We leave this week for a two-week trip to Oman and the United Arab Emirates. After we fly in, we are renting an SUV and driving all over the place. It should be a really amazing time, Oman is supposedly very beautiful (and hot!) and UAE is very, very rich. I read that in Abu Dhabi every resident is at least a millionaire! This will be an interesting change from here to say the least. I also can't wait for Dubai- I asked J to book us at the 7-star but unfortunately, we can't afford $5000 a night! Can you even imagine? Maybe I can just look in the lobby! At the end of the trip, J will head to Saudi for a few nights and I'll stay with my friend in Muscat. I am anxious to hear J's thoughts about Saudi, our friends last night were telling us about witnessing the executions in "chop-chop square". They still have public beheadings! Again, can you even imagine? Of course they also pay pennies to fill their gas tanks!
Please keep us in your prayers for safe travel everywhere. Talk to you all again soon!
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Picnic time
My friends invited me to a picnic outing at what was supposedly this "great" park with lots of green grass. Although we had a nice time, I realized that my American view of a park and the Jordanian view of a park are very different. Since this is the fourth poorest country for water in the world, you barely see real grass anywhere. This "green" park was all weeds and dirt! Only a local would have thought to picnic there, but then again, they picnic by the masses along the interstate here. Someday I'll post a photo of that.
First kiss
They have a wonderful children's museum here that I plan to visit a lot more now that I know where it is. K's friend Assad tried to give her a peck on the cheek, good thing Dad wasn't there to see that!
Roadblock
I snapped this photo from our front porch yesterday. I looked out the window and was surprised to see the entire herd heading towards our house, but this is definitely a common site in Amman!
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Campsite
J snapped this photo in the morning and it is no surprise that I am the only one still sleeping, my head covered from the bright sun on the red pillow. You know how I hate mornings! Seeing all the sand again, I'm surprised that we didn't come home covered in it.
Wadi Rum
Since we had grandparents to babysit K, J and I decided to spend a night camping in Wadi Rum. A beautiful desert about 3 ½ hours south of Amman, famous from the Lawrence of Arabia crossing to Aqaba. We didn’t have any plans when we got there but quickly booked a 4x4 trip thru the desert, an overnight with the Bedouin and a camel ride! We haven’t camped out in years so we were definitely feeling a little daring. The 4x4 ride was awesome, there are no roads so we traveled thru the sand stopping at various points along the way for a quick hike or “scramble” as they call it, up the rocks. At sunset, the guide brought us to the most amazing spot to watch the sun go down from the top of a large rock. We really felt like we were the only people for miles. Then he dropped us at a Bedouin tent for dinner and sleep. At this point, I was a little nervous, expecting that we were all going to be eating with our fingers out of one pot but lucky for us, they prepared a real feast and it was delicious. The campsite was perfect except for the lack of a toilet, which left us running to hide behind a rock every time we had to go to the bathroom! There were also three Germans and a French couple with their two year old staying with us. I thought they were quite brave to bring their toddler along and it actually made me wish we had brought K (okay, only for a minute). We all ate and talked and once again I was thankful that English is the international language! Then we sat around the fire, drinking shai (tea) and talking for hours about various trips (the other people had traveled much more than J and I) and politics. The Bedouin guide had a Jewish girlfriend so that also made for interesting conversation since you don’t find that very often. He told us stories from his visit to Saudi Arabia. Before bed, J and I took a walk thru the desert- just us and the stars. We decided that it had been the best time in Jordan so far. That night we all lined up our mats and slept under the full moon. The next morning we ate breakfast and went our separate ways. J and I had a two-hour camel trek back to our car which I was initially looking forward to until about 10 minutes into it when I realized that it was not fun anymore and I wanted to get off but my only other option was to walk 2 hours thru the desert sand! Thank God, we forced ourselves to watch Lawrence of Arabia and remembered how he rode a camel in the movie so we were able to get a little more comfortable. Also, thankful that we started early enough and finished before the sun got really hot! The highlight was getting to call K from my cell phone for the first time, in the middle of the desert. I realized then that I couldn’t break away from civilization for very long, LOL! We were both pretty sore when we hopped off our camel but thoroughly enjoyed our time. Best night in Jordan for sure! Oh, and I couldn’t wait to find a real toilet! : )
Station of the Cross
This is one of the stops along Via Dolorosa, I believe this photo is at the place commemorating Christ's first fall along the walk, now an Arminean chapel.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Praying at the Wailing Wall
K and I wrote out a little prayer and placed it in the wall. Jewish tradition says that prayers prayed at the wall have a better chance of being blessed. It is also tradition to leave the wall walking backwards so you don't turn your back to the Holy of Holies. Seeing the 1000's of little prayers tucked within the wall was a truly memorable sight.
