dead sea fun!

woke up on thursday morning with barely any sleep and my sister dragged me to the center with her. there are many nice people that work there, but I realized how useless my 10 credits of Arabic are. They only speak colloquial here and foosha (standard) is what the news writes in. so MANY of the words I say are not commonly used here. I'm extremely grateful that many people speak English very well.
the dress of the women varies. I think I'm going to wear jeans, modest shirts and running shoes every day.
after work, which included many awkward introductions, we took the bus to amman (which wasn't bad at all). then we took a bus from amman to madaba which included shoving our way to the front (my sister said watch out for getting grabbed) and jumping on (and off) the bus while it was still moving. many people stared at us on the bus bc i guess 2 whitey girls isn't really common. excuse me sir, do you have a staring problem? unfortunately i couldn't say that because it is not appropriate to talk to men. at the university it's ok, but it is still hard to get used to not saying bless you in arabic when a man sneezes in madaba. we stayed with a really nice peace corps couple in their apt.
the next day we woke up early and went to mt. nebo (where moses looked over the mountain and showed everyone the promised land (Israel) and then died. it was really pleasant and had beautiful views. there were these giant lizards that were running around (like bearded dragons?) and they kind of freaked me out.
we then went to jesus' baptism site, which is VERY close to the Israeli border (armed guard to make sure you don't swim across). we touched the water of the Jordan river, yay now we're blessed! (just as well since I'm not going to church this week)
Then we headed over as guests of some other peace corps to the dead sea Marriott, which was quite luxurious. 5 pools plus private beach to the dead sea (where we floated for a bit and then got mud masks!!!) that is the life I would like to have everyday, and the pc volunteers tried to convince me they did that every week. I don't think I've been far enough from the US to fully appreciate that tho, but it was still a lot of fun. but the salt burns your eyes!!!

Saturday we went to the church of st. george's where there's this crazy miracle hand painting of the virgin mary. look at this third blue hand at the bottom of the picture which apparently mysteriously appeared there one day. there's also a really big map of the holy land. then we went home and chilled.

today (Sunday) katie has work so I am here again. and people keep talking to me. but they are all very nice, so it's ok. we were invited to a wedding in one guy's village tomorrow and we are going to dinner at katie's tutor's house tonight.