In Which I Fall Off a Mule at Petra

Statistically, if you ride a decrepit old donkey or mule being led by a small bedouin boy enough times, you will end up on a donkey or mule who stumbles and you will fall, perhaps to your death. 

On this, my eighth (or ninth - I'm not quite sure) trip to Petra, I finally hit my statistical ceiling. And boy do I have the bruises to prove it. 

You see, it started out innocently enough. Sarah and I drove down to Wadi Musa, paid our entrance fees and started down through the Siq. We took pictures of tombs and rock formations. We did some awesome air kicks. We ran into President Dieter F. Uchtdorf (and forgot to take a picture with him in our awe at his shining teeth). 

truly awesome air kick

camel sprawl

Then we realized that we had a lot to see and very little time in which to see it. So we decided to maximize our time and minimize our effort by taking an "air conditioned taxi" aka donkey up to the High Place of Sacrifice and to the Monastery. 

it was the best of times

The first time my mule stumbled, I felt a twinge of worry. By the fifth time, I was in full-blown panic mode. About 4/5ths of the way up the mountain, he suddenly decided he'd had enough and started bucking. "This is it" I thought. "This is how I die." Then I was landing and by some miracle, my head didn't hit a rock and split open, all of my bones stayed intact, I did not even tear any clothes.

it was the worst of times

I got up and shakily paid the mule wrangler his 5 JD (why, when his mule almost killed me?!). Then I hiked the rest of the way up to the High Place of Sacrifice and Sarah and I continued on our journey.

"I fell off my mule!"

god-blocks at the High Place of Sacrifice

the Monastery

Later on, at the Monastery, the donkey/mule race sent a representative to apologize and express their love to me. 

after spending an inordinate amount of time scratching his head...

this donkey wandered over and expressed his apologies and sincere love

by refusing to leave my side

We saw everything and got done in time to drive to Aqaba for a sunset swim. On the way back to Amman, I got increasingly tired. When a whole flock of six-inch-high AOL men came running out on the road around the car, I turned the wheel over to Sarah. She promptly got pulled over but luckily he spoke no English and so quickly sent us on our merry way.

I ended up with a giant bruise on my bottom, a small but painful bruise on my left forearm and another small bruise by my right elbow. Three days later, I discovered another huge bruise on the back of my left knee. I'd love to see a video of the fall, to figure out how that bruising pattern was formed.

In Which We Tour the Citadel and Discover A Barney Party

After picking Sarah up at the airport, we drove back into town and toured the Citadel, to give her a good view of the city and Amman's history.  I'm not sure how much she remembers...luckily, she can just look at the 112 pictures she took on the new fancy-schmancy D7000, which I bought and she couriered out to me.

the Roman Amphitheatre

the Citadel

the Temple of Hercules

a photo shoot

and an Arab photo shoot

Afterwards, we went to Wild Jordan for dinner and discovered they were also hosting a birthday party for some tween who, inexplicably, spent most of the party wearing a Barney costume.  Which I of course spent 20 minutes trying to surreptitiously capture on camera.

In Which We Welcome Sarah to Jordan

In 16 hours, I get to party with this lovely lady.  It's about time we had a new adventure.

Clothing Exchange

The Young Women held a "clothing exchange" tonight.  We ordered pizza and they sorted through the mounds of clothing that I'd collected thanks to generous donations from some of the ladies in the ward, Rachel, many of her friends and several sweeps through my closet, being brutal in getting rid of clothes.

The big disputed items of the night were a Prada purse which quickly lost its appeal when I informed the girls that it was actually a "Frada" purse from Chinatown, and a pair of hot pink loafers which were an item of debate and cajoling and coin flipping and tension for at least two hours.  

The girls were very adult and eventually came up with a solution that involved the sale of only minor parts of their souls and promise of their second or third-born babies.

pre-exchange

the loot

Dozan Wa Awtar

We have some good friends here in Jordan who are members of the Dozan Wa Awtar choir.  We enjoyed their Christmas concert in December and attended their spring concert last night.  As an added bonus, a portion of the proceeds went towards helping out the Syrian charity group Lamsat Dafa.

James, our friend, did an amazing job with all three of his solos.

rockin' it out

  
The choir was pretty awesome - they did show tunes, some pretty amazing Arab songs, as well as other international numbers.  The choreography, costuming and instrumentals were all so professional.  But the highlight for me was the hilarious costume "Sebastian" wore in their rendition of "Kiss the Girl".  Best use of a baseball hat I've ever seen:

To...AQABA!!

I spent the weekend in Aqaba.  Amongst much sleeping in, napping and going to bed early, I played candy crush in the sun and read a 450 page trash book that was vastly entertaining.  And shopped at the "Souk by the Sea".

*almost* bought this amazing portrait of His Majesty to hang over the mantle

should I let Sly's agent know about this brand infringement?

