Friday, August 22, 2008

All better

  • current
I'm back at home the first thing I did was to fall sick. But by today I think I'm in tip top form. I spent the week catching up with the brothers, spending time with the parents, meeting up with a few friends, etc. Started looking at apartments, but now there's a chance I'll be in Saint Paul, another Al Futtaim venture ... I think I'd rather spend my time in Madison. Well at least most of it.
I'm still adjusting to the time zones, which means I can't stay awake past 11PM and wake up every morning at 6 or 7. It's actually great to be awake in the morning, especially this time of year. The morning is the coolest time of day and the park is completely green. Grady and Ian have started their practices for soccer and >cc>, in fact I caught Grady getting ready this morning.


  • listening
went to the best place ever, strictly discs, and picked up some santogold (self titled) and lykke li (youth novels). waiting on some ratatat and tricky to come in. i'm excited to have a decent music shop around again ...


  • reading
How to Make Friends and Oppress People: Classic Travel Advice for the Gentleman Adventurer.

It's 19th century travel advice from various british gents, pretty great.

  • watching
lost & CSI. With the fam. Got hooked on Lost with the cuz in Jordan and CSI has always been a classic.
  • news
Scott and Sonia came thru today on their way to a Joanna Newsome concert in Chicago.
I took them to the Med Cafe and it was grrreat. Showed them around the city, but it was a pretty brief visit.

Next week I'm going up to the cabin with some of my friends from Mac. we're gonna be up there for a realll long weekend and I am pretty excited. I might also come thru Saint Paul for a bit, but I dunno how long? kinda depends on some other stuff going on (aka maybe another "job")

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mik is going to oberlin on monday so tonight we are going out for the classic family dinner. I think Adeline and Homewrecker will be there so it should be pretty classic. Too bad base will miss out.

Friday, August 15, 2008

WAOWWW

  • current
I am looooving Jordan. The history, the people, the family, the friends. Spending time with the cuz and her fam is excellent and I am really getting to do some good tourism. Plus we went out and spent some time in the diplomatic community tonight, which was new and enlightening for me.
  • news
today Lara and I went to Petra. Petra is an old Nabatean city, full of buildings carved into the sandstone gorge and mountains. I think that Indiana Jones might have been filmed there ...
One of the first buildings you see when you enter the site.
The end of the walk thru the gorge, right as you open onto the ...
treasury. an amazing building carved into the side of this stone wall/gorge/cliff
Whether you can tell or not, the best hiking shoes I had were converse ... but I survived.


the city in the hills, literally.

It was a great day, good to have Lara with. She just graduated in Bio from JMU. We talked about religion & science, life in a divorced family, she filled me in on what it's like to be the daughter of a diplomat. Plus she is an activist (esp. with coal issues in the virginias) and she told some stories about her being arrested during an "action" as well as some about less fortunate activists from all over the world.

it was a 3 hour drive to and from petra, and we were both sleeping each way. but as soon as we returned we each took a muchhhh needed shower and went over to another diplomat's for dinner. but it was actually a pizza party for the kids of the american diplomats in amman. so it was a fun mix of watching kids scream and eat pizza combined with talking to various men and women about their experiences abroad. One man was headed for a year in Iraq while his wife and kids waited in Jordan. Another family had just been evacuated from Yemen. It was their first deployment in the foreign services and they had been there for a month or so. Then one day Al Qaeda shot mortar rounds at the US Embassy. They missed and hit the girls' school that is next door. The next morning the media said that "Clearly some of the familes at the school are having serious disputes with one another." ..... yah. Shortly thereafter the same people started hitting the US living compound with shells... so everyone was evacuated. The family was supposed to spend 2 years in Yemen, but now they have been reassigned for 2 in Jordan.
So it was fun and amazing to hear about what everyone had done and is doing today. Then, just before we were about to leave, we were interrupted by bottlerockets, firecrackers, music, and cheering as a wedding parade passed outside the apartment window.

After that, Michael took Lara and I to the Embassy for a going away party (for a marine gunnery sergeant). It is the first time that I have ever been to an Embassy and it was cool being hosted by the RSO (he runss the security for the whole place and is the boss of all of the marines). we talked with some other diplomats, alllmost met the ambassador, and met head of the CIA for the area. the party was in the Marines' living area, which was a little weird, but everyone was nice and I think we left before the party really took off.
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I am having a lot of fun walking through the desert every day, being a tourist. I am also enjoying experiencing life in the world of diplomats, ever if for a short time. Plus it's great getting to know my cousin and her family better. They are very easy to get a long with and lots of fun, I wish that I was staying longer than 5 nights!!! That said, I am excited to go back to WI.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

they're everywhere they're everywhere.

  • IAN CAME TO DUBAI
check out the news section for pics.
  • current
I'm in Amman, visiting the extended fam. Staying with my cousin Maria and her husband plus their 3 little girls. Both work for the Embassy, I think I am going to go check it out this week (I've never been to a U.S. Embassy before...). He's worked in embassy security for 20+ years and she has been a political officer for the last 10. They are coming from working in Syria, which was a much older place, with more attacks, and a much smaller embassy. The US Embassy in Jordan is large in part because Jordan receives a lot of US aid; for it's 'support' on Israel and it's support on Iraq. Currently, the US embassy in Jordan it also acts as the US Embassy for Iraq and is the staging point for everything US that goes to Iraq.

I'm here visiting/meeting the fam and doing some tourist things for a few days before I head back to the states. Thankfully Al Futtaim arranged my travel so that I am flying straight back to the states from Amman.