Boot-camp Graduation
This is after an IDF graduation in front of the Wailing Wall. All Israeli's have to serve either 2 yrs. (for females) or 3 yrs. (for males) and then stay in the Reserves until they're in their 40's! J says that red hair wouldn't pass in the US Army, haha
The gang in front of the Monastery
After the long donkey ride we reached the top of the mountain and saw this awesome site. Incidentally, if you look really close at the photo you can see a man sitting on top of the Monastery. This is where a number a tourist fall each year from trying to climb to the top of it. An Austrailian tourist died there last month- when I look at that guy it's no wonder why they fall!
K and Oma in Pella
After our long day trying to get into Israel, we found a nice spot to take a rest before the drive back home.
Another view of Jordan
This is on the road to Petra, about 2 hours south of where the other photo was taken. Talk about contrasting landscapes huh?!
Friday, March 21, 2008
Plan B... Petra and Jerusalem!
Well... our plan to visit Israel didn't work out quite as we hoped. We had spent the week prior to our trip worrying that it would be canceled due to the security situation but what kept us from going when we planned turned out to be something completely different. We learned that when it comes to visiting the Holy land one must have lots of patience! Long story short (because I know a few of you think I write too much, hahaha :))) Love you Janners!) Joe and Vicki (J’s parents) arrived late Tues. evening and we woke them early the next day to head for our weeklong trip to Israel. They were quite the troopers; I know they were going on little sleep having spent the previous night in the Heathrow airport! We drove to the first border, which is less than an hour away only to find that we were not allowed to bring cars across the border because the Israeli customs office was on strike. We were told that we could bring our car across another border however, so after an hour spent at the first border we hopped in the car for the two-hour drive north to a different border. We double checked at the Jordanian side and learned that because we were driving a diplomatic vehicle we would be allowed to drive into Israel- great, or so we thought! After passing thru the Jordanian side and then into Israel (another hour's worth of time) we were told that the strike affected diplomatic vehicles as well so we couldn't continue after all. While we waited to see if the Embassy could pull any strings to help us get across, there was a bomb scare at the border stop and everyone had to wait in a small building where we were told not to leave. Picture many warm and weary travelers (including us by this point) and not a lot of space. Thankfully K decided to take a nap on Opa’s lap and the hour wait wasn't as bad as it could of have been (we weren’t even allowed to grab her diaper bag). Later, we were told that our only choice was to wait for the strike to end (which they said could happen anytime within the next hour or next week) so having no choice, we headed back home. All in all, a good 10 hours wasted! At least Joe and Vicki got to take the "scenic" tour home - the scenic tour had some really beautiful sites and then some not-so-beautiful sites. Like when we passed thru a town with a shop that had a decapitated cows head hanging outside of it.
We decided to call first before heading to the border the next day and we learned that it was still closed to cars indefinitely so this lead us to Plan B! We took Joe and Vicki to Jerash one day since they have the largest amount of Roman ruins in the Middle East. We also took them on a city tour of downtown Amman and they enjoyed trying the local food. Then we decided to all head down to Petra since we hadn't been there yet and were getting tired of people asking us, ha! We had a great visit, spent two nights and a full day at Petra. The ride there took 6 hours, another scenic route with a stop at a crusaders castle in Karak. Petra itself was awesome; a long beautiful walk thru the "Siq" to enter and then it is an amazing site. We took LOTS of photos so you can see for yourself. Of course, we love to play dress up so J and his dad decided to be Bedouin men and Vicki and I were Indiana Jones. The most exciting thing we did was ride the donkey up to the Monastery, which is a steep climb to the top of a mountain. And yes, K was on J's back the entire time! Our plan was to take the donkeys back down but poor K became terrified when she was riding down the steep hill (can't blame her!) so J and I walked down with her. The ride back home from Petra only took 2 1/2 hours because we took the desert road, which is 10 times more boring than driving thru Nevada let me tell you!
