What a difference a week makes!

One week ago I was walking into my mother's hospital room the day after a 20 hour journey from Jeddah, not sure what to expect as she waited to have her brain aneurysm clipped the next day.  The next four days were some of the most harrowing and nerve-wracking I've ever experienced, but the outcome was phenomenal.  And today, my mother is sitting in her recliner at home, still recovering from brain surgery, but well on the way to a full recovery.  Amazing.  Absolutely amazing. 

Thank you to all of you from all of us.  Mom posted this on her own FB page today (!):  "To all my friends and family and friends of friends and family: Your outpouring of prayers, good wishes, and support humbles me. Those are the things I carried into surgery with me and those are the things that brought me out again. You will never know how much it means to me and to my family."

That pretty much sums it up :-).  

FS Community Support Strikes Again

I'll post more of an update on this later, but I just wanted to write a short note of gratitude to all of you. 

As many of you know, my mother suffered a brain aneurysm this week, resulting in a major surgery to clip it.  I was lucky to be able to fly home and be here for her and my family during the surgery.  While there were complications, the surgery was successful, and, after a tough couple of days in ICU, Mom is waking up and walking and talking and slowly but steadily getting back to her healthy self.  The prognosis is a full recovery.  We've been blessed with an incredibly competent surgical and medical care team. 

What has helped me out considerably this week is the support I've received from family and friends across the world, including many, many FS community members.  Few people have ever met my mom, but that doesn't matter, especially in our lifestyle.  Everyone has had to deal with family medical emergencies, and everyone knows how much more difficult being overseas can make things.  And so everyone unquestioningly supports others going through ordeals, virtually and in real life.  Countless others can attest to this too, and have done so on their own blogs. 

Here's just one example.  While I was sitting in the surgical waiting room on Friday, the hours ticking by, waiting to hear news from the surgeon, I happened to read a post by Alex at Travel Orders that hit a nerve.  Alex and her family have been dealing with their own ordeal, which also appears to have a happy ending in sight.  Her post, though, was saying everything I was thinking and feeling about family emergencies in the FS and whether and what to share.  It was like magic.  I wrote a comment on this post, which hinted at my mom's surgery, and within a couple minutes I had an email in my inbox from Alex, who I've never met in person, offering support and an outlet to talk.  Which I didn't know I needed until that moment. 

The million other emails, messages, FB likes and comments, shared stories, and phone calls have been similarly comforting and much appreciated, not just by me but our whole family.  So a million thank yous to Alex and all of you.  The FS community never fails to amaze me.  And around here, things are looking very, very positive. 

Wouldn't You Know...

Well, clearly I failed.  I only wrote two of the 5-6 travel posts I meant to while on R&R.  But at least I got started.  More to come. 

A few days ago I was sitting in the living room at home watching football with my parents.  I knocked on the stairs behind me (wood) and made the casual remark, "you know, I haven't been sick in a really long time."  My mother looked at me horrified.  But I knocked on wood!

And wouldn't you know, here I am, with a full-blown cold, about to fly back to Jeddah.  UGH. What started as a sore throat has blossomed into ickiness.  I'm well armed with a supply of zinc, ibuprofen, Nyquil, Dayquil, tissues, throat drops, and water.  And while I don't often take cold pills (I've never actually taken one of the -quils before), two long plane rides seem the best place to start. 

I really only have myself to blame for this, after all...

Anyway, I'm on my way back to Saudi, energized for some projects at work and settling back into a routine.  Saying goodbye totally and completely sucked of course, but, for the first time in a long time, we actually know the next time we'll see each other.  And having that date makes it a little bit easier.

I had a great last day in the U.S., spending the morning presenting travel photos to a group of fifth graders at the school where I used to work.  They particularly loved the leopard photos from Yala.  Me too!  I spent the afternoon at my favorite day spa, my dad cooked beef stroganoff for dinner (yum!), and we all watched hours of MSNBC. 

And then I got sick. 

The good news is that my first flight appears on time, even with the horrific winds here in Boston.  I wouldn't mind a delay - I'd rather kill time in Logan with free wi-fi than in Frankfurt, where they trick you into going to a boring terminal to wait without shopping distractions.  Probably all the better; my bags are filled to the gills.  I didn't have to fight to get the bags checked free, for once, even without a hard copy of my orders (loooong story).  We had a harder time converting the expiration date of my residency card for KSA from Hijri to Gregorian calendar.  23.0kg and 23.8kg - way to go me!  I think that .8kg on the second bag was the luggage scale I threw in after packing everything...

The airport is eerily quiet today; I wonder if my flight will have some empty seats.  Oh, to sprawl!

All right.  Time to do the last-minute necessities before boarding.  Here's to a painless journey!

Jordan - Days 4-5

We woke up at a reasonable time on November 6th excited for the day.  Our destinations:  Jerash and the Dead Sea! 

Since it was Eid al-Adha, things were moving at a much slower pace, and many stores were closed.  As we drove the 40 km from Amman to Jerash, we witnessed time and time again roadside abbatoirs where pens of fluffy sheep waited to be purchased and sacrificed and then dressed for dinner.  Eid al-Adha is the festival of sacrifice after all.  We were whizzing by quickly enough that we didn't see too much gore, though a couple of my photos show the setup reasonably well.  Our guide told us that the price of a sheep is quite high - running several hundred dollars per animal. 

Jerash is one of the best-preserved Roman cities in existence, and I'd had several people tell me it was a great place to visit.  Ruins are only so-so on my list of top sightseeing draws, so I had no expectations really.  And I was completely and totally blown out of the water.  Dating to about 63 BC, Jerash was an important city in the Roman province of Arabia.  It had its heyday of building in the early years of CE, particularly during Hadrian's visit in about 129 CE. 

Over the next several hundred years, as the Roman Empire declined, a large Christian population moved in, converting some of the buildings into churches and even a cathedral.  Then the Persians took over in bout 614 CE, followed by the Umayyads, who added mosques.  A 749 CE earthquake destroyed much of the city, and some buildings were converted to fortresses during the Crusades.  Excavation and preservation really only dates to the 1920s, amazingly.  And even with all this turmoil and use of the city by many different populations, many of the buildings and monuments are recognizable and in decent shape. 

All right, thank you Wikipedia for that history lesson.

Anyway, as we walked from the parking lot up the slight hill to the site's entrance, we were greeted by the majestic Hadrian's Arch, lit magnificently by the sun in the morning light.  Unbelievably picturesque and imposing.  And it got better from there.

We walked through the arch and explored the Hippodrome, which usually plays host to a gladiator show.  The Eid holiday meant no shows, which was a shame, since the idea, which had seemed tacky when I read about, of the shows was really growing on me.  Oh well.  Plenty to see.  We walked on towards the lesser arch, the real entrance to the city, and found ourselves in a large oval forum surrounded by a colonnade (Corinthian, as was the norm in Jerash).  We looked up the hill towards Zeus' temple, under renovation (though that didn't stop a herd of tourists from traipsing all over it).  Then we walked up to the south theater, the larger of the two in Jerash.  In amazing condition, this theater still has phenomenal acoustics and is used for performances.  We were treated to a show of pop song renditions a la bagpipe and drum by two entrepreneurial locals in full Jordanian-Scottish regalia.  Who knew?!  We explored the acoustics a bit ourselves, singing from the center and from slightly off center to catch the full effect before proceeding along.  We visited churches, what was probably a residential area, the smaller north theater, and then Artemis' temple, an impressive structure.  There we sipped mint tea, convened with the resident cat, and played who-can-move-the-column-with-a-spoon.  Quite fun, really.  We proceeded back down the hill to the colonnaded cardo maximus, the former main drag of Jerash.  We could see market stalls, the Nymphaeum, some small temples and gathering areas, and even the cart ruts in the stone from carriages of long ago.  The cardo brought us back to the Forum, and we made our way back to the parking lot for the next leg of our journey.

One of the reasons I chose this trip is that we would be driving everywhere, so I'd get plenty of road trip exposure.  We left Jerash, drove south through Amman, and then began the long to descent to the lowest place on earth - the Dead Sea.  I'd been to the Dead Sea on the Israeli side earlier in the year, but it had been too chilly to swim that day, so this was going to be my chance.  The air was a bit chilly, but as we descended from several hundred meters above sea level to 390 meters below sea level, the weather turned perfect for a dip.  The air and the water were both about 80 degrees, which I consider entirely tolerable.

After a so-so lunch, we all changed into our swim costumes and made the trek down to the sea, renting towels along the way.  As we walked to a quiet strip of beach we got our first glimpses of the mud treatments that so many of us had planned on doing.  I quickly changed my mind.  Somehow, I didn't expect the mud to be so... muddy.  And to pay $10 to coat myself in mud only to wash it off right away?  Yeah, no thanks.

We all waded in, carefully avoiding the rock-like salt deposits that made the entry slightly treacherous.  The water was a bit chilly but bearable.  I waded out far enough to try weightlessness and flopped onto my back.  Wow.  You hear the stories, you see the pictures, but it's not quite the same until you experience it yourself.  And I wasn't a huge fan of the sensation, though the experience was pretty amazing.  In the struggle to right myself, I, of course, managed to splash a bit of water in my eye.  OUCH.  I had no idea how much that would hurt.  It would take a full 12 hours for me to regain full use of the eye, even after countless fresh water eye showers.  Anyway, once I managed to orient myself vertically in the water, it was great fun, and I had a blissful time watching others don their mud costumes and then struggle to get it all off.  Several attempts at washing the salt off myself with freezing cold fresh water and a trek back uphill to the pool area later, I concluded my Dead Sea adventure.  Definitely a lot of fun!  And a mere 12 hours of eye pain was worth it in the long run :-).

We drove back to Amman after sunset, arriving to a very quiet city celebrating for Eid.  Our guide rightfully went to spend the holiday with his family, and most of our group trekked to a nearby kebab-ish restaurant for a noisy and yummy dinner. 

The next day, we packed up our bus and headed out of the city.  We stopped at Mt. Nebo, of Moses fame.  The views were amazing - you could make out Jericho and the very edge of Jerusalem from this vantage point.  Then we headed to Madaba, a city with a long tradition of mosaic-making and home to several famous Byzantine and Umayyad mosaics, including the Madaba Map, which depicts the biblical cities of the region.  We visited the map, which was quite interesting to see, as well as a mosaic factory. 

From there we headed south along the famed King's Highway towards Wadi Musa and Petra.  For lunch we ate the spoils of our grocery store adventure from that morning in a Bedouin tent overlooking the beautiful Wadi Mujib.  We stopped at the famous Crusader castle at Kerak, which was amazingly well-positioned and well-preserved, the former accounting for its success as a fortress for many years - right up until it was finally invaded by Saladin in 1189. 

We arrived at sunset at our hotel in Wadi Musa, too late for a visit to Little Petra but in time for a few intrepid members of our group to experience Petra by night.  As scenic as it sounded, I just wasn't up for a candlelit hike the night before a long day of walking and hiking.  Those who went enjoyed it; those who didn't felt good about their decisions.

After dinner and a shower, I went to bed as early as possible, preparing for an early wakeup call and a day at Petra. 

Eid Mubarak!

Wadi Mujib (photo out of order - argh)

Hadrian's Arch, Jerash

Corinthian Columns - Jerash

Cardo Maximus - Jerash

Woohoo!

Temple of Zeus & South Theater

Bagpipes and drums at Jerash

Temple of Artemis

Floating in the Dead Sea!

Salt!

Looking from the beach up to the pool/resort area

Sunset over the Dead Sea

View from Mt. Nebo

Pope John Paul II's olive tree

Making mosaics in Madaba

Madaba Map

Wadi Mujib - spectacular scenery!

Kerak Castle

Kerak Castle

Google Reader Silence

It took me almost all of R&R, but I finally caught up with all of my blog reading.  Yesterday.  And then, today, there's only two new posts in all the blogs I read!?  Joke's on me, I guess.  It's the Sunday of a long weekend.  Perhaps that accounts for the lack of posting.  Cuz it's definitely not karma for not catching up on my own writings...  Right?

Jordan - Days 1-3

All right.  Since this is, ostensibly, a travel blog, it's time to write about some travel!

One of the best perks of being posted in KSA is taking advantage of the Eid holidays for extended vacations without using precious leave time.  I have been incredibly lucky to be able to take advantage of three of the four while I've been in country.

I flew from Jeddah to Amman, Jordan on November 3rd, a short two hour flight over some gorgeous scenery.  Immigration, baggage claim, and customs were easy enough, if not efficient or smoke-free.  I grabbed an airport taxi and headed into downtown Amman to my hotel for the next few days - the Intercontinental.  While not cheap, the Amman Intercon was a solid investment.  Sizable room, comfortable bed, quality bathroom furnishings and amenities.  I had lunch at one of the on-site restaurants, a Mexican place.  Decent food and exactly what I wanted.  I took a late-afternoon stroll to several craft shops in the neighborhood, though I didn't fall in love with anything, amazingly.  Dinner was my favorite - room service! - and watching movies completed the restful evening.

On Friday, I breakfasted and started to head out for a visit to the Citadel and Roman Theater.  I made it outside just in time to experience the first rain of the season.  And promptly headed back inside.  I love rain.  But I don't love clambering about on ruins in the rain.

Luckily, I was able to touch base with fellow FS blogger Connie from Whale Ears & Other Wonderings.  She very generously offered to pick me up at the hotel, and we went to The Blue Fig Cafe for lunch.  What a wonderful time!  Over great food, we had an absolutely lovely time 'meeting' each other.  The FS blogger community is pretty neat in its ability to link people across the globe who may never have met in person but who have a lifestyle in common.  Connie took me on a driving tour of Amman, which helped immensely for getting my bearings.  We stopped at her house where I got to meet her famous family and kitties (well, two of them at least!).  I felt as if I already knew them through her blog - pretty cool :-).  Our last stop for the afternoon was to Sugar Daddy's bakery!  I first heard about this place when I was in Arabic training in 2009, and I'd wanted to go ever since.  And, just a word of caution, be prepared when you google Sugar Daddy's Amman.  It's a few results down...  We enjoyed blissful cupcakes and took a few each home.  Connie dropped me off, and I finished off a perfect day with a perfect massage at the spa.

I woke up to a sunny day on Saturday but decided to be lazