it aint over til the drunk irishman sings

Got my Irish arse kicked this week.

So I spent a couple days at Connemara (a beautiful countryside region of Western Ireland) and met lots of people at the hostel... basically because you were kind of trapped inside. The first day a bunch of us went hiking around a mountain and the fjord to the side of it... yes Ireland has a fjord... just one. I think it was around 12-15km.

The next day a friend and I cycled like mad. Bc it's the only way to get anywhere if you don't have a car. I mean the hostel is literally in the middle of nowhere! I think we cycled around 40km (and that's not flat land), plus stopped off at the Connemara National Park to hike a bit (5km). I also fell flat on my butt at the Kylemore Abbey after slipping on a hill of moss. Ouch.

Met lots of international people: Switzerland, Czech Republic, French Canadian, Italian, Australian (Australian kayak instructor=well done Australia...). I was complaining on Wednesday night during the World Cup game bc there were so many French people but I had never met any of them. They seem to stick to themselves and I wanted to meet one so I could disprove the "stereotype." Well that all changed Thursday night when 2 French guys invited me and my friend to play pool with them. Turns out they didn't just run out of people to play with. They were nice enough, but now I think French people are a little creepy....

The only way to get from Connemara to Galway on Friday was a shuttle bus that ran at 8:30pm. This meant that I was stuck at the hostel but had to put all my bags in storage for the day... stuck w/the French guy and 81 middle schoolers who were coming in that afternoon! Luckily (hi mom) I was offered a ride by Bostonian brother and sister. So I hitched again, I guess.

I had a great time with Joey this weekend! On Saturday we climbed Croagh Patrick which was absolutely ridiculous. We were making fun of it initially because lots of old people make the climb as a pilgrimage. I had no idea of the resolve of Irish old people, though.
It was the rainiest day of the week and it was disgusting. We got to a point where the wind nearly knocked us off the mountain (like a hurricane w/those newscasters). It was probably one of the hardest things I've done. When we got to the top, we were SOAKED like we went swimming in our clothes, and it was freezing plus there was wind. I was afraid I'd have to lose a couple of my fingers to frostbite!
This is summer in Ireland, ladies and gentlemen.
Much of the climb were just huge stones set up at 60 degree climbing angle. And if it wasn't stoney, it was muddy. We couldn't see anything but 5 yards in front and behind us. Crazy... we picked a mighty fine day... but we made it. Now I have to go back two more times for my penance according to my relatives. Maybe a sunny day would be a good idea? We did do the entire climb in 3 hours which is pretty good. I fell once (going down, you're pushed by gravity) and now my hand is purple and puffy, but I didn't feel a thing at the time. I'm sure it should have hurt...

After the climb we made our soaked shivery journey back to Galway (yes the challenge was not over yet). Yes, Croagh Patrick you kicked my arse too.

We also watched the rather anticlimatic World Cup Final... go Italy... their team is hotter anyway... and not French.

Blarney Castle... probably the most touristy place I've been so far, but I went RIGHT when it opened, so I was able to appreciate the beauty of the whole land. I'm SO glad I went. Cottontail rabbits there are like our squirrels in FL. They're everywhere. The whole area (minus the castle and gross Blarney Stone) were soooo beautiful. I have lots of pictures and videos that I'll post later. Probably one of my top 5 places of all time. Tall trees, meadows, rock clusters, horses... Too bad tourists polluted the beauty soon after opening...

I've been having my lunches at this park in Cork where these crazy people hang out. It's really fun to people watch. Yesterday a drunk man was slouched on a bench with an inconspicuous bottle in his hand, singing REALLY loudly... Today was goth day I guess. But there were still a few old guys passed out in the grass (at 6:00pm!).

Last night in Ireland, tomorrow I fly back to London!

Ireland!

Everyone in Ireland is so nice!

Got here on Monday and stayed with family in Dublin. Dublin is nice, enough attractions to keep you occupied but I really wasn't feeling too much Irish culture.

Until I got to County Sligo. I stayed with a relative and she lives on the land that my Great Grandfather was born on. Needless to say, I woke up one morning, looked out the window and there was a cow staring back at me. Moo... I even got a cow kiss on my hand! They have really wet noses and icky tongues. Went to "town" where EVERYBODY knows EVERYBODY! It's insane! Not only that, everybody knew that I was coming! People were great and I met so many people that SOMEHOW I'm related to. Ah, town life. Still, I really enjoyed living like a real Irish girl for a few days, and saw so many beautiful sights of the countryside.

People here are obsessed with Gaelic football and hurling. If you're curious, google it, but these are two very unusual sports. Wish Co. Sligo good luck in the football match this weekend!

One interesting thing about the Irish: (hi dad!) the men always drive. I mean a lot of the women are self sufficient and drive their own cars, but when a man's in the car, he drives. I guess they're a little old fashioned in that sense.
The women always cook, of course. Here's how I really don't fit in tho: they LOVE their potatoes and tea, both of which I'm not a really big fan of (tho they're both growing on me). Every time people ask if I want tea and I decline they look at me like I'm crazy!

County Mayo was great too, I stayed with a friend of the family in Castlebar. She took me around the county and to this big pilgrimage site called Knock. Apparently some locals saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary with St. Joseph and St. John the Evangelist there in 1879 (i'm hitting them all up, katie). But the whole area is surrounded by TACKY giftshops. So kitsch, but I guess they have to make money so far. Miracles are really good for the economy. Went to Mass there (I've really been making up for my lack of Jesus in Jordan) and they had Annointing of the Sick where all of the old people who thought they might die soon came up to get a special blessing. LOL, for insurance purposes I guess.

On my way to the Connemara region which is supposed to be beautiful, then on Friday I'm meeting up with the world famous Joseph P. Wilson (shout out!) and we're going to climb the famed Croagh Patrick!

Yay for Ireland.

uk recap

In Dublin now chillin w/some pretty cool relatives.

A few notes about England/Scotland:
People in Scotland say aye for yes... like a pirate!
People here love "jacket potatoes". there is even a potato restaurant at the food court in the mall. On your french fries (chips) you can put ketchup, mayo or "brown sauce" (hp) and I have sampled all and can appreciate the qualities of each one.
Lemonade here pretty much means Sprite.
Big Brother England is the biggest thing on reality tv and the cast is full of weirdos (one guy even has Turrette's... not sure how to spell that).

My first night in London we went to a pub where we watched the World Cup game between England and Sweden. There were many rowdy boys wearing the English flag around them, faces painted, etc singing lots of songs (i'm english til i die... ). It was a tie game, but an interesting way to start off my trip here. Hmmm, those Brits and their "football".

After 6 weeks in the Middle East, I finally got sick after 3 days in England. Several vomit false alarms, so luckily I never puked but I was constantly running to the bathroom to stand over the toilet. I blame on a product called Jelly Babies? They're like gummy bears, but who the heck came up w/the name Jelly Babies?

In Edinburgh we saw the castle and statue of Greyfriars Bobby (the little dog). We also went on a ghost tour where they said that Greyfriars Bobby was not really mourning over his master at the cemetary, he was actually eating the bodies that floated up from the rain... yeah thanx lady for ruining all of my childhood memories...

Ran into a Gator in Edinburgh... yeah literally ran into him. I was wearing Gator jacket, he was wearing Gator hat. We stared at each other and said Go Gators! and moved on.

The people at the hostel in Edinburgh were really nice. It's interesting to hear everyone's story. We stayed 2 nights and most people came and went, although a couple of people actually LIVE at the hostel.

Went to church finally! Yay, altho they felt it was ok to skip the 2nd reading. And I didn't know any of the hymns... but still it was nice to go... though I was definitely the youngest person there.

On Sunday, I spent a penny at the bus station... actually 20 pence, but can you believe the economic benefits of charging to use the toilets? I guess I had to do it once, but it costs just as much to make a phone call. Now I have to strategize my uses of public toilets so I can use only the free ones.