The day after we got back from Petra, we headed back to the Israeli border (the strike finally ended 6 days later!) Thankfully, we got across the border with no drama and arrived in Jerusalem in time for lunch. Since we only had a few days to spend in Israel we decided to focus on the old city in Jerusalem and the Sea of Galilee area. The first day in Jerusalem, we visited the Wailing Wall (my favorite part of the trip!) and the room of the Last Supper (supposedly). The next day we saw the Mount of Olives (basically a large cemetery with more than 150,000 people buried there) and the Garden of Gethsemane. We also walked the Via Dolorosa, which was neat, except for the fact that it was Holy Week and there were thousands of other visitors who shared our plans. The Church of the Holy Sepulachre (the last five Stations of the Cross) was jam packed with people that unfortunately took away a lot of the spiritual ambiance if you ask me. We also went up to the Temple Mount (this is only open for visitors a few hours a day if you’re lucky) and got a close up view of the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque but we couldn’t go inside the Mosques because we’re not Muslim. The Old City is definitely an experience! I loved the array of people from all walks of life, Palestinians, Jews (the Hasidic ones make for such fascinating images) and Christians from all over the world (including several African tour groups). A true rainbow of people all gathering in one sacred place. The security situation felt normal for the most part, the only thing that stood out was seeing the plain-clothed bodyguards walking around with very large guns and of course, many IDF (Israeli Defense Force) soldiers.
The next day we drove north, along the West Bank where we would occasionally see the separation wall, thru Nazareth (a large, mostly Arab city that felt like Amman to me), Cana (home of my favorite miracle, ha!) and finally to Tiberias and around the Sea of Galilee. The Sea itself was beautiful and surrounded by greenery, since moving to such a brown place I really appreciate green. Unlike Nazareth and Cana, it was what you would imagine in Biblical times. Also, a very peaceful place given that it’s not far from the border of both Lebanon and Syria. This trip was just a small taste of the area for me so I’m going to refrain from my usual commentary ; ) until I go back and spend more time there. The only two real observations I came home with was that there were more Arabs there then I expected (we stayed in East Jerusalem which has a large Arab population ) this left me frequently feeling like I was still in Jordan given the surrounding people, language, food etc. I guess I expected it to feel more “Jewish”- I’ll have to wait until Tel Aviv for that feeling I suppose. Also, the people were not as warm / friendly as they have been in other places. I had been told to expect this from friends who have visited and I came away feeling that people were just a little edgier or more short-tempered than anywhere I remember (other than maybe Russia). Not that I could blame them in any way! Other than that, the trip left me with a mind full of questions and I cannot wait to go back and spend more time in this fascinating country. I just hope the security situation improves; we definitely left feeling like the area could set off again at any moment. The whole Palestinian/Israeli conflict gave us hours of conversation (we love to pretend that we have all the answers, ha!) and a feeling that there is just so much more to learn in order to really understand this boiling pot region.
We decided to call first before heading to the border the next day and we learned that it was still closed to cars indefinitely so this lead us to Plan B! We took Joe and Vicki to Jerash one day since they have the largest amount of Roman ruins in the Middle East. We also took them on a city tour of downtown Amman and they enjoyed trying the local food. Then we decided to all head down to Petra since we hadn't been there yet and were getting tired of people asking us, ha! We had a great visit, spent two nights and a full day at Petra. The ride there took 6 hours, another scenic route with a stop at a crusaders castle in Karak. Petra itself was awesome; a long beautiful walk thru the "Siq" to enter and then it is an amazing site. We took LOTS of photos so you can see for yourself. Of course, we love to play dress up so J and his dad decided to be Bedouin men and Vicki and I were Indiana Jones. The most exciting thing we did was ride the donkey up to the Monastery, which is a steep climb to the top of a mountain. And yes, K was on J's back the entire time! Our plan was to take the donkeys back down but poor K became terrified when she was riding down the steep hill (can't blame her!) so J and I walked down with her. The ride back home from Petra only took 2 1/2 hours because we took the desert road, which is 10 times more boring than driving thru Nevada let me tell you!
