On Tuesday, we are packing things up here in CA to move back to AZ. It may only be for a time, but it should be fun. :) I think I may actually be a little bit sad to leave this time. Not only because I'm so sick of moving, but because it's been a really nice, quiet time in our lives. It also helps that Monterey is a beautiful place to live. Exhibit A:
Exhibit B: This picture is from our street at the top of the hill.
The rent for our one-bedroom here is pretty much equal to a mortgage payment of a three-bedroom home in AZ but when you're outside, it's a little more obvious why people would pay so much to live here. Exhibit C: This is the "Friendly Plaza" that I stroll through to go to the library. I love it! And it's even friendlier right now because there is a giant, decorated Christmas tree right in front.
So you can hopefully see why I've enjoyed being here. Plus, I work from home and have a really easy life... so that's also adds to the awesomeness. But while it will be sad to leave, it will be nice to be back in AZ with my family and friends for a while before we head off to our next adventure. I also find comfort in knowing that we'll be back here in Monterey next fall. As it turns out, fall in Monterey is the best. Hopefully one day next year some of our family and friends will come visit us here (*wink, wink) so you too can experience the awesomeness that is Monterey.
In other news, for those of you don't know, our next adventure is Vienna, Austria. We haven't finalized everything with Brett's internship, but as of right now there is a 99.9% chance that come February Brett will be wearing lederhosen and we'll probably be in Austria too. This guy was none too pleased with our decision to leave... He didn't take the news well. Look at him turning his nose up at us.
But I suppose if you are going to trade this City Hall:
For this City Hall:
I think that's an OK trade. So Merry Christmas and we'll see you soon!
Gather around the fire, cozy up with someone close and cue the spooky music. It's time for a scary Halloween tale...
On Halloween, we received some "earth shattering" news. It all began with a trip to Target. We needed to return something, and truth be told, we didn't have a lot going on that night. When we got there, we got in line behind a cute little Hispanic family who didn't speak English and this other frazzled looking lady. While one of the Target employees was working with the Hispanic family, the frazzled looking woman turned to us to make conversation. She started with, "I'm late for my son's polo game. It's his last one!" I believe Brett and I both responded with an uncomfortable "oh really?" because neither of us really knew what to say and didn't want to encourage her to spill about how frustrated and late she was. However, our non-interest didn't deter her from talking to us some more. We bantered on for a while and just when the other family was almost all taken care of, she said, "it's so warm outside. There must be an earthquake coming or something."
..... What???.......
If you're having trouble tying those two thoughts together, so were we. After she returned her stuff and dashed off, Brett and I returned our stuff and then walked away laughing about how that statement was so weird and disconnected. In fact, we kept joking about it long after we returned home. We joked about how if warmth were an indicator of earthquakes, Arizona should have a lot more of them, that lady must be crazy, why was that lady wearing such ridiculous pants, etc...
We found it all very funny until about 7:40 that night when our apartment started shaking!!!! That's right, the frazzled woman had somehow predicted an earthquake!!! We decided that she must be a seismologist, geologist, or the earthquake whisperer... even though science can't even seem to figure out exactly when a quake is coming. I guess the only other logical explanation is that this disheveled polo mom is actually mother earth incarnate!!! (This would be the point at which I would remove the flashlight from under my face and scream something at you-- i.e. "it is the beating of his hideous heart!" or "...and she was never heard from again!") OK, so it's not necessarily that scary of a story, but it is weird.
Other then that uncanny and mysterious but not necessarily scary Halloween story, we didn't do much else. We did find some raccoons masked as little thieves near our apartment, so we gave them some Halloween treats.
The night before Halloween, we carved up some innocent little pumpkins with some of our neighbors/Brett's fellow students. Here are the end results:
Can you guess which one is ours?
If you guessed the cannibal pumpkin, congratulations. Don't worry, we saved the little guy before too much damage was done.
Here's another picture of him waiting on our doorstep for trick-or-treaters. (We had a total of 3 kids come by)
So that's that. Halloween has come and gone and once again I'm left wondering why there is an unspoken age limit to trick-or-treating. Oh well. Such is life I guess. Till next time, this is Lindsey Walker signing off.
I realize that it has been far too long since our last blog and I apologize. Once we got settled back in the US, Brett got busy with school and I just... well, I guess I don't really have a good reason for not blogging. But, here I am now. I'm going to try to be a more diligent blogger, but it may take me a couple of blogs before I get in the swing of it.
