Paradise

We're in Aqaba! On the southern tip of Jordan there is a little port with lots of beaches and resorts... and we are staying in the nicest resort they have here :) It's glorious. Beautiful. Immensely relaxing. I feel better, despite realizing I have 3 weeks left, not 2 weeks. Yes... it's only been three weeks. ACK. I really hope the survey goes well. I'm not sure what exactly it will be like... especially since there are 4 teams: 2 are your average archaeological survey, 1 is architectural, and 1 is ethnographic. So... who knows?

But Irbid hopefully will be pretty sweet, because I'm over Amman and the Abraham Path sucked pretty hard. Amman was okay, it had some really rad moments, but I think I've seen enough of it. The Abraham Path walking tour thing... ugh. All last week (Monday to Thursday) we were in Ajlun. On Monday we left the hotel in Amman at like 7 am, drove to a hotel, and started hiking. But it wasn't normal hiking, where you see animals and nature and there are trees and sometimes a cool breeze... no, it was more like the Ajlun Death March. I felt as if we were being led to the roughest patches of ground just to scramble over them. Also, there were about 50 of us so several people rushed ahead while others were way at the back. No bueno. The second and third days were awesome, however. We went to Our Lady of the Mount school/orphanage/church and painted murals on the walls for the schoolkids, some of whom live in the orphanage there. We got to hang out and play with the kids, which was awesome. It was so very hard to leave on Wednesday! Then Thursday was another hiking day (Most people hiked on Tues and Weds as well, the painting was an alternate activity) but I wasn't interested in killing myself so I went with a few other people to the Pella guesthouse where everyone else was hiking to and waited there. It was boring... and silly. But I don't feel like I missed out by not "hiking" even though that day was more like traditional hiking.

But let's focus on the positive. Survey starts Monday, and until Sunday morning at 7 am I am in a gorgeous resort with a really beautiful beach (from which we can see Egypt and Israel), I can go swimming in a pool or the Red Sea, and I'm going to go snorkeling today! :)

From the sand,
Rachel <3>