The day after we got back from Petra, we headed back to the Israeli border (the strike finally ended 6 days later!) Thankfully, we got across the border with no drama and arrived in Jerusalem in time for lunch. Since we only had a few days to spend in Israel we decided to focus on the old city in Jerusalem and the Sea of Galilee area. The first day in Jerusalem, we visited the Wailing Wall (my favorite part of the trip!) and the room of the Last Supper (supposedly). The next day we saw the Mount of Olives (basically a large cemetery with more than 150,000 people buried there) and the Garden of Gethsemane. We also walked the Via Dolorosa, which was neat, except for the fact that it was Holy Week and there were thousands of other visitors who shared our plans. The Church of the Holy Sepulachre (the last five Stations of the Cross) was jam packed with people that unfortunately took away a lot of the spiritual ambiance if you ask me. We also went up to the Temple Mount (this is only open for visitors a few hours a day if you’re lucky) and got a close up view of the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque but we couldn’t go inside the Mosques because we’re not Muslim. The Old City is definitely an experience! I loved the array of people from all walks of life, Palestinians, Jews (the Hasidic ones make for such fascinating images) and Christians from all over the world (including several African tour groups). A true rainbow of people all gathering in one sacred place. The security situation felt normal for the most part, the only thing that stood out was seeing the plain-clothed bodyguards walking around with very large guns and of course, many IDF (Israeli Defense Force) soldiers.
The next day we drove north, along the West Bank where we would occasionally see the separation wall, thru Nazareth (a large, mostly Arab city that felt like Amman to me), Cana (home of my favorite miracle, ha!) and finally to Tiberias and around the Sea of Galilee. The Sea itself was beautiful and surrounded by greenery, since moving to such a brown place I really appreciate green. Unlike Nazareth and Cana, it was what you would imagine in Biblical times. Also, a very peaceful place given that it’s not far from the border of both Lebanon and Syria. This trip was just a small taste of the area for me so I’m going to refrain from my usual commentary ; ) until I go back and spend more time there. The only two real observations I came home with was that there were more Arabs there then I expected (we stayed in East Jerusalem which has a large Arab population ) this left me frequently feeling like I was still in Jordan given the surrounding people, language, food etc. I guess I expected it to feel more “Jewish”- I’ll have to wait until Tel Aviv for that feeling I suppose. Also, the people were not as warm / friendly as they have been in other places. I had been told to expect this from friends who have visited and I came away feeling that people were just a little edgier or more short-tempered than anywhere I remember (other than maybe Russia). Not that I could blame them in any way! Other than that, the trip left me with a mind full of questions and I cannot wait to go back and spend more time in this fascinating country. I just hope the security situation improves; we definitely left feeling like the area could set off again at any moment. The whole Palestinian/Israeli conflict gave us hours of conversation (we love to pretend that we have all the answers, ha!) and a feeling that there is just so much more to learn in order to really understand this boiling pot region.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
This week-
J is off to the airport now to pick up his parents who suffered a torturous delay at Heathrow flying here (they were actually expected about 25 hours ago!) We are off on a weeklong tour de Israel. Please remember us in your prayers for safety. This isn't the best time to visit (when is?) but we want to get there before things get worse. Now don't I sound like a pessimist? We're telling our local friends that we're going to see "Occupied Palestine" as they say here! Talk to you all next week and I'm sure I'll have much to share as usual!
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Finding Jane...
As I’ve mentioned before, one of the major perks of living overseas is employing “domestic help”, this is so wonderful but it can also be a real pain in the butt. Now I know why they offered a class for this back in CA! At the time I thought, come on- can it really be that hard? YES! Now I know you don’t feel sorry for my pain : ) but here’s our story just for fun (long story short). After several interviews with various people, we decided to hire Fina only to have to unhire her before she started because apparently she had quite a reputation among the other Filipinas. Since many of the nannies attend one of my playgroups here, I learned it is a small world because they all knew her naughty gossip- this was solidified by our neighbor who works for one of those dirt-digging secret three letter agencies. We decided that we had better listen to him as a professional dirt digger so; thankfully, we dodged that bullet quickly. Then there was Josie, who someone told us that our old friends here (who have since left) employed and just LOVED so we figured, how could we go wrong? The first time she was amazing so we were thrilled, until we talked to our friends later only to find that they didn’t love her afterall because frequently she wouldn’t show up for work. We learned this the next day when she cancelled her babysitting on Valentines night! However, our friends did love Tess so we gave her a call instead and she turned out to be great- except for the fact that her paperwork was a complete mess and she had severely overstayed her time in country. Not wanting to get in the middle of this drama, we found Dori instead. Dori was love at first sight thanks to the great recommendation we got from J’s coworker and perfect interview. She was supporting five kids back in the Philipines and hadn’t been home in 9 years because all of her money went to their care and schooling. (Incidentally, meeting these women and hearing their stories have really given me a new appreciation for the US, regardless of how you feel about welfare I’m so thankful that mothers there would never have to consider the choices these women have made.) Unfortunately for us, Dori had several jobs and had trouble keeping track of them all so she was forgetful about her schedule and very late to say the least. So… nearly two months in country we found ourselves back to square one.
