A Beach Below Sea Level

So I've been out to the Dead Sea area several times, but until recently I hadn't gotten the opportunity to actually go INTO the water. It was a wonderfully sunny day. I even got slightly sunburnt.


The first thing you notice upon walking up to the water's edge is the solidified salt that covers everything - even under the water in places. The picture above shows how easy it is to pull up handfuls of salt. That should give you an idea about just how salty the water is.


Upon venturing into the water you can definitely smell the salt and you notice the water feels slightly odd; almost as though it's oily. I know that sounds strange considering it's full of gritty salt and sediment, but it really was somehow more slick than plain water. See the sand under water ?


I was amazed at how buoyant I was. You hear all the stories about how you can't sink, but it's still a strange feeling to just lay back and bob at the surface of the water.


I tried to stand straight up, but that proved difficult; my legs kept trying to float up from beneath me. I finally managed to bounce like a cork straight up and down in the water.


Naturally I started goofing off and seeing just what I could do since I didn't have to work at keeping myself afloat with my arms and legs. I call this one "The Airplane."


As I was getting up out of the water one of my friends threw a glob of mud at me. Notice the big clump below my left shoulder? This quickly escalated into mud slinging. And at that point I was covered in mud so I decided to go ahead and do the cliché of covering myself entirely in Dead Sea mud.


Apparently people pay lots of money for Dead Sea mud; there are shops lining the Dead Sea selling the stuff. And for good reason! Don't I look especially attractive?

After about 10 minutes covered in it though, I'd had enough. I got washed off. By the way, if you ever go to the Dead Sea DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT attempt to swim under the water. I wanted to show the laws of physics it wasn't gonna keep me from sinking. Bad idea. I had my eyes tightly shut and my mouth completely locked closed, but it didn't matter. My lips shriveled and my eyes stung immediately. It was not cool.


This last picture gives a glimpse of what the shore looked like from the water; complete with Euro Speedo Man.

Everyone is crazy

I have officially had my first conversation in Arabic with a taxi driver. Granted, I’m sure I sounded like a 3 year old babbling words who doesn’t truly understand what he’s saying, but even so I was very proud of myself and excited. Perhaps one of the funniest moments was the following exchange (all in Arabic):

Taxi Driver almost hits a guy running across a busy street, then proceeds to almost slam into a car and says “Crazy Man!”

I am startled, yet ecstatic that I understood that haha. So I tell him, “Yes, crazy. I understand you.”

Surprised that I spoke to him in Arabic he laughs, and I proudly smile, then he says, “There are too many cars in this city.”

Nearing my destination another car cuts us off and nearly side swipes us, causing the driver to exasperatingly declare, “EVERY one is crazy today!”

To which I say, “We are not crazy.”

And we laugh.

So there you go. That was about the extent of my hold on Arabic right there in that one conversation haha. Overall, I’m very pleased. I’ve only had 15 hours of language learning at this point and most of it has been nouns and other vocabulary. I won’t really be touching grammar until after the first 100 hours or so.

That’s not to say that I won’t be trying to learn some of it myself. I’m fortunate to have a friend in the city who lived here for a couple of years, a few years ago. He has a firm grasp of the language already and has been helping clarify things for me that get befuddled during class. I can’t tell you how great it’s been to be able to discuss with a NATIVE English speaker some of the more perplexing intricacies of the language. As with most native speakers of any language, my instructor fails to mention a lot of stuff that I would consider valuable information; I think this is because he doesn’t realize that certain “obvious” linguistic aspects aren’t so obvious to someone just starting out. But, he also might be leaving it out simply because he thinks these things are unimportant to my early language development. Either way, my desire to grasp the language makes me want to understand every detail. That’s why it’s nice to a friend who knows what I’m talking about!

I can’t think of a good picture to include with this post. I promise to make the next entry picture intensive to make up for it. Thank you all who have written me encouraging words and comments on my blog entries. It’s great to hear from you! Don’t be shy, and I promise not to be shy to reply to your comments. See you soon.

What'd you say?

On Sunday I officially started my Arabic language study. I think that sentence alone could suffice for explaining what my life has been like the past few days.

Arabic is a very interesting language, and so far my initial traipse into it has been fairly positive. It seems to me that structurally it is more similar to English than oh….say Greek. At least for now; we’ll see how I feel about all of this in a few weeks or months.

The most difficult part for me thus far has been forming and hearing the various sounds that we as English speakers either don’t use or don’t differentiate between. The hard “h” versus the “h” we use in English presents a challenge. Then there’s the “kh” sound which sounds like you’ve breathed too heavily while making a “k” sound. Oh and I’d be remiss if I forgot the “gh” sound which is similar to making a trilled “r” in the back of your throat.

That's an interesting one.

