Dancing!

Everyone here loves dancing. On Thursday they had a celebration in honor of Jordanian Independence Day (which is actually next week but hey) and everyone donned themselves with Jordanian pride, red and white kaffiyyehs, posters of the king, and of course danced. The dancing, though, was one of my favorite things I have seen so far. No practice, just dancing because you feel happy. Only the men do it, though, but it's still so much fun to watch. If these guys went to Turlington at UF, they would beat the Step Team off in an instant. Step Team rehearses... these guys don't need rehearsal, they have it born in them. And supposedly the smaller village you are from, the better you can dipka. And people from Amman (the capital) apparently can't dipka at all. I wish I could watch that everyday; it makes me very happy. That's something I would like to bring back to UF.

Speaking of dancing, we went downtown to Amman on Thursday night, and went to a bar type place with a man performing songs. The guy at had his shirt unbuttoned and showed off his "appealing" hairy chest... how long will it take for him to realize.... not even Jordanian girls like that! But his music was good and the venue was relaxing. Then we started to go to some of the most popular Jordanian clubs, but they were very expensive, so we decided not to. Every place we went, all I had to do was flash my American passport and the would usher me in. Even if they had age restrictions, they didn't care. But Katie recommended this place with no cover... which was a little bit shady. In fact, it was pretty gross. The Jordanians we were with were pretty disgusted by it, and I definitely did not enjoy it. Packed with ruddy tourists--I would have appreciated something that Jordanians frequent, but eh, malish...

On Saturday Katie and I went to the ancient Roman ruins at Jerash... Very interesting but they're so huge, I tired quickly. We saw a Scottish bagpiper... well no, he was a Jordanian bagpiper, but dressed in Scottish clothing? I'm not sure WHY he was there, but kids started dancing and I broke out the video camera. I love the dancing!
We also got up close and personal with some Jordanian wildlife: giant millipedes (watch where you sit!), more of those giant lizards who looked like they were from Jurassic Park, and then we made friends with a snake. The snake quickly went back into the bushes, then slowly poked its head back out... and STARED AT US! Stop staring! We've had enough Jordanians stare, now there's a Jordanian snake staring at us! "Are they British, are they German tourists?" it wondered. "Can they get me an American visa?" Why did it stare? A bit disturbing.

Tomorrow we leave for Dubai! Yay, one of the most expensive cities in the world! At least with their modgepodge population, I won't get stared at... I hope.