Then we found Jane. Such a blessing she is- and of course, she was one of the first people we interviewed! I’m sure I’ll mention her a lot in the future so I mine as well introduce her because we have really fallen in love with her. Her husband is a pastor in the Philippines and she has a young daughter who is ill and requires a lot of medical care. She also had some debts from an earlier trip to China (deliviering Bibles) so she and her family decided that it would be best for her to come here for four years in order to pay off her debt and support her daughter’s healthcare and her husband’s church ministry. She lives with several of her cousins here and her parents take care of her daughter and husband back home. She is so good with K but it breaks my heart thinking about her own daughter that she should be with and it is hard for me to understand her choices but then have to remember that we come from such different worlds. What a sacrifice she is making now- when we heard she wasn’t planning on returning home for four years we started checking out plane tickets. We think that God brought her into our lives for a reason- while she blesses us (and boy does she!) we pray that we can be a blessing to her also. She works so hard, I was gone for an hour the other day and she did more in my home than I could have done in a week- not to mention shampooing a large rug by HAND. If only we would have listened to our first instincts about her we would have saved ourselves a lot of trouble with the wrong people – although, I must admit, I’d take all of that again just to find Jane.
PS/ Jane also cooks which is great- we’ve had some of J’s friends stay with us the past few days and I asked her to make dinner for all of us one night. I suggested something Filipino – In my mind, I was thinking Lumpia (yum) but instead she made us tilapia. For those of you not used to eating fish this way- it is the whole fish (skin, head and all) fried up. Then you peel the skin back to get the meat – avoiding all of the bones and trying not to look the fish in the eye. J and I don’t mind this but let’s just say I learned a lesson on what NOT to serve to company, ha! Thankfully, I made up some chicken at the last minute. The whole thing was so funny!
Then we found Jane. Such a blessing she is- and of course, she was one of the first people we interviewed! I’m sure I’ll mention her a lot in the future so I mine as well introduce her because we have really fallen in love with her. Her husband is a pastor in the Philippines and she has a young daughter who is ill and requires a lot of medical care. She also had some debts from an earlier trip to China (deliviering Bibles) so she and her family decided that it would be best for her to come here for four years in order to pay off her debt and support her daughter’s healthcare and her husband’s church ministry. She lives with several of her cousins here and her parents take care of her daughter and husband back home. She is so good with K but it breaks my heart thinking about her own daughter that she should be with and it is hard for me to understand her choices but then have to remember that we come from such different worlds. What a sacrifice she is making now- when we heard she wasn’t planning on returning home for four years we started checking out plane tickets. We think that God brought her into our lives for a reason- while she blesses us (and boy does she!) we pray that we can be a blessing to her also. She works so hard, I was gone for an hour the other day and she did more in my home than I could have done in a week- not to mention shampooing a large rug by HAND. If only we would have listened to our first instincts about her we would have saved ourselves a lot of trouble with the wrong people – although, I must admit, I’d take all of that again just to find Jane.
PS/ Jane also cooks which is great- we’ve had some of J’s friends stay with us the past few days and I asked her to make dinner for all of us one night. I suggested something Filipino – In my mind, I was thinking Lumpia (yum) but instead she made us tilapia. For those of you not used to eating fish this way- it is the whole fish (skin, head and all) fried up. Then you peel the skin back to get the meat – avoiding all of the bones and trying not to look the fish in the eye. J and I don’t mind this but let’s just say I learned a lesson on what NOT to serve to company, ha! Thankfully, I made up some chicken at the last minute. The whole thing was so funny!