Enough of the linguistics lesson; I’ll tell a story from my first day of class. I’m sitting and listening to my nurturer (they aren’t called teachers…) point to pictures and say words again and again. After about two hours of this, he decides that it’s time for me to learn to speak. I was all for that. Unfortunately, the phrases he starts teaching me contain two different words that sound EXACTLY the same to me. I ask him to stop and say them back to back. I think he was messing with me cause it sounded like he just said the same word twice while telling me two different meanings. I laugh and say “I can’t hear a difference.” We spent the next 30 minutes on these two words and slowly separating out the sounds so that I could learn the difference. Believe me, the difference was/is minute.

I’m proud to say though, after 3 days of language, I’m beginning to recognize it. The majority of my learning at this point is just vocabulary and I imagine that I have close to 100 words by now.

These picture sheets show some of what I can either say or recognize. I’ll keep you informed as to my progress and assured blunders to come. Until next time…

Taxis and Food

So I've been taking the taxi by myself for a few days now. This city is quite big, but I've managed to get around alright. I know specific landmarks and place names to say so I can usually get myself within short walking distance of the places I need to go. I'm slowly grasping the layout of the city and am now recognizing things as we pass by them. What I'm saying is, my mental map is coming along well, and this makes the city less intimidating.

Tonight on the way home I got in a cab that didn't have a meter (or at least it was cleverly hidden). I knew right off the bat this was trouble, but I was too tired to care. So I make conversation as much as I can without actually knowing any substantive Arabic, and the driver knowing little English. We get to my neighborhood and I have him pull over about a block from my house. I know that where I came from to my house usually runs about 2.5 dinars, so I figure I'll be nice and just give him 3 and not ask for change. I hand him three and he looks at me and demands more.

I say, "Three is good!"

He points to the clock and says "Late."

I'm thinking to myself, "Is he really trying to tell me that there's some late night taxi tax??" (By the way, it was only like 9 PM; not late at all.)

I laugh and say, "Okay. Two good?" and go to reach for one of the dinars back.

At this point he decides that three is indeed good, and says "Salaamu" meaning "peace" and he was out of there.

I just want it to be clear that most taxi drivers that I've dealt with are very nice and honest people. I almost gave one guy a 10 dinar note instead of a 1 and he gave it back and informed me of my error. Tonight was the first instance of someone trying to take advantage of me.

I got to eat my first authentic sit down Arabic meal the other night. It was wonderful. I especially enjoyed the hummus which was topped with meat and pine nuts; as well as the chicken (picture of the whole meal above). Afterward, we had some tea; it too was great (See below picture). The food so far has been superb. We've had the chance to get little things from street side restaurant shops as well. Today we had a falafel sandwich; SO good! It's mushed up falafels inside some of the Arabic flat bread, which is chewy and delicious, as well as hummus all rolled up with some other sauce sprinkled on top. Another of my favorites has been Shawarma. Wikipedia probably does a better job of explaining this that I would do, so you can look it up if you like. My stomach has been strong and I've not had a single instance of it having to "adjust" to the new food so far. Admittedly, the food here isn't really all that different than home, but I still thought I'd have to go through an adjustment period.

These first few days have gone really great. I've no reason to believe it won't continue in the same fashion. I'm probably gonna be heading out and doing some more exploring tomorrow in a new part of town. This is so great, I still can't believe I'm really here.

Flights and First Impressions

So, everything ended up perfectly, but the road getting there was a rough one. I arrived in Chicago nearly 4.5 hours later than planned and had to try to board another plane going to London. After much waiting and hoping, I was the pleasant recipient of one business class ticket to London. I've never flown anything other than the basic seating; after the quite stressful day, it was a nice treat. I even had one of those seats that laid down completely flat. Awesome. Even so, I couldn't sleep. But I was relaxed and comfortable, which are two words I've never used in conjunction with the word "flying."

I was afraid that my baggage wouldn't make it to my final destination simply because of all the delays and rebooking mess I had to go through to get here. But even that worked out nicely; everything showed up, and in one piece! I was met at the airport and taken to my new home. I crashed into bed soon thereafter.

This morning I got up and have been strangely rested. Little to no jet lag, and I feel fine physically. This isn't usual for me when traveling internationally. But it's a more than welcome change.
I've had the opportunity to meet with some people in a home today and then I went walking around my neighborhood with my new roommate. We walked by a really big mosque and then we headed towards a market. The walk was great. I've been nothing but amazed by the city so far. It's gorgeous here, the weather is wonderful right now. Cool at night and pleasant during the day. Though from what I understand, it's soon to be getting cold. The air is surprisingly clean. Just slightly dusty, but nothing like Africa was. And pollution isn't noticeable at all; I thought it'd be more like India. The driving is calm, and far less "honky" than expected. There seems to be an air of order so that's very welcome. The cultural adjustment isn't going to be as big as it would be for some other places. So far, it's great.

My room in my house is spacious and comfortable with a generously sized bed. I even had a hot shower this morning, albeit a short lived one. I haven't really had a full on Mid Eastern meal yet, but I'll be sure to take pictures when I have my first one. The city is really gorgeous; I live at a house that's close to the top of a hill. The city is generally very hilly and my neighborhood is one of those hilly parts. It allows for a great view. This picture is taken from about 50 yards from my door. Incredible huh?
This is gonna be amazing.