The hostel I stayed at Sunday night ended up getting really creepy at night. The shower especially reminded me of something from Friday the 13th... So I locked myself in my room and wrote in my journal all night.

Looking forward to Ireland!

y-UK

So I've been in the UK for awhile now... right now i'm in a hostel/dorm in REALLY country Scotland but it's cool... very relaxing way to spend my Sunday and apparently this is the only computer with Internet in the area (the people who work here are really cool).
London is ok. But New York is better. The Met is better than the British Museum, our Museum of Natural History is better than their Museum of Natural History.
The people are probably not as friendly as New Yorkers (yes New Yorkers ARE friendly... check yoself). But the Scottish people are REALLY nice. They're so helpful and happy.
Edinburgh is a really cool city, I really like the feel of it and it's all so old.
I had some stories but I kind of forgot them bc I was caught off guard to use the Internet (I just got through running and now I'm typing and sweating...).
So maybe they'll let me use it tomorrow and I'll have some actual entertainment for you. In England and Scotland safe and sound tho, altho I miss Jordan ;-)
On my way to Ireland tomorrow but hopefully i'll post again tomorrow morning.

Petra/Aqaba/the final days in Jordan...

Went to Aqaba and Petra this past week. Now I am sitting in a lonely office because school is on break, so I guess it's about time for me to leave (arriving in London tomorrow 20/6).

Aqaba is the only coastal city in Jordan so it's pretty much a beach resort town... but the city is pretty gross... it's kind of like any other city in Jordan only with the tourist aspect counted in. We went to the Royal Diving Club to use their beach and snorkel a little bit. When we arrived, though it was really windy so we sat on the beach and fell asleep... needless to say I'm a little toasty right now, but I put on lots of sunscreen... just never fall asleep under the Jordan sun. My sister and I snorkeled around and she swam very fall out to look at the reefs. I lifted my head up to find her, only to hear her asking for help.... turns out she ran out of energy and didn't have enough to swim against the waves and back to shore. Tried to pull her with me, but then ended up turning into a cheerleader ("only a little further") and before we know it there's an Arab in the water with a diving mask on pulling her to the bridge. And hotel guests staring. And hotel staff staring.
A little drama for the day...

Later on, we bought some mixed nuts for my sister's friend we were to visit the next day and the man at the counter was trying to make conversation with us... "ahh, Americans, where are you staying" and although we were staying across the street and could see him from our window, we lied... then he says "can I spend night with you?" without ANY shame. Just blatantly asks... and doesn't even apologize when we refuse!
ugh... I'm not sure what kind of tourists come to Aqaba, but they must be giving the rest of the Westerners a bad name! perverted peanut salesman...

Petra is really pretty... I wish I could post some pix but it's not looking good right now. It's an ancient city previously featured in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (the place where the Holy Grail was). Yes that's right I walked the same paths that Harrison Ford walked before me...
The site's a bit touristy and filled with Bedouin vendors, kids begging for you to ride their camels, donkeys, horses, etc, and Westerners making me ashamed by wearing traditional Bedouin headdresses.

We walked A LOT. The path to the Monastery had 800 stairs (which makes the Devil's Millhopper Sinkhole in Gville look like a walk in the park). I'm glad we were hardcore enough to do everything w/o donkeys because it was quite a challenge. Lots of climbing, stepping, sliding through sand. Some kid told us that a spring was located 15 minutes away so we walked only to be walking through stones from a river bed for 15 minutes and a dried (nonexistent) spring.

For the past few days we've been chilling... listening to American music station (yeaahhhhhhhhh Bryan Adams) and playing card games and stuff. Everything's really dead here although I think tonight we're going to a graduation ceremony. Then tomorrow I'm off to England so hopefully everything will go smoothly.

HOLY LAND!!!

