July 6, 2007

Favorite quote of the day:
- Tianna: "I'm pretty sure every stereotypical driver has Middle Eastern decent. ... Wait... they do."
- Travis: "Ironic how we find out our lineage about the same time we learn to drive."

Woke up this morning on the floor of Fares' house. Yup. It was real. We had really spent the night at the house of our taxi driver. Hehe. There was a rooster crowing. Ha! I love it. There was also a donkey braying. Here I was, on the floor of a house of a taxi driver in the middle of nowhere Jordan, waking up to a rooster and a donkey. How much better can it get?

Sleep was in and out this morning. The alarm went off a few times. Fares got up and got moving. I was so tired... I didn't want to move. So I kept sleeping. I finally got up and got ready for the day. When I exited the bathroom, Travis and Fares were feasting on breakfast. Once again, Travis had to deny him his offer of tea, which somehow still shocked Fares. Breakfast consisted of a bunch of hard bread/pastry thingies. Really... not filling. I ate one. Very slowly. I think they have tea for breakfast to give you something to dip said pastry in and soften it up a bit. Not having any tea... well... it took me awhile to get it down.

After breakfast, I started folding the blankets from our bed. Fares immediately tried to stop me, saying his wife could do it, but I was raised well and kept going. I was grateful I did. Those blankets were sooo heavy! I could barely hold them. Did I mention that Fares' wife was very pregnant? I could not in good conscience let her do that. Fares kept trying to stop me, but Travis jumped to my aid. "Our mom would be very disappointed if she knew that we stayed at your house and didn't help clean up after ourselves." Fares backed down after that.

We all (well, Travis, Fares and I) got in the taxi and took off to meet his brother who would be driving us the rest of the way. As I moved stuff from one taxi to the other, I heard Travis ask Fares, "How much do we owe you?" and heard Fares respond, "For what?" For a split second, I really thought Fares was going to let us off scot free. Basically, in the middle east just come to grips that nothing is free. Once offered though I figured I should follow through and told him I would like to offer him something for his hospitality. He asked how much I thought it was worth, aka we were haggling price. I told him I had no idea so I offered ten dinars while playing the ignorant naïve tourist role, which I figured would be a good way of finding out what he had in mind the whole time. I was right, he upped the ante to 25 dinar. I paid thinking the experience was well worth the price.

Fares' brother, who I really don't remember his name, took us to an ATM so Travis could get some cash out to pay him with. We also saw the brother's son and father out playing in front of his house. Then he stopped to get gas and brought us out our second breakfast. Another pastry and a drink. The drink I finished, the pastry I barely nibbled at. It wasn't half bad, but I didn't feel top notch and didn't really want to put more food in my stomach. So I instead fell asleep for the rest of the two-hour drive. By the time we got to Amman, the pastry was rock hard.

When we got to Amman, the driver took us over to our hostel. Apparently Amman suffers from Utah's problem and we got blocked by construction. Next thing we knew, after taking a few directions, we were driving backwards down a one-way street, fairly quickly, for a long ways. Trav and I just kept looking at each other and laughing. We finally got to the hotel and asked our driver if he would be interested in being our driver for the rest of our day in Amman as well. Agreeing, he dropped us off and left to take his sister to the University. (Oh, she was just starting, so she came with us on our trek.) We took our stuff upstairs and hit our next roadblock. By canceling our reservation the night before, they assumed we were not coming and didn't have a place for us to stay. It was reservation only. Who's ever heard of a reservation only hostel?! We related our phone conversation from the night before, and finally, were admitted to a room.

This room is by far the worst. One towel for the both of us—for showering and drying hands. The toilet ... I didn't think I'd ever complain about having a toilet after the squatter at Fares' house... had no seat. No lid, no seat. The shower had a raised platform, but no curtain. And the water sprayed everywhere, so it got all over the floor, which had no drain. Try going to the bathroom on a toilet with no seat when there is 2 inches of water on the floor from the shower. Pleasant, really. shudder

We met up with our taxi driver again and he took us to this quaint little sandwich shop for lunch. We started to order a pizza when this guy who worked there stopped us. "That's all you foreigners order because you're too scared to try native food! You cannot get a pizza." He then proceeded to point out other things on the menu that we should order. Typically, this is something to be skeptical of—they just want more money. But this guy was actually pointing out things that were less expensive! So we got a sandwich and left. It was so good. Like, really good. The guy was right... glad we didn't get the pizza.

First stop, Mt. Nebo. He made a point to tell us we'd be going to Mt. Nebo via Madaba. I was happy with that. I think the Madaba map is beautiful and I knew Travis could get much better pictures. Turns out, we were just going to drive through Madaba to get to Mt. Nebo. Part of me wonders if our driver just didn't know there was anything to see in Madaba and misunderstood.... and that we got charged more to go to Madaba, and didn't actually see the Madaba map... oh well. What can you do now?

We got to Mt. Nebo and found out that our driver had never been there. So he parked the car and met us up there. It was funny. He kept asking what things were and Travis would answer him using Bible stories. The guy was floored at how much Travis knew and kept telling him how smart he was. It made me laugh. Who knew that Travis could be marked as brilliant because he knew what the brazen serpent was?

