Desert Castles

Hello all. Again, sorry for the change in updates. I know I'm getting at least one out every other day, which at this point makes sense because 1) my life is nothing but school and eating and 2) not much is therefore happening beyond my daily routine. HOWEVER, this last weekend was our first CIEE outing, and on Saturday I went to explore some castles in the Eastern desert of Jordan. I will post some of the best pictures from this particular outing, since not all of you are facebook friends with me and I figure you might want to see some of what you're going to read about.

We went to Hallabat, Azraq, Khrammeh, Amra, and the Azraq wetlands. I didn't take any pictures of the wetlands because, quite honestly, it was too depressing. Calling them wetlands is like calling a street puddle a lake. There used to be tons of water in the wetlands, but constant irrigation toward Amman and the rest of the Jordan dried them up horribly fast. Now it's mostly bogs, with stagnant pools of water here and there and lots of tall, dead grass. The creepiest part are these trees that look like seaweed, rising up out of the dust - and charred black. Somehow they must've caught fire, because they are essentially freestanding stalks of charcoal.

Other than the wetlands, the trip was incredible. Hallabat and Azraq were the two compounds/forts that we saw, and Amra and Khrammeh were more actual castles/mansions. The first two were great because they were huge and open, with tons of spaces to explore. The best part was of course, the free range we had exploring them. I know, I know, it's horrible to let tourists climb all over your ruins that predate 700 AD, but I mean, climbing on top of a millenia old wall to look out and see nothing but desert for miles and miles? That's an experience.

Okay. The internet isn't cooperating and my pictures aren't loading, so I'll compromise: go to www.facebook.com/biz.bailey to see my Eastern desert album. If I captured any of the awesomeness that I saw on Saturday, it'll totally be worth your while to take a look. I'm definitely looking forward to more adventures like this one in the future - like this weekend, when I'll probably be heading out to Aqaba with some friends, inshallah.

I'm hoping that you all enjoy reading this, because at the moment this blog is nothing more than recounting my day. I wish I could provide more insightful comments and remarks on Jordan and the Middle East, but I can't summon the strength to think so hard when I'm already so absorbed in my Arabic homework. 12 hours of Arabic class a week is a lot, and the homework is significantly larger than I am used to, but I'm holding it together. I'm not so worried about grades; I mean come on, I'm in Jordan! So here's to hoping for more regular, if not more insightful, updates from Amman :)

Beth