Let me quickly update you on our last stop in the summer extravaganza of 2008: Israel. Here's the quick version of what we did: Day 1: We crossed the border into Israel and started our journey in Jerusalem. One of our friends from Jordan (we met in Jordan, but he is from the US) came with us and acted as a tour guide and honestly, he was probably more knowledgeable about the stuff we saw than any tour guide you could hire. So, thank you Jason. He also told us how wonderful and magical Jerusalem was before we got there. We didn't believe him until we got there. The first thing we did was wander around the Old City. Old City Jerusalem consists of the boundaries that were set by the last Muslim conquerors. We then headed over to West Jerusalem (the Jewish side of town) and discovered that Jason wasn't lying. This was indeed a magical place where food is delicious, things are clean, and it even reminded us a bit of the Promenade in Santa Monica. We also visited the Garden Tomb, Golgotha, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Wailing Wall. Here are Jason and I in the Old City:
Brett at the Garden Tomb:
Another Garden Tomb picture:
Golgotha:
Western Wall (Wailing Wall) And yes, people really do wail there.
Day 2: We did some more Jerusalem stuff including the Dome of the Rock, Pools of Bethesda, and the Mount of Olives. Covering all we wanted to do in a few days required A LOT of walking. For instance: Here is Brett after hiking to the Mount of Olives and beyond: Notice the tiny gold dome in the background. And remember we had already walked up that giant hill in the middle of the hot day.
And now here we are at that tiny gold dome-- the Dome of the Rock: You might be wondering why in that much heat I was so covered... well, most of these places ask that you dress modestly, so I did my best. I mean, check out this sign: The fine print says, "Modest clothes include: Closed Blouse, with long sleeves. Long skirt - No Trousers, no tight-fitting clothes. Please do not disturb the sanctity of our neighborhood, and our way of life as Jews committed to G-D and His Torah." They won't write out God--that's what the G-D is about. Then we headed into Bethlehem. To get into Bethlehem, you have to go into the West Bank through this giant wall: We found the juxtaposition of the "Peace Be With You" sign on a giant barbed-wire fence to be funny too. There wasn't a lot to see in Bethlehem, so we went to the Church of the Nativity, which is built over the cave that marks the place of Christ's birth, and then headed back out.
This is me "kissing" the silver star that marks the birthplace. It took forever to get back through the wall because some Spaniards couldn't figure out how to work the revolving door. While we were standing in line we did meet a very interesting Polish nun though. She says that some Palestinians have to get in line at 4am just to get through the wall to get to work, so I guess we didn't have it that bad.
Day 3: We took a bus up to Tel Aviv and hung out on the beach. It was nice to be in the nice cool water, but there were a few too many gross people there including some speedoed Israeli who made a point of talking to me and following me around for a while. From there we drove up to Nazareth. We were having a difficult time finding a place to stay but lucky for us the local law enforcement came through. We ended up staying in a 300 year-old house owned by a police officer.
Here we are in Tel Aviv: Day 4: We walked around Nazareth and went to the Basilica of the Annunciation. It incorporates the cave in which the Virgin Mary received the news from Gabriel that she would give birth to Jesus. We also drove to to the Church of the Beatitudes on the Northern Coast of the Sea of Galilee. This is the traditional spot of the Sermon on the Mount. It was absolutely amazing.
Here's a view out to the Sea of Galilee.
We also visited the Church of the Loaves and Fishes. (Have you noticed yet that a church has been built on every holy or possibly holy site?) This is also on the northwest shore of Galilee in Tabgha, for you scriptorians that's ancient Heptapegon. It's not 100% proven that this is where the 5,000 were fed with a loaf of bread and two fish, but it is a possible site.
This is one of the most famous mosaics out there--it's a depiction of the bread and fishes: After we had seen mostly everything (including Peter's house and the Valley of Armageddon), we drove back to Tel Aviv to stay there.
What's left of Peter's house: We also apparently stayed in the nastiest hotel. It wasn't dirty in the "unclean" sense, but it was apparently meant for dirty things. While flipping through the channels, I discovered that porn came free with the room and that our next door neighbors had no concept of "quiet so as not to disturb our hotel neighbors" sex. So we ended up watching Olympics coverage and then trying to get some frequently disturbed sleep.