K's new friend!
Look at this gorgeous girl! I wish you could see her amazing eyelashes up close. While all of the locals go crazy over the white babies I just love the dark ones! Ks new friend came over with her mom (a Kuwaiti) and I just love her. I honestly felt a little intimidated because they have a huge house with a whole staff of servants (Kuwaiti $) but hopefully she found our small, bare home "charming" My friend actually went to school with the Queen (and looks just like her!) Mom, I know you will thoroughly appreciate that tidbit. She also told me the queen had a nose job- which told me this is one girl I want to be friends with- she really likes to dish :) Yun, I thought of you when she told me they named their dog after a character in Snatch- her husband's favorite movie- why didn't we ever watch that one!? You tried to tell me! So I will need to find it...Saturday, March 1, 2008
PS.
J filled up our gas tank yesterday for $100 US dollars- apparantly gas is not cheaper in the Mid East. Yikes!
My weekly misadventures!
Living overseas before has taken a lot of the shock away that I felt when we first moved to Korea. I’m much more relaxed now and rarely surprised, until this week when a couple of things caught me off guard! First, my visit to the spa! To prepare for the big ball I decided to take advantage of the inexpensive day spas and cheap babysitting to enjoy some time alone being “pampered”. Unfortunately, the spas here are not nearly as relaxing as the ones I’m used to! Getting my nails done was crazy, they had four different people working on me- two for the feet and two for the hands and it really makes you self-conscious to hear them all talking in their own language while they clean your feet. I couldn’t help but imagine the conversation the feet girls were having “Oh, you think that toe is gross? You should see her heels!” or the nail girls, “What are we going to do about these cuticles?” Actually, I really don’t want to know what they said about me because it could not have been good!
Then- my eyebrows- oh my goodness! In Germany they only tweeze so when I had them done in the States for the first time just the wax surprised me (and if you’re lucky they clean it up afterwards!) but here they don’t do either, they “thread”. My mom has seen this before but I’ve never heard of it so if you don’t know what I’m talking about it’s kind of hard to explain. Anyways, I go into the back room preparing to ‘relax’ when this mean (and I mean – mean!) looking woman with what looks like dental floss hanging out of her mouth literally attacked my head with the string! I honestly jumped because I had NO idea what she was doing to me but somehow, they manage to clean up the eyebrows as she harshly finagled this thread around them. It was so weird and a little painful. I was v. afraid to see what the results were and could not believe it when they actually looked quite good (and I’m fussy!) I just wish someone would have warned me!!! Or, at least warned me about how the hair maestro (what we all call them here) does not go to the roots when giving highlights. It is the most annoying thing ever! I guess they refuse all over here because they are so worried about the toxics on your scalp or something. Anyhow, after all that time and $ getting highlights I left still needing them!!! They actually have different people to hold the tin foil, blow dry, shampoo etc. so you leave having to tip at least four people for your haircut, it’s all so dramatic and again, much less relaxing then one might hope.
The other strange thing that happened to us this week is we finally were able to have our carpets and furniture steamcleaned. I’ve been bugging J that we needed to get this done since we moved in and so when we finally got an appointment I thought great- after two months the house will be just as I want it to be. Until, J called to tell me that when they came in the next five minutes they would actually be emptying the house of everything that needed to be cleaned. I was totally shocked! So, now we have no carpets and absolutely no furniture (except beds, two chairs and some tables) until next week. Did I mention that we were supposed to have company staying with us? The worst part was that just when the house felt clean (thank you Jane) they lifted the carpets so now we know how gross it really is!