I also went snorkeling.  I am always amazed at how much fun a small coral reef looks.  The fish are brightly colored, swimming in and out and around, the sea urchins are looking all cool and spiny with a strange jewel-like appendage nestled in their spines, an occasional eel pokes out of the shadows, and schools of fish hang out, always just beyond the reach of my fingers (don't they know I just want to give them teensy little tickles?).  

I spent about 10 minutes following and being followed by a lion fish cruise around like a boss...seriously - he was just ruling the reef, spreading his fins around like he was a god amongst fish.  At one point, I swear he was flirting with me - staring at me and following me when I tried to back away from his poisonous self.  

Suddenly, I got kicked in the shoulder by a pair of neon yellow fins as some Jordanian Yahoo (and I mean that in the Swift sense) rushed past me trying to spear the lion fish.  I was so mad I actually hit the guy's fins and shook my fists at him.  He, of course, ignored me.  But it gave the lion fish time to duck back under the coral.

Can't wait to go back and take Susan and Willy - I am dying to know what Wills will think of the ocean...

Little Kitties

I came home Tuesday night to three little kittens and an incensed miniature schnauzer.  One of them had been either dipped in paint or fell into a can of paint and was completely coated.  The other two just had splotches of paint in their fur.  Susan waited around for 45 minutes for their mother to show up.  When she didn't, Susan put them in a cardboard box and brought them home.

First Susan tried to wash the paint off while I restrained Willy...sadly it was oil-based and by the time Susan finished, she was covered in hives and Willy had worked himself into an unmanageable state of agitation.  

So, I took a pair of scissors and the kittens into my bedroom and spent the next two hours cutting the paint out of their fur.  As I cut, I fell more and more in love with them.  By the time I'd cut out everything I could reach, the kitty who'd been dipped in the paint was all curled up in my arms and purring.  Good thing Willy hated and wanted to kill them so much or I'd now be raising three tiny adorable kittens.

Luckily we found a lady yesterday who suggested a vet, who was able to get the paint out using a dremel with a brush attachment that basically broke up the paint, allowing him to pull it off the fur, one strip at a time.  This same lady also agreed to foster and take care of them until she found them homes.  Susan brought the kitties to the embassy before taking them to the vet, so I could say goodbye...

adorable little kitties!

Vamping

I always love seeing the pictures that kids take when you hand them your cameras.  These are a few choice pictures from the trip to Kenya - love this girl:

In Which We Mess Around

Having seen everything there is to see in Jerusalem several times over, this trip we decided to just relax.  We took Katie to a belated birthday dinner at Spaghettim.  We bought some Roman glass jewelry.  We negotiated for a little nativity set and a beautiful mirror.  And found lots of cottage cheese for our pregnant friends cravings.

Aaaand we took lots of ridiculous pictures in the courtyard of concrete pillows:

Katie taught us Vadering

I'm sad to think that when I go back to Jerusalem in a few weeks, Katie won't be there.  I'll miss coming over for random hangout weekends GP!!

Souvenirs from Jerusalem

I brought a pink streak in my hair back from Jerusalem...best souvenir ever.

  

How Do I Love Thee?

Susan and I are leaving in an hour to go visit Katie in Jerusalem.  Because she's adorable, and I love her, and take great pleasure out of spoiling her, and because I'm a terribly self-sacrificing, saintly, amazingly wonderful older sister, I got up at 5:15 this morning to make her 7 dozen cookies.

magic happening

And it totally paid off when we arrived and made her a very happy girl:

Still Can't Part with Him

Every day I look at Herk, my monster egg, and decide to keep him one more day.  After all, he hasn't started to smell yet and I only get rid of boys who stink.

The Light Wasn't Exactly On...

We have some good friends who came back from the US of A recently.  Through layovers and overhead compartments and security checks, they lovingly sheltered two boxes of...

Ever so slightly stale but still so utterly irresistible that we'd both had two before we even got home with the boxes.

Pyramids!

On our way back to Amman, we had a seven hour layover. So, we took the kids to see pyramids and mummies. They were, surprisingly, TERRIFIED to go into the mummy exhibit at the Egyptian museum.

taking in the sights

rejecting the sights - the Pyramids were "boooring"

my personal favorite moment of the day

ahhh - Egypt!

I did learn that King Tutankhamen was a man after my own heart - he had pair after pair of delicate golden sandals.

Matatu Madness

One of my favorite sights in Kenya was the matatu vans. Matatus are privately owned vans that act as group taxis. The seats have been taken out and several benches soldered back in to allow more people to squeeze in - they usually have a "conductor" whose job is convincing people to jump into their matatu instead of the six matatus lined up just behind them.  

The good ones always had some kinda gimmicky message lettered on the side or back windows. We entertained ourselves while driving around by trying to get pictures of our favorites (they are on circuits so we ran into some of them several times). 

Scroll all the way down for my very favorite...

Hoo!! Bangin!! was clearly a franchise slogan as we saw it on at least three different matatus. By the end of the vacation, the question had taken on a philosophical tone, we'd seen this one so many times.

My favorite...Mu'ammar, we hardly knew ye!