TRIVIA TIME:
it's been about a month since Megan's been travelling... in that month she has done all but one of the following:

A. hitch hiked with German tourists
B. used a squatter toilet
C. changed out of bathing suit on a public beach in UAE as the Muslim call to prayer went off in the background
D. toured with a group of Jews for Jesus




It's not as bad as it sounds...
Well, believe it or not, the answer is B... i have been fortunate enough to avoid the Squatter (Alhamdullah for excellent control of my facilities :-) )

Our trip to Israel was quite the adventure: took a bus that was supposed to take us to Nazareth, but left us at the border (bc Katie's passport took a long time to process bc she had been to Syria and Lebanon and they don't like that).
Stranded at the border we had no choice but to find two nice friendly German men who took us in their beat-up BMW to Nazareth. I saw them as we were coming in, and commented about their car... little did I realize we would soon be traveling in the back of it. Once we got to Nazareth none of the ATMs were working so a guy at the hostel spotted us some shekels. Nazareth was nice but a little boring... it's mostly Christian Arabs who live there, so lots of Arab food (hmm, getting tired of it).

Next day we went to Haifa, did a lot of walking saw the Bahai Gardens, but there's really not too much to do in Haifa. Met some Jewish girls from NYC who assumed we were Jewish too... lol.

Which reminds me, languages that people assume we speak: Hebrew, Arabic, German, Spanish, French, Russian... possibly some others bc in Jerusalem people would come up to us and i had NO IDEA what they were saying.

Anyway, I loved Jerusalem, it was great. SOOO many different cultures. Hasidic Jewish men, mixed with scarved Muslim women, and old people tourists with belt bags.
The city has SOOO much history too! Everywhere you go it's someone's birthplace, deathplace, something!

A few highlights:
Jesus!!!! Yay for Jesus-ness bc i was really missing out on it in Jordan. Place of Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, Mary's tomb (where some little Arab kid excitedly hugged us), Garden of Gethsemane, place of Last Supper, and MORE!
Wailing Wall (for Jewish religion), Dome of the Rock (where Abraham almost sacrificed his son... Muslim place), King David's Tomb, OSKAR SCHINDLER'S GRAVE! yes, ladies and gentleman, my sister and i even put rocks on it like they do at the end of the movie.

We also got harassed by a few people in the Arab markets... one guy would not LET up on bartering w/my sister. We also got followed by this guy who saw us earlier and remembered us and my sister and I were walking fast to escape him and we said "once we get to the Jewish quarter he'll stop" and alas he did... that was his boundary! Some interesting quotes: "You want coffee, tea? You want husband?" "Why do you call her young lady, she is still a teen angel." "I know you all!" (uh, stalker?) and the obligatory "hellohellohellohello! iloveyouiloveyou!" i don't know WHERE they get these things...

I'm used to those kind of things in Jordan but even the Israeli army guys got into it in Jerusalem! Altho a lot of them have REALLY boring jobs!
Stayed in an Arab hostel in the Old City w/great location, but the guy tried to give us a REALLY bad exchange rate when we tried to pay our bill, so we decided to pay in US dollars, like we originally had on the bill for our reservation... so in vindictive fashion, we gave him $102 US in 1's, 5's and 10's... hahahahaha have fun using all those 1's in Israel! And think before the next time you want to cheat whitey!

The Israelis are a lot less formal than Americans. Some postal employees dress like prostitutes. Vast contrast to what you see in Jordan. Many military people running around bc it's required for Israeli youth. Though I'll be the first to admit, the Israeli army uniform compliments just about anyone. :-) The gun helps too.
On the way back, we couldn't find the right bus in Tel Aviv and no one could help us (the bus station is 7 stories tall) so we ended up taking a really round about way home. Took us from 9:30 in Jerusalem until 6:30 to get back to the dorms, but at least we're back in Jordan now.

Overall, I really enjoyed Israel! The way in and the way out were trying, but it was worth it for all of the stuff in the middle. We met lots of nice people: tour groups of Jews for Jesus (actually Messianic Jews as they will tell you), Presbyterians, Baptists, a cute little French nun who wouldn't stop talking... it's amazing the conversations you can have with people while you're traveling... i even made friends w/a cat who wouldn't stop following me around!

