a conspiracy around every corner- born a tool, lives as a tool, will die the same. Hopefully he will not interfere too much. I learned to wipe my own ass long ago...

Speaking of which, I finally discovered what all the hubbub is surrounding the stomach cramps and diarrhea that have been going around. Reminds me of when I was in India. I was afflicted the other day while we were in the middle of Petra. None of that wimpy getting sick in the hotel for me. Good thing I have to get on a plane in a few hours.

Petra is amazing by the way. I took some really awesome pictures (I hope). Anyway, the walk out of Petra was interesting to say the least. Oddly, or not, it turns out that the Bedouins speak amazingly fluent MSA. We spoke to some of the vendors and camel guides at Petra. On guy looked almost exactly like the guy in the Mummy (the new one), the one who was charged with maintaining the secret of the location of the temple. Anyway, what is interesting about this is that most people in the Middle East speak a dialect. What we learn is the language of the Quran, the language if the educated. I have no idea why they speak it, but I have had it confirmed by a number of source (mostly other Bedouins and taxi drivers). Maybe I will return and live with the Bedouin for a year or so. Set myself up in a nice little bayt sh'ar ("house of hair"...tent), buy a few sheep, some goats, a camel. I am sure my Arabic would shoot through the roof.

I have a new pen pal as well, a girl named Souad who accompanied us on the trip to Petra. She works at the University in the English department, though her English is not the best.It was interesting talking to her. She said that talking with us was the first time she had ever actually spoken Modern Standard Arabic in her life. Everything is written in MSA, and most can read it, but dialect rules the day as far as speaking. While Dialect is certainly more practical, I find MSA to be far more beautiful. You might find a similar difference comparing the language of Shakespeare with Cockney. Frankly, I have a difficult time with the dialect, though the Jordan dialect is fairly close to MSA.

After class today, we (Jeremy, Niz, Jen and me) went to the Dead Sea, an adventure in itself. We hired a taxi for 30 Dinars (40 USD), but he decided he wanted to switch out with his brother due to his being tired, so we waited by some random bridge for about thirty minutes. When his brother didn't show up, he finally gave in and took us himself. We went through numerous checkpoints, and he managed to get himself a fifty dinar speeding ticket. Not his best day, though through it all he remained calm and collected. Truly an easy going guy. He waited for us while we played in the sea for thirty minutes. It is difficult to describe the sensation of first having your body rise and then floating effortlessly in the sea. It is also hard to describe the level of burning that much salt causes to a certain part of the body due to constant diarrhea, a feeling we all shared. We gave the driver fifty dinar (71 USD) due to his being such a good sport about it all, which covered his ticket, but left him with only a random trip to the Dead Sea with a bunch of crazy foreigners snapping pictures of random camels, goats and Bedouin tents to show for it

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