Day 5: We drove back to Jerusalem to do some last minute souvenir shopping before heading back to Jordan. We purchased some things and then hopped on a bus to get back to Jordan. We had only been on the bus about 5 minutes when it crashed into another car.... right in front of the Garden Tomb. It was ridiculous and hilarious at the same time. No one was hurt, but plenty of Arabs were there to cause a scene. Another bus came around to pick us up and then we headed back to Jordan.
All in all it was a sweaty but incredible trip. I would highly recommend a trip to Israel if you are ever given the chance. The whole thing was a bit surreal. It's hard to imagine that we walked in the same places that Christ once did. While Jordan is not a place that I think I will need to revisit, possibly ever, I would definitely go back to Israel.
Some of the other highlights were: Managing to get a tour of the BYU Jerusalem center because one of the professors just happened to drive up when we were trying to get inside after hours... oh and he just happened to be someone we knew from our ward in Provo. And another truly unique experience was watching "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" in our hotel room the first night we were in Jerusalem.
So we have been home now for nearly a week, and it has been great to see some of our friends and family. Last night at a gathering of old friends I was turned on to the following YouTube classic. It's obviously the new "viral" video. Unfortunately, only those of you from Gilbert, AZ will really be able to appreciate this. Fortunately, those of you who aren't from Gilbert are about to understand the mentors of my adolescence a bit better, and those upon whose dreams I was fed.
Last week we played host to my parents, Kim and Lea Ann who flew into Amman on a bright Sunday morning. Sunday is the beginning of the Arab world's work week, but that did not stop a big portion of it from taking the morning off to crowd the reception area of the airport. Equipped with drums and noise makers, various groups welcomed family members home from abroad in a deafening chorus of screaming, pounding and second-hand smoke. Remember the scene from The Two Towers where the Urkiai army is about to attack the people of Rohan at the stronghold of Helms Deep, and they are stomping on the ground and chanting all aggressively and waving their torches and swords in the air? Do you remember that? The airport scene was kind that, except there were no elves to save us from the mob. My mom and dad had to push through the crowd where we were waiting with a taxi.
We went downtown that day and did a bit of shopping and listened to the friendly Amman locals greet us with "welcome in Jordan!" It was a good time. But what I didn't tell my parents is that we were walking around a place where a week previously, a gunman opened fire on a bus load of tourists. We were shopping next to the King Hussein mosque where other white-ish people have also been stabbed in the past. Apperently this area is where the Muslim Brotherhood has set up shop and performs various financing operations. I don't even want to know how many of our dollars-cum-dinars have gone on to fund the Brotherhood, Hamas or Fatah during our stay here.
The next day we took my parents to the Citadel. Since Lindsey and I have already been there (see previous blog post), we were able to show them the popular points of interest. But the main event was the next day when we rented a car and headed down to Petra. I guess I shouldn't just gloss over the fact that we rented a car and that was that. I actually called the Thrifty Car Rental office here in Amman and was told they had a car available. I notified them that I would be there in 20 mintues. So of course upon arrival they claimed they had no idea what I was talking about and that there were no cars. We got "A-rabbed." The good news is I found out how good my Arabic is when I argued with them and told them they were rediculous and that someone else was going to get my money because they don't know how to run a business. And someone else did get my money. Avis did.
Then we went to Petra. The pictures are posted here. Petra is possibly the oldest and coolest place I've ever carved my name into. According to the history books: "Petra is the ancient Nabatean city where Indiana Jones found the holy grail and thereby saved his wounded father, Henry."
But honestly, the city was absolutely breathtaking (and no I didn't actually carve my name, or anything else into it). The pictures truly speak for themselves. The juxtaposition of Nabatean and Roman architecture was truly a sight to see. My mother actually walked around and explained the different parts of columns and their various stylistic periods. Something that needs mentioning though, is that one old Bedouin man showed me a ceramic oil lamp for sale that featured a sexually explicit imprint. Our day got better and better... and explicit-er, especially upon our 800 stair ascent to the massive monastery. The hike down did quite a number on my parent's knees, so much so that it caused my dad to walk like a sassy robot (his words, not mine).
The next day we went to Madaba, which is a city that has ancient Christian churches and wild floor mosaics. They are brightly colored and tediously pieced together. They depict scenes from the bible, maps of the holy land and/or principles of the gospel. Also, Madaba is the most rediculous city I've ever navigated. There are signs pointing to attractions that tell you to turn down one-way streets that are going the wrong way. Or, the signs face the wrong way and you can only read them if you look in your rear view mirror and can make out the backwards lettering (but of course by the time you decipher it you've already missed the turn and you want to crash your car into someone's falafel stand).
The same day we also saw Mt. Nebo (Deuteronomy 34:1) and the Dead Sea. It was a succesful week and a nice visit from my parents. It's also nice to be able to get back to reality and wrap up some things that matter in this century. My parents left the saturday after they came. I think secretely they were sad to leave us to our plight here in Jordan. But we're surviving. Less than three weeks to go, now. We'll be back in AZ on the 19th of August at 11:29pm. We're ten hours ahead of you all in the United States, and although it has been fun living in the future for the last 2+ months, it will be good to get home. I listened to America the Beautiful while garbage blew around my feet on the way to work this morning. Three more weeks...
It seems like this is the cool thing to do right now, and since I don't want to be left out, I'm posting this.
Here are the directions: 1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember! 2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. (I think most of you have already done this)If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.
Also, although Lindsey is posting this, feel free to leave memories about me, Brett, and/or us as a couple or whatever. :)
This blog is pretty much off the cuff out of frustration... Just be thankful if:
1. You have running water. This is a big deal!
2. You have a washer and dryer. We have somewhat of a washer, no dryer.
3. When you go to church in a skirt, you don't feel like you are getting too much unwanted attention. I suppose if a guy wore a skirt to church in the states, he might get some unwanted attention though...
4. You have reliable internet all the time.
5. You have your own vehicle to get around.
6. You understand what people are saying around you.
7. You didn't go crazy last night after taking some sleeping pills to try to drown out the loud Arab men and other various noises. (Apparently I did a lot of funny things, but Brett didn't think they were so funny since I kept him awake till 4:30 in the morning)
8. You get to use a vacuum instead of a bunch of tape to try to clean your carpet. (Yep, that's right I said tape. You gotta be real creative here sometimes.) 9. You can eat all the tortillas you ever wanted.
10. If you don't have to yell at your landlord consistently. (This is Brett's job.)
11. You've never been woken up by fireworks, the call to prayer, a drum circle of some kind, loud Arab men gabbing about who know's what, honking cars, or the gas man.
12. Ants and fly's aren't regular visitors in your home.
I just wanted to get that out there. But, at the same time, I know that we are blessed to be here. We've sacrificed a lot to be here, but it has been a pretty good experience. There have been some ups and downs, but overall, it has been a very eye-opening experience and it is sure to help Brett's career in the future.
And now here is random picture just for the sake of adding a picture...
This is me on the way to Books@Cafe. It's a really cool cafe, but also touristy. So While we liked it, we probably won't visit too often since the touristy places are the ones you want to try to avoid.... they are the ones that get bombed or attacked. It was nice the one time we went though. :)
I personally think it was a nice change of pace for Brett to be doing the blog writing, but I suppose it was only a matter of time before he made me do it again. At any rate, here is what we've been up to lately...
A couple weekends ago we went to Aqaba...
We didn't actually take this picture. In fact, we only took one picture the whole time we were there and it wasn't even a picture at the beach. Sorry. (We just didn't want to take our camera down to the beach and leave it sitting there on the public beach.) We headed down there via the public bus on a Friday with a bunch of BYU kids. We had planned on staying at a place called the BedouinGardens. It came highly recommended by one of the people we were with, so we figured we would give it a shot. The original plan was to just pay to stay in a tent and then sleep on the beach. But, once we got there, Brett and I decided to get a room with air conditioning because sleeping in that heat would have been near impossible, even with the breeze. So while Brett and I slept in a room, the five other people we were with attempted to sleep outside. Around 3 a.m. something went awry for everyone in our group. Brett and I were awakened by some stomach problems with explosive results and the outside people were awakened by some uninvited guests. Gnats are apparently at their best in the middle of the night... So three of the people got a room around 4 a.m. and two of the other outside sleepers tried to win a loosing battle with the gnat-stys. We later found out that they had even tried sleeping in the pool to get away from the bugs, but it was to no avail.
The next morning all of us were tired and some were worse off than others. Brett and I felt like someone had poured acid in our stomachs and then proceeded to punch us over and over again and the two people that didn't sleep were pretty much delirious and on the verge of insanity. One of them even had intermittent fits of laughing/crying. It was funny, and yet oh so sad. Determined to try to enjoy some of our trip, we all rented snorkel gear and headed out to the beach. Of course, before actually getting the gear we had to convince the Arabs renting it to us that we had used snorkel gear before and knew what it was supposed to work like. (They thought that the leaky goggles were our misuse of them…) The water was a little cold for my liking, but most things are. The coral was really beautiful and we saw a lot of cool fish including a little puffer fish. After a good while of snorkeling, we decided to head into town because we didn't want to stay at the BedouinGardens again. (Brett has declared the BedouinGardens to be the worst gardens ever.) Here is that one and only picture I mentioned: Saturday night we got a hotel in town and it was a much appreciated change of pace. From there on, we took it pretty easy and just tried to survive the stomach problems that plagued the rest of our trip. We headed back to Amman on Sunday and just when we thought our troubles were over, we found that they had just changed from internal to external...
You see, for a while now we've been dealing with this family of pigeons living in our ceiling. I don't know what they did up there, but it was super loud and kept us up at all hours of the night. We told our landlord about the problem and he went up there and took care of the problem by killing them. We thought that this was great and that our troubled sleep was no more. What we didn't count on was the pigeons coming at us from beyond the grave. With the pigeons gone, their little lice friends needed new hosts, so they came wandering into our apartment. We, or rather I, came home one day to find them all over our walls and all over my suitcase with all of my clothing. It was one of the grossest things I have ever seen. We quickly got some raid and went to work. Brett even went up into the attic/roof area to spray where the pigeons used to live. We haven't found any in a few days now, so I think we are in the clear.
The 4th of July was pretty mellow. We went to church then we went to Fuddruckers. (An American classic, right?) When we were at Fuddruckers Brett made us go around the table and read our favorite amendment from a pocket edition of the constitution and say what we love about America the most. After that we were invited over to a member's house where they fed us again (gluttony is also very American, right?) and Brett got to shed some guitar American style. Then we headed over to a small "married people" get together. This was the first time that Brett and I had ever hung out with just married people. It was interesting. We did get to see some fireworks on the way over, so that was good. I would have made Lee Greenwood proud with my singing of “I’m Proud to be an American” while we watched those few fireworks go off.So, that’s pretty much that. This last weekend we took it easy, but made sure to keep the American theme going. We watched the Hulk, Hancock, and ate at TGI Fridays. We're alive and doing well now and to try to make this blog a little more interesting, we've included a video of our living room... I'm not sure how that will make things more interesting, but just enjoy. Don't sass me.
Me after declaring myself mayor of this ancient city
Here is Lindsey bringing back history, one block at a time
After this, we went to a restaurant downtown. We're going to have to publish some pics of downtown. It looks like a disaster, and I love it. Anyway, I was bemused to see that the Al-Qahira (Arabic for Cairo) restaurant made it a point to inform their customers that they no longer have any type of relations with Denmark. This is in retaliation for a Danish newspaper's publishing of the Mohammed cartoons. Man! Amid a global credit crunch, energy and food crisis, I don't know how the Danish are going to fare this embargo! The food was great, though. Maybe from now on we'll demand all our meals be served Dane-free.
To see the whole batch of Citadel photos, they're on Flickr
Lastly, we found a radioshack and got ourselves a power converter. Now we'll be able to play Mario Kart on our Nintendo DS all summer long!
Brett really doesn’t like that saying, but it seemed to fit so I'm going to leave it. Obviously Brett and I made it here to Jordan ok (even though the journey is WAY gross) so here are some things that I’ve learned so far: 1. Deodorant is optional. 2. The "no cuts, no butts" rule means nothing to these people. While lines have helped people navigate Disneyland, bathrooms, and pretty much anything with a crowd, they have no place here. People more or less gather in crowds, and they’ll cut in front of you without any warning. 3. Smoking is enjoyed by everyone and prohibited nowhere. 4. Did I mention that lines mean nothing? Well, this goes for the roads too. People drive where they feel like. Those white lines on the road are strictly decoration. 5. If you are driving a car, you are honking a horn. While in America we mainly use the horn when we think some “idiot” on the road has done something wrong, people in Jordan use it for any and every reason. I think this is what they use in place of the lines on the road. They honk to let other cars know they’re there. 6. If you are a white woman, you will be gawked at. 7. Jordanian hotel rooms don’t come with a Holy Bible. (Weird, I know.) Those are some things I’ve picked up on so far. I’ll make sure to keep up on my findings.
There are a bunch of BYU students here studying Arabic and we met up with one of the couples today. The girl told us a story about how she almost died (literally) from eating something in Syria. That really made me nervous. But, she gave us some great tips on buying and preparing food, so that’s good. We also went to the mall today. (That’s right. There are actually 2 malls here). They had quite a few American stores and a movie theater with American movies. In addition to the american stores and movies there are American restaurants here like Applebee’s, KFC, Carl’s Jr., Popeye’s Chicken, Pizza Hut, Fuddrucker’s, and some others. So although there are a lot of weird things going on here, there are some things that make it less weird.
As far clothing goes, a lot of the women wear the head scarf, but there are a lot that don't. I've seen women wearing Burqa's covering their whole body with small slits for their eyes and gloves covering their hands and I've seen women in jeans and a t-shirt.
Brett is loving his internship. He is going to be doing a presentation about security cooperation between the U.S. and Jordan to some students from Tufts University next week. His boss is really nice and a lot of people have complimented him on his Arabic.
I guess that’s all for now. I haven’t taken any pictures yet (sorry), but when I do I will post them on here.
I got "tagged" by Debbie, so here it is: 3 Joys: 1. Brett 2. Puppies or pretty much any baby animals 3. Family/Friends that make me laugh so hard I cry
3 Fears: 1. Sharks (jaws ruined me for life) 2. Brett dying before me 3. Mediocrity
3 Goals: 1. Become proficient in another language. 2. Figure out what I want to do in the future (career wise). This does not mean I don't want to have kids, so don't panic. Having kids one day is a given, but figuring out a career is a whole other ball game. 3. Find a cure for cancer... wait, do these have to be realistic? It would be nice though...
3 Current Obsessions/collections: 1. Veronica Mars 2. Twilight Series of books and the Twilight movie 3. Xbox (I couldn't think of another CURRENT obsession, so that's Brett's obsession)
3 Random surprising facts about yourself: 1. I have a really long tongue 2. I had a short lived job as a professional kidnapper (Thanks, Will) 3. I was once a "ring girl" for an ultimate fighting championship. (I was not scantily clad though.)
I tag Caraline, Stephanie, Lindsey, Brown Sugar, and Mimi. Post these rules on your blog. List 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions/collections, 3 random surprising facts about yourself. Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names.
I realize that I just recently posted something, but I figured that since the word is out, that I would post our exciting news....
We're going to be living in Jordan this summer. So if you were ever thinking, "Hey, wouldn't it be nice to go to the Middle East?" But then you thought, "But just buying a plane ticket over there is so expensive, and then I have to worry about where to stay." Well, worry no more. We'll be in Jordan, and I would be more than happy to play host to some friends! Alright, I realize that most of you are probably not to keen on the idea, but I thought I would put it out there any way.
Brett is going to be working with a N.G.O (non-governmental organization)on non-proliferation, which is what he is studying. Needless to say, he's super excited. He'll get to use his Arabic and work in something he's really interested in. As for me, I'm going to attempt to continue working from home and trying to find things to occupy my time. Does that mean I'm going to wander off in the Middle East all by my lonesome? Doubtful. We'll see how I feel about things once I get there. Jordan is supposed to be the safest country over there, but that's not to say that there aren't dangers, especially for women. All my "well-fitting" clothing will probably stay here in the states, and although we'll be close to a beach, I doubt I'll be packing anything in the ways of a 2 piece swimsuit to try to achieve a nice tan. (We all know I don't really tan anyway).
While I am still a little apprehensive about this whole thing, I'm also excited. I have always loved and wanted to visit Egypt and now we'll be not too far away, so we can possibly visit. Plus, Jordan has incredible adventures of it's own to offer. The world-famous Sphinx may not be in Jordan, but the place where Moses stood and looked out on the Promised Land is. Plus, there's that Temple that was featured in an Indiana Jones movie. So, I'm pretty pumped to experience some of this history first hand. After all, Mark Twain once said, "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." Hopefully I discover that sailing away from the safe harbor washes away my fears of such an incredibly historic place.
So, I've been thinking a lot lately about growing up and getting older. It seems to keep popping up lately. It all began when I found my old journal and I was reading an entry from when I turned 19. Apparently I felt old even then. Unfortunately, I haven't stopped having birthdays since then either, so now here I am having my quarter life crisis. (And that's only if I live to be 100). Getting old is not something that I necessarily look forward to. For whatever reason, I'm one of those fools that thought the idea of Neverland seemed like a great idea. I don't feel old all the time, but it seems like it's been coming up a lot lately. For instance, the other day I was interviewing a high school girl for my column. She was in the orchestra at Gilbert high school, so I said that I was in the orchestra when I was there but I graduated back in 2001. When she heard this her reaction was a drawn out"woah..." as in "wow, you're really old." That made me feel super awesome. Then last Tuesday, Brett and I were able to get VIP passes to the Jimmy Eat World/Paramore concert. The audience was saturated with high school girls squealing about Paramore and Brett and I found ourselves in the thick of it because we were at the front of the crowd. There were a couple of guys that looked our age who asked us before the show started, "Do you guys feel old here?" Who are these people that ask those kinds of questions?! Now, not only do I feel old, but apparently I LOOK old. That's just great. Well, as it turned out, one of the guys was older than us and the other one was a flaming homosexual... so maybe they were both gay... that's beside the point though. The point is, we might be old and look old, but at least we're not gay.
Alright Debbie, Connie, Alexis, Mimi and others who have been pushing for a blog. Apparently I have had one for a while, but that's not the point. The point is that I am finally writing something for the whole world to read. What do most people write a first blog about? I'm guessing people's first blogs are much like this one... They start off telling people to get off their case about not having a blog and then they try to think about what to write... So, looks like I'm doing well so far.
I guess I'll just update people on what is going on with me and Brett. Brett is going to school at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and loving every minute of it. Well, except for his occasional bouts with one of his groups. Turns out that in graduate school you still have to do group work. Bummer. But, not to worry. I think Brett may have gone out and gotten himself Xbox live today to go with the Xbox that I didn't even know he had until he moved out here. How did that happen? The world may never know...although I have the sneaking suspicion that one Jesse and/or Curt Walker may know something about it...but I digress.
So, Brett's going to school learning about how many bombs it would take to destroy the world and I'm taking it nice and easy. I still write a column once a week for the Gilbert Republic and I'm trying to get another online job doing editing for Rio Salado College. The reason I'm not going out to find something else is because I foresee a lot of moving around in our future and I didn't want to get something and then have to quit a few months later and try to find another job again. With these online/at-home jobs, I can do them wherever we are. Jordan has internet access, right? Anyway, Brett and I are having fun here in Monterey, and I will try to get some pictures on this thing soon. (As soon as I figure out how to work this whole thing).
Last week we played host to my parents, Kim and Lea Ann who flew into Amman on a bright Sunday morning. Sunday is the beginning of the Arab world's work week, but that did not stop a big portion of it from taking the morning off to crowd the reception area of the airport. Equipped with drums and noise makers, various groups welcomed family members home from abroad in a deafening chorus of screaming, pounding and second-hand smoke. Remember the scene from The Two Towers where the Urkiai army is about to attack the people of Rohan at the stronghold of Helms Deep, and they are stomping on the ground and chanting all aggressively and waving their torches and swords in the air? Do you remember that? The airport scene was kind that, except there were no elves to save us from the mob. My mom and dad had to push through the crowd where we were waiting with a taxi.
But honestly, the city was absolutely breathtaking (and no I didn't actually carve my name, or anything else into it). The pictures truly speak for themselves. The juxtaposition of Nabatean and Roman architecture was truly a sight to see. My mother actually walked around and explained the different parts of columns and their various stylistic periods. Something that needs mentioning though, is that one old Bedouin man showed me a ceramic oil lamp for sale that featured a sexually explicit imprint. Our day got better and better... and explicit-er, especially upon our 800 stair ascent to the massive monastery. The hike down did quite a number on my parent's knees, so much so that it caused my dad to walk like a sassy robot (his words, not mine).