I'm staying with the fam in a rulllly nice embassy apt. From there I went to the Citadel and the Roman theatre this morning.

Amman is veryyy different from Dubai. It's older. The aiport is kind of a dump and a lot of the buildings here are falling apart. But it's more of a city. The population here is more homogenous, all arabic (lots of palestinians), and not so many english speakers (which makes cab rides a lot more interesting. and impossible). I learned approx. 0 arabic while in dubai, and what i did learn is more appropriate for teasing 14 yr olds and not fit for everyday conversation.
sooo i am learning the basic basics on a need to know basis and borrowing cell phones to call my cousin for help. it's as simple as that, ya turkey.



Amman is a city of jebels (hills) that are all covered in small houses and shops and roads. None of it strikes me as very modern, but Maria assures me that it's newer than Damascus. The citadel is on top of Jebel al-Qal'a. Here I am in front of Hercules' Temple. My visit to the site happened at high noon in August, so believe it or not there weren't many fellow tourists there to snap my pic. So I did my best with the timer ...
I think this is a pretty good one. I'm siting in front of an Umayyad palace here. My brain is supersaturated, there's not much space for new information to enter. I'm not entirely sure of what I saw today. BUT the Umayyads were a group of people that lived here a long time ago. The site included the palace, a mosque (just the ruins), a bathhouse, a HUGE well, plus the remains of a Byzantine church.

Then I went to an old Roman theatre. I guess an American was shot there recently and we aren't supposed to go, but whooops. The stadium seating at the theatre goes up pretty high and is very steep. The stairs are very small and made of a soft stone that is falling apart. Basically, with my fear of heights and my sandals I was quickly terrified as I ascended the monument. I didn't fall, or get shot, and I am safe and sound writing you this wonderful note.

After that I went for a late lunch with Maria and the older 2 girls at the Wild Jordan. The cab drivers did not have any idea how to get to the place thought and it was mos def an ordeal. But I made it and it was an interesting little tourist info place. Built with US $$$ and obviously catering to westerners. After lunch I dipped out and took a walk along Rainbow Road. A semi-happening road that featured lots of furniture galleries, book stores, cafes, falafel places, and gun shops. I wandered far enough along the road to find King Hussein's club and then the Iraqi Embassy (not the US embassy for Iraq that is in Amman right now, but Iraq's Embassy). At that point I figured it was time to turn around so I did and came back home (again with taxi difficulty).

Tonight my cousin's husband's daughter from his first marriage is coming into Amman. She is 22 too, which means I'll have a partner in crime for most of the rest of the week.

Tomorrow: Jerash & Aljun
Thursday: Petra
Friday: Petra &/or Dead Sea
Saturday: US of A
  • news
Ian Doyle Olson came to Dubai. To visit me. Isn't he a sweetheart? We were talking on the phone and I said, "You should come." and he said, "Ok." Within 2 days (or 3 depending on how you count, teeny) he was there and then we spent not quite a week haaaaangin out. We slept a lot. Ate a lot of realllly healthy food (you'll probably see some very charming pics of me/us on his fbook soon). Watched some Olympics, at really weird hours of the day. I introduced him to the Malls of Dubai, the room service of Sofitel, Dune Bashing, plus riding on camels/driving go karts in the desert, belly dancing, etc. We also went to the Dubai museum which was pretty nice and kind of saw the Burj Al Arab (7 star hotel), they don't let you come onto the grounds unless you pay a looot of money. We also drove out onto the Palm Jumeira, but it was hard to see anything because it was after sunset during a sandstorm. The most important part of the trip was our SUIRP movie. It doesn't really counter but instead compliments the famous SPHYNX.
Suirp chronicles a toy prius as is breaks into the evil SOFITEL hq and narrowly escapes a thuggish guard and near death. Ian gets most of the credit for this masterpiece. I was only the cameraman. Sometimes.





  • end
I spent the whole summer in a desert and today is the first time I got a sunburn. We were never outside long enough in Dubai to get burnt and in my effort to abandon all unnecessary items I left the sunscreen before coming to sunny Jordan. Back home on Saturday and reallllly looking forward to it. I am exhausted.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

no work and all play

  • current
Finally done with work! We had our presentation on wednesday and it went very well. Brett did a good job of prepping us and we actually rehearsed a fair amount.

with a bit of work, i finally sorted out a trip to jordan. because of no visa, i probably won't be able to make it to pakistan. i leave for jordan on the 11th and then come back to madison on the 16th. i already have a lonely plant for jordan, so amman and petra are already on the list. i think my cousin may recommend one or two more places, but i have less than a week there.

by contrast, i have more than a week here in dubai and not that much to do. i will go to the gym, read books, watch movies, and hopefully visit some more with other mac kids. Soham is back in dubai now, Haider and I had dinner with him before Haider left (yup, he's back in pakistan so i am flying solo here).
  • news
pictures for you from france.


there was a rollerblading party
we found cool drawings at the pompidou

we went out for sushi (the mango and crab was the best)

fam on the arc de triomphe, with eiffel tower in the background
a little whirl on the ferris wheel

and then we had some burgers.

France was the perfect vacation. It came just when I needed it and it was good to be with the sibs. And I know that I've told all of you this by now, but the weather was perfect.

I think I am gonna find some museums to go to this week and head over to Jumeirah (the palm and the madinat) and who knows what else? early morning at the beach? desert bbq? mountains of fujairah? i'm sure i'll find something.

i think i found an apartment for madison, if the poster responds to my email. now it's time to start thinking about plans for the spring/fall 09. another country? job/fellowship? hmmmm
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no end in sight