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April 3, 2005
The More Typical Study Abroad Experience
This past weekend, my friends and I took a trip to Aqaba and the Red Sea. It was much more the typical study abroad experience- laying out on the beach, getting tan/sun burnt, and generally having a good non-educational time.
The complete story, however, is a little bit more adventurous than that. First we almost left Haley behind because she forgot her passport and we needed it to stay in a hotel. On her way to the bus station she got stuck in Amman traffic and borded the bus at the last possible second. The funny thing was that there are no busses that leave on time in Jordan. Except this one, of course.
The trip to Aqaba was uneventful except for the horrible sand storm that we had to drive through. In fact, for about an hour and a half the highway was closed and we had to park on the side of the road and wait out the storm. It looked exactly like a Minnesota snow storm except everything was brownish-orange and much warmer.
When we arrived in Aqaba, we needed to find a hotel so we spent about an hour wandering the streets going from hotel to hotel only to find that most of them were full! We finally broke down and stayed at the Aquamarina III which was only 4JD more than we planned on paying. We figured it was worth it, though, because they had a free breakfast and access to the beach. The breakfast was great but when we made our way to the beach we found about 10 feet of beach covered in about 500 Arab men. There were some women but they were all covered and sitting around the swimming pool watching their children swim. Annie and I quickly decided that this wasn't going to be a comfortable place for us girls so we quickly headed right back out again.
We decided it was worth the 5JD to go to Baracuda Beach down the street and feel like we could actually wear bathing suits. The beach was awesome though and definitely worth the money. We hung out all day until it was time for dinner which we ate at Quizno's. Yes, there is a Quizno's is Jordan although it isn't as good because there is not bacon in this crazy country. (if you haven't noticed, a staple in the Quizno's menue is bacon so there is a big difference when there is none to be found)
On the way to dinner, however, my flip flop decided to break! So basically I hobbled to dinner instead of walked and then had to borrow Annie's shoes so that I could buy some new ones. I did manage to find some 1JD blue-light-special flip flops, however, that are serving me just fine.
The way home was truly uneventful and after a long weekend it was nice to crawl into bed (after I watched Star Academy, of course). I think the moral of this story is that Jordan really is a way of life and there is no escaping it. Even on a routine trip to the beach things are going to tend to be a little rediculous.
Posted by rcollins at April 3, 2005 6:54 AM
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Comments
See, I bet that Jordanians don't think that what you went through is ridiculous ;) they probably think it's totally normal to deal with sand storms and stuff like that. Although the rest sounds like it could happen anywhere (you can't tell me you've never had a flip flop malfunction!) except maybe the whole beach covering scene. Crowded beaches are common enough - if you come to my cottage in Maine in the summertime when it's a nice day, it can be impossible to find a spot, and that's on a three mile long beach! But yeah, I can see how Jordan could feel a little strange at times...
Posted by: Karl at April 4, 2005 9:11 PM