Thank you State Department and American Taxpayers!

In a recent attempt to update my blog, I came across a post that I never completed. This is almost a year late, but better late than never! Here are some pictures from my trip to Jordan last summer (2007) I was there from June-August. While I was there I traveled all around Jordan, the bank cities of Bethlehem and Rumallah, Jerusalem in Israel proper, and Damascus, Syria. I may post pictures from my trip another time, but here are some from the old post I never published.

I am currently working as an Intern in Washington DC for a company called Pal-Tech. I am loving it so far, hopefully I'll post more about that later.

Here are some pictures from our 5 day trip to southern Jordan.




Here I am with some of the other people from my program. We stayed in an amazing "campground" in wadi rum. It was the first campground I ever stayed at that had a full dance floor, swimming pool, restaurant and bar. We did sleep comfortably in twin beds in tents, so it is considered camping.

This is one of many facades found on the sides of mountains in Petra, Jordan. This is called "the monstary." although it looks quite large, it only contains one small chamber inside. Petra was recently named one of the new 7 wonders of the world!

Here is Flannery and I on the red sea. Part of our itinerary was to take a boat out on the red sea for a bbq and party, so we did. Thank you again, american tax payers. It was really fun and the food was great. We stayed in a 5 star hotel in a city called Aquba. Many countries have ports in the gulf of Aquba (where this picture was taken). From where we were we could see Egyptian, Israeli, Jordanian, and Saudi Arabian ports. It was quite amazing.

I took this picture on our bus ride up to the castle of Karak. This castle was one of many existing fortresses modified by the crusaders in the 13th century.

Here is our group learning about the Nabateans who once inhibited Petra.

Here I am waiting for others to gather to go on our boat ride out to the red sea. This is in the lobby of our hotel, the movenpick, which use to be owned by the bin-laden family.

Here I am with Flannery (right) and Christine (left). These girls were probably my best friends in Jordan this summer, they are awesome. We are in a place called Wadi Rum. Several movies have been filmed here. And the sand is really that red!

Here i am waiting to go snorkeling in the red sea. it was so beautiful! I've never seen such beautiful corals in my life! i wasn't aware the red sea was a big snorkeling and diving destination, but i guess it is!

This is probably the most famous facade in Petra, called "the treasury."

After walking through narrow canyon walls for nearly a mile, this is the first glimpse you see of the city of Petra. wow, it was breathtaking!

Camels for rent! You can rent these camels to take you in and out of Petra. If you look closely at this picture, you can see the facades of small dwellings in the foreground.

this is the narrow "siqh" you walk through to get to Petra.

This is our group in wadi rum. the Bedouins, which are local tribal men, hosted us for tea and coffee. I can't imagine how people can drink that stuff in such hot weather! cold water was fine for me.

this is a picture i took out of our hotel window in Aquba.

Our caravan driving through wadi rum.

The sunset at wadi rum

Our trip to the south was great. I really love Jordan. It is so rich in culture, history and there are so many beautiful sights to see. But despite staying in five-star hotels, cruising in the red sea, and staying in, what i would consider, a five-star campground, all at the expense of American tax payers, we are learning a lot out here.

Ana eskoon fi Amman!

Marhaban! So I am still here in Jordan and loving it. This blog post isn't up-to-date, but I am working towards that! Over the past few weeks we've visited quite a few places. We went to Um Quais, Jerash, Ajloon, Wadi Hasan and Al-Salt.

Here are Flannery and I in Um Quais. We got tired and hot so decided to sit here a bit. After looking at some mosaics and pieces of statues and column capitals.

Um Quais was awesome. From the northern side of it there was a great view of the Sea of Galilee and Lebanon. The city is from the Ottman era. The buildings, roads, and pretty much everything inside the city was built of black basalt and limestone, as you can see in some of the photos.

These boys were dancing a traditional dance called the, "Debka." it is kind of like a country line dance but a lot cooler. The amphitheatre they are dancing in is built of black basalt.


Here I am in Jerash. It was ridiculously hot the day we went. Jerash is an old roman city. A lot of archaeological discoveries have been made here, and then re-buried for preservation. The government kept a few of the temples and buildings exposed for tourists to see, but a large number of them remain uncovered.

Our group in front of the temple of Artemus. You can actually see the columns of this building sway with the wind. It is pretty scary.

Exposed mosaics from the temple of Jean-Baptiste. Or John the Baptist. And when I say exposed, I mean it. There is no roof that protects these mosaics, they are totally exposed to the elements.


A view of the city center in Jerash.


Flannery and I with some bag-pipe dudes inside the theatre in Jerash. This is where i saw Ozomatli play. You will see the pictures from that in future blogs!


Flannery and I near the entrance of Ajloon. A castle built by Saladin's forces during the crusades.


Me being blinded for the sun and posing for a picture inside Ajloon.


Flan and I being silly on the bus.. The people behind us were pretty much all asleep haha.


Here is a picture of everyone sleeping. We were stuck in traffic for almost two hours... literally stuck.. we didn't move more than 30 feet.

Wadi Hasan is one of the many canyons in Jordan. I didn't realize Jordan would have such sweet geology, but it does. We had quite the adventure in this canyon. We paid one of our Jordanian friends, Hakim, who is also a tour guide to take us to this canyon. It was intense. We had to swim most of the way, but also hike, jump off cliffs, repel, and rock climb to finally get out of the canyon. It took about 7 hours.


This is a picture of us finally resting after making it out of the canyon. We are laying in a natural hot spring that intersects the main river which formed the canyon.


We stopped for a swim in this pool of water.

Al-Salt is a city in Jordan that hasn't been westernized a ton like Amman and Aqaba. The buildings here were much older, and being preserved. We walked around the city, visited a church and an archaeological museum.


Joe, Christine and I on a roof-top checking out the view. Photo by Charles.


Christine and I representing Asia. You can see the minaret of a Mosque in the background.


The best dinner of my life at a Lebanese restaurant.

My Trip to Jordan so far has been awesome. I am having a ton of fun and learning a ton of Arabic. I really love the people and the culture of Jordan and i really hope I'll be able to return next summer or sometime soon.

Marhaban!

Ok, so i started this post over a month ago and didn't finish it.

I am in Amman! it is fun!! it is way hot here.. this city is pretty developed and westernized, I was really surprised. but despite the tall commercial and residential buildings there is a lot of cattle around here. I was very surprised to see goats and sheep grazing in uninhabited plots of land in between tall buildings. There is a shepherd who herds his goats to the open field next door to where i live and lets them graze there.

Here is the shepherd with his sheep and goats. This picture was taken from the living room window of my apartment. In the foreground you can see ruins that are from the ottoman era.

I'm staying at the American Center for Oriental Research. It is pretty nice here. When they told us we were living in a hostel I was expecting the bare minimums. But it turned out to be pretty nice. I live in a two bedroom apartment on the top floor of the building with four other girls. Our building is not bad. It is about twenty years old. I'm pretty sure all the furniture, sheets, and towels are around the same age. It is kind of gross. Since we live in the middle of the desert we don't have much water here. Water is delivered once a week so we are encouraged to take 'navy showers' Yesterday while i was taking a shower the water went out. It wasn't a very pleasant experience. But thank goodness I had a two liter of mineral water handy. I was able to rinse most of the soap off of me.

This is the only picture i have of ACOR. We have our own long private driveway and 'special police officer' that is stationed outside 24/7.

This is our neighborhood, Ta'al al Ali. It translates to "Ali's hill" in the foreground is a Bedouin tent, they are the nomadic people that once lived throughout the Arabian peninsula, and in the background is our neighborhood.

So far i have really enjoyed this program. It is definitely refreshing to be around people who are so diverse. There is so much to learn from the people here and I love it. Being here, even though its only been a week, has re-kindled my interest in learning. It is good that i feel more motivated to learn now, but at the same time it is making me more indecisive about my major. I love geology, but there is so much more i want to learn about as well!

Yesterday was a really fun day. We had our first cultural tour. We went all around Amman and visited historical sites. I no idea that civilizations have been living here for thousand of years.

This is the blue mosque near downtown Amman. it is beautiful.

Yum, fried cheese, sugar and psittacosis.

This is the world's tallest flagpole. 400 ft!

The first site we went to was a roman amphitheatre. It was right in the heart of down town Amman. it was crazy to see it sticking out among the regular city buildings.

here is the theatre amongst the buildings!

Nazneen, Flannery and I scaling the steep amphitheatre steps.

Group picture!

This is Flannery and I at the sacrificial alter. Flannery is in the program with me. She is studying near eastern studies at Princeton.

After the theatre we went about 500 meters to the top of a hill where the temple of Hercules once stood. There was also a cool archaeological museum there with some of the dead sea scrolls.
The temple of Hercules with downtown Amman in the background.

We went to a small village called Iraq Al-Amir after the temple and saw another temple built during the Ummayd empire. Some women from the village prepared lunch for all thirty of us. It was mansaff, which is chicken, rice, and some spices. it was really good.

Here I am knocking on the door of a handicrafts store in Iraq Al-Amir.

A group of people from my program decided to go see a concert at Hussein Gardens. We saw a Palestinian rap group called "damn" or something like that. They were actually pretty good.

Joel, Dennis and I. i think this picture is so funny.

Damn in action.


Me with one of the many faces of King Abdullah displayed heavily throughout Jordan.

ni hao!

I was trying really hard to figure out how to write hello in Arabic. I couldn't quite figure it out so i just settled for a ni hao instead. haha.

I am currently in Washington DC for orientation for the critical language scholarship program going to Amman, Jordan. There i will be learning Arabic at the university of Jordan for the next two months. I decided mostly to write this blog for myself, kind of as an online journal since i can type a lot faster than i can write by hand, and it hursts a lot less. and also for my friends and family back home who are curious as to what I'm doing over here in Jordan.

Yesterday was my first day away from Utah. I landed in the Dulles international airport after a four hour flight. It really wasn't a long flight in comparison to the flights I'm use to taking to Singapore. I slept mostly and read a bit out a book Bruce let me borrow called Understanding Arabs. The book seems pretty interesting and i think it will help a lot in interacting with the Jordanians.

The cab ride from the airport to the hotel took about an hour. The weather was terrible. It rained and hailed so much. I am use to heavy rain because i normally visit Singapore during the monsoon season, but this rain was unlike any i have ever seen. The inside of the taxi even started leaking. It was intense. After arriving at the hotel i found out that there was a tornado warning issued near the Dulles area. And many of the other students coming to Jordan with me had delayed flights, some of them didn't even arrive until the next morning.

Orientation today was useful and interesting but also very long. I am excited though to be in DC. It is my first time here so i can't wait to go see some monuments and the Smithsonian. Well anyway, for all of you back home, don't call my cellphone for the next two months. The best way to contact me is through email. My address is amanda.t.barrett@gmail.com