Here Travis wanted to take a Moses picture... Moses sitting on Mt. Nebo, looking out over the Promised Land. Problem is, Moses would have been about 120 years old at this point. Travis as a model was not going to work. So, looking around, we saw an old man with white hair in a tour group. Approaching him, and find out he and his wife spoke very little english, and we spoke next to no italian, we finally got across that we wanted the man to pose as Moses for a picture. The man gladly accepted and his wife was alive with laughter. Her husband? Moses!? We told her it'd be a story for her grandkids. Problem with pulling people from tour groups to model is that they're always in such a hurry. Travis doesn't work on time crunches for these pictures. That's why we've declined typical tour guides thus far. But we always have to work around our model's tour guide's time schedule. So, limited time, difficult conversation, and working with old man's aging body later, we go the picture... and ended up using Travis as a model for a second, just-in-case, picture anyway.

Back in the car, on the way to the Jordan River... we got to a small town and our driver asked if we wanted to stop for some coffee. We politely declined. Tea? Here we go again... Nope. "What do you drink?" "Water." "Only water?!" At this point, he has stopped in front of a store and is quite literally pulling out his hair in frustration at our stubbornness. I couldn't help but laugh as we answered. "Pretty much, yeah. Just water." "Fine! But I want coffee!" Then he got out of the car and stalked out to the store to get himself some coffee. Hehe. Trav and I decided this would be a good place to get water anyway. And I needed the restroom. Going to the restaurant next door, I found the restroom. Would you believe it? The toilet had no seat! What is with this country?! Do girls just never use the bathroom in public or something? Honestly...

A short bit of getting lost and actually watching our male driver ask directions later, we were on our way to the Jordan River baptismal site. This time, our driver dropped us off and waited for us outside. We followed the guide, taking pictures and ooh-ing and ahhh-ing at the appropriate times. We were on the tour with a spanish speaking family, so the guide had to repeat everything twice. That worked out quite well for Travis. While the guide was talking to the other family, Travis was using the time to take pictures w/o the pressure of a guide. I was busy finding shade and drinking as much water as I could. It was an incredibly hot day.

We finally made it to the river... the part where people get baptized. You can tell, because there is a giant bowl full of water from the river where you can sprinkle your children. Haha! Here was the fastest project picture of the entire trip. I was very impressed with the speed in which Travis set up, took the picture, and put his stuff away. Way to go, Trav.

As we were entering Amman, our driver asked if we'd ever been on this road before. Travis replied, "I've only been on the roads that I've been on with you." Our driver's response? "Thank you." Haha! That is such a typical Jordanian response. They say thank you to everything... whether it makes sense or not.

Back to the hostel... using the Internet... breaking the Internet/computer (that would be Travis) ... fixing the Internet/computer (that would be me) ... dinner time. The guy at the hostel told us where we could go for dinner, so we headed out, directions in hand. A quick stop at the ATM later, we were on our way. Problem is, we weren't sure where we were on our way to. We stopped and asked one guy, who pointed us in the right direction... but we just kept walking and walking and walking. Finally conceding our being lost, we found a little sandwich shop where we ordered chicken sandwiches. Which turned out to be fried chicken (bones and all) and buns. Peel and make your own sandwiches! Good news, they had real ranch! Mmmmm...

On our way back to the hostel, we stopped to buy more water. Turns out, it was the same place where we'd asked for directions. He remembered us and asked us if we found the place... we had to admit we hadn't. But he was really nice and gave us a good deal on our water. I like nice people in foreign countries.

Back to the hostel. As I'm consulting my notes to write about this day, I became very confused with the key words, "fairy dust" with a smiley face above it. Did we have a conversation about Peter Pan or something? A quick consultation with Travis later, I have my answer. Let me tell you about the boy that often was at the desk helping us. Well, that's part of the problem... we're not positive that he's male. He's probably about 16 years old, really super skinny, spiky blonde hair, capri-type pants, tight white tank top, pre-puberty voice. I just assumed he was a feminine-like boy... Travis wasn't so sure. We'd spent random moments through the day debating back and forth. When we got back that night, he was on the couch in the lobby with another, very obviously, male friend. Our room being right down the hall, we could hear quite clearly what they were listening to. The friend that was obviously male was such by public restroom designation only, me thinks. Two 16 year old boys wearing tight girls jeans and wife beaters sitting in a darkly lit room while listening to Michael Bolton seemed to answer a lot of questions for me. Michael Bolton, honestly.

At this point, something cracked inside of me and I became super-giggly. Everything was funny to me. Or I am just super funny! Trav and I talked for quite awhile that night, me laughing at everything. He probably feared I had really lost it this time... who knows. Perhaps he would have been right. Needless to say, I rather enjoyed the evening, and we had some really great conversation. Even some that made me think. Particularly, if you saw a boggart, what would it turn into? To be honest, I have no idea. Part of me wants to see a boggart, just so I know what I really fear the most.

Other quotes from the evening:
- Trav: "I still think my theory is better than her nose." technically it was ‘knows’
- Trav: "I would accept an apology that has 'blah blah blah' in it."