The Dead Sea and Jerash

The Dead Sea was amaazzzinnngg. I had so much fun (and I actually got a slight tan--yay!). It is such a strange sensation, floating in the Dead Sea. It's almost like the water is pushing against your butt whenever you try to sit or swim. It's also really awkward when you flail around. The water tastes disgusting, which is not suprising, but I thankfully didn't get any in my eyes. We (Paula, Brett, Alex, two French girls, and I) took taxis to and from the Amman Public Beach (the Dead Sea resorts are way too expensive), and we basically spent the day there. You can rent towels and eat in the restaurant (buffet style) and swim in the pools they had available. I didn't spend too much time in the actual sea, but I did spend a lot of time in the pools. The weird thing is that the water of the dead sea doesn't look that different from regular sea/ocean water. I think I was expecting to actually be able to see the salt. The sand at the bottom of the water, near the shore was interesting though because it was really hard and a white-ish color from the salt. Unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to see the baptismal site near the dead sea, but we might make another trip to the Dead Sea before we leave.

So, this past Tuesday I went to Jerash for the Jordan Music Festival to hear Elissa, Omar Abdalat, and Georges Wassouf. It was awesome! The concert was in this roman amphitheater and it was packed with people. There were people with lebanese flags (for Elissa), Jordanian flags and signs (for Abdalat), and heart shaped pillows (for Wassouf). I kid you not, the guys had heart shaped pillows and t-shirts for Georges Wassouf (who is also Lebanese). They knew all the songs for him, which is good because I'm not sure Wassouf could remember the words to his songs. He, according to multiple sources, gets drunk before he sings. That's the only way he'll do it. They also played some Abdel Halim Hafez and Fairouz songs, which everyone knew the words to, which should be strange because those are singers/songs from the 60s and 70s. Omar Abdalat is true Jordanian (no mixed background), which made Saleh really happy. He sang a song for Palestine, which apparently ruined his career. Everything revolves around politics in Jordan (and Lebanon). Also, I've heard on the grapevine that most Jordanian singers sing about the army and different areas of Jordan, so love songs are hard to come by. By the way, nine girls out of the 11 girls who came on this trip went to the festival. Saleh and Tawfiq (one of the administrators at the University of Jordan) came with us and basically served the function of bodyguards. Whenever some guys bothered one of the girls they would be there to look mean and scare them off. Oh, I forgot to mention: Saleh got us through all the lines at the festival by saying that we were American students from the U.S. Embassy. For all of you who have never heard me talk about Saleh, he's our Arabic prof from Miami who just happens to be Jordanian.

Also, the king/his represents were at the Festival. They had special tents set up away from the main amphitheatre area, and a million guards were sitting in front of the flaps.

Random note: I love speaking in Arabic here because all the men peg me as lebanese because of the accent I have when I speak in dialect, which automatically makes me cute. And therefore gets me better service :)

The top two pictures are of the roman ruins and elissa at the Jordan Festival. The second two pictures are at the dead sea. The tents in the background of the pic with me in it are bedouin tents. Bedouins bascially puts tents wherever they want. There are some near the two major malls in Jordan. It's kind of sad because, if you think about it, all this land used to be their's to live in and now there is all this commercial stuff.

I hope this is enough writing/pics for now. Next time I'll talk about our visit to the palace :)