Okay, my last story of the week (promise) was Wed’s playgroup. The family hosting it lives a few blocks away but I had never met them. So- I walk over only to find that they had a tank (J says it’s really an up-armored Humvee or something) but it looked like a tank to me with someone holding an automatic weapon in their front yard! Turns out, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President lives right across the street! I guess they see him coming and going all of the time. Obviously, I need to get out in the neighborhood more because I would love to see him! Then, at the playgroup, they had a clown doing all sorts of face painting and balloon tricks. This was really fun except that I’m supposed to host it at my house soon and now I feel like I have to rent a circus or something! I mean, really, who hires a clown for a playgroup?! : )
Then- my eyebrows- oh my goodness! In Germany they only tweeze so when I had them done in the States for the first time just the wax surprised me (and if you’re lucky they clean it up afterwards!) but here they don’t do either, they “thread”. My mom has seen this before but I’ve never heard of it so if you don’t know what I’m talking about it’s kind of hard to explain. Anyways, I go into the back room preparing to ‘relax’ when this mean (and I mean – mean!) looking woman with what looks like dental floss hanging out of her mouth literally attacked my head with the string! I honestly jumped because I had NO idea what she was doing to me but somehow, they manage to clean up the eyebrows as she harshly finagled this thread around them. It was so weird and a little painful. I was v. afraid to see what the results were and could not believe it when they actually looked quite good (and I’m fussy!) I just wish someone would have warned me!!! Or, at least warned me about how the hair maestro (what we all call them here) does not go to the roots when giving highlights. It is the most annoying thing ever! I guess they refuse all over here because they are so worried about the toxics on your scalp or something. Anyhow, after all that time and $ getting highlights I left still needing them!!! They actually have different people to hold the tin foil, blow dry, shampoo etc. so you leave having to tip at least four people for your haircut, it’s all so dramatic and again, much less relaxing then one might hope.
The other strange thing that happened to us this week is we finally were able to have our carpets and furniture steamcleaned. I’ve been bugging J that we needed to get this done since we moved in and so when we finally got an appointment I thought great- after two months the house will be just as I want it to be. Until, J called to tell me that when they came in the next five minutes they would actually be emptying the house of everything that needed to be cleaned. I was totally shocked! So, now we have no carpets and absolutely no furniture (except beds, two chairs and some tables) until next week. Did I mention that we were supposed to have company staying with us? The worst part was that just when the house felt clean (thank you Jane) they lifted the carpets so now we know how gross it really is!
Okay, my last story of the week (promise) was Wed’s playgroup. The family hosting it lives a few blocks away but I had never met them. So- I walk over only to find that they had a tank (J says it’s really an up-armored Humvee or something) but it looked like a tank to me with someone holding an automatic weapon in their front yard! Turns out, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President lives right across the street! I guess they see him coming and going all of the time. Obviously, I need to get out in the neighborhood more because I would love to see him! Then, at the playgroup, they had a clown doing all sorts of face painting and balloon tricks. This was really fun except that I’m supposed to host it at my house soon and now I feel like I have to rent a circus or something! I mean, really, who hires a clown for a playgroup?! : )
Party time
This is J after a night of dancing, he was in his glory because he LOVES to dance : ) and finally, his chance! This ball was unlike any of the balls we usually attend because here people really do dance (at the mil balls most people are just waiting for the after-party and cut out right after the speaker). I was amazed that EVERYONE dances. I’ve never seen such a packed floor until the wee hours of the morning. Of course, I’ve also never seen three hundred people all going crazy for Arabic techno songs either. After many months of perfecting my moves to “Sexy Back” in my kitchen- I got to put them to use, ha! Scary! Our table was fun, we sat next to the deputy Italian Ambassador, his Hungarian wife, a guy who was the spitting image of Mr Big (wow) and Japanese diplomats. Ball Night
The Black and White ball was this weekend so this is a pic of J and I all dressed up and ready to go! I referred to my dress as “vintage” because it has been in my closet SO long, but it worked for a ball that I had short notice on. Probably time to retire it though. The funny thing about K was her little outfit, while I was out, I asked J to get her dressed in some leggings only to come home and find her wearing a pair of tights and a t-shirt. She looked precious; an outfit only a father could have put together, ha!Wadi al Seer
Yesterday we visited Wadi al Seer, a short thirty minute drive from our house but def in much greener pastures than we see in the city. Wadi means valley btw. I snapped this shot of a shepherd girl hard at work.The sheesha pipe, fyi...
You can see the sheesha in this photo, everyone smokes them so they are all over the place. Obviously no age limit either, hahaSmall World
I thought this was too ironic not to share! Amman has around 2 and a half million resididents and J and I probably know less than 10 of the local Ammani's but today I got the funniest phonecall. Remember that nice family we met at the Dead Sea with a boy K's age? Well we've kept in touch a little and she called me tonight to tell me that her brother is actually J's friend Saad, the guy we entertained in CA and I wrote about having dinner at his home with his new bride. What are the odds that the two people we know are actually related? Crazy :)
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