Ooops, forgot we also went to Bethlehem which is in the West Bank of Palestine, so it was interesting to see the flipside of life... they are very poor in the west bank. still pics of yasser arafat all over the place. i'm not sure how i feel about the israel/palenstine conflict but my perspective has been permanently changed from my experiences both over there AND here in Jordan bc i have met many Palestinians and Syrians who have been effected by the conflict... one Palestinian guy even gave us a quick Hebrew lesson before we left Jordan altho it didn't really help. Won't write my opinions here bc that could get me in trouble!
Even tho many people speak English in Israel, next time I go back I would like to be a little more prepared in the language arena.

Just got back from dinner at a girl's house who is 1/2 Jordanian and 1/2 Mexican. Yummmm, Mexican food.... :-)

Now we're spending the night at my sister's tutor's house. Then we're off to Aqaba and Petra tomorrow!

Heard that the Mavs are in the Finals... hahahaha and people said it couldn't be done... go MAVS! and if the mavs aren't going to be champions, I couldn't be happier for DWade!!!

Also, heard that Zarqawi is dead? People are keeping pretty hushhush about it in Jordan, since he's from here (city of Zarqa)...

week in the village...

so this week my sister had a pc conference in amman so instead of leaving me with friends or taking me to Amman, she dropped me off in a rural village with another pcvolunteer (and we were the only ones who spoke english in the whole village...)

Most people were really really friendly in the village, and they like to try their few English words they know. But the "shebab" (boys) were not too hospitable... they followed us one day for about 10 minutes. Another day they threw rocks at us... yeah that was fun. The other volunteer works at a special education center, where all the children were really sweet. They varied from 6-14 and they had ALL sorts of disabiities (mostly cognitive, a few physical). I really enjoyed working with the children and formed bonds with many of them, but I was surprised that the teachers sit around and drink tea, while 20-something children run around unsupervised. Granted, it's great that the kids have a sense of family, but every child needs attention, and I noticed that their parents are apt to spend more attention to their "normal" children, so I was a little disturbed by the behavior of the teachers.

Met one villager who didn't know any English until he met a PC volunteer in another village, and now I can have decent conversations with him. But the real thing that impressed me is that he is the ONLY Jordanian I have met with enough initiative to plan unselfish projects. He is currently working on making a soccer field for his school, and he's trying to get the volunteer I was staying with, to work with another woman to get a different project done. It doesn't really make sense written down, but the fact is: there's Peace Corps money just sitting in Amman waiting to be used for special projects and this guy is coming up with awesome ways to use it for the community. It's people like that who should be the political leaders of Jordan, not just a gym teacher.

Made some friends at the University, I guess, because I went to a Graham Oasis type place yesterday and ran into two people I knew, one of whom we just finished having lunch with. I told Katie, how can you be bored with so many friendly people all of the time, but she said that they wait for her to plan their social lives. The fact that I am visiting is kind of a break from their social monotony, and they feel like it's their opportunity to show me the "real Jordan."

Also, last Sunday, one of my sister's Palestinian friends invited us over for dinner (which was incredibly delicious) and we watched satillite (!) tv with her. This girl is so good at English but mostly because she watches so much American tv. We had to break the fact that many American actors are Jewish, which she was a little disappointed about, but she says that will not change what she watches. We also sang the Adam Sandler Hannukah song, lol.

The Arab interpretation of American TV and music is very interesting. They have shows like Buffy, Charmed, etc, but they also LOVE Dr. Phil and Oprah! Music-wise they do play a lot of top forty hits, but they are SOOO obsessed with olderbands like Whitesnake and Bryan Adams (i gotta say i do love myself a little bit of "summer of '69"). They also still haven't gotten over the boy band craze, as they love Backstreet Boys and O-Town (HUH?).

Going on a special trip this week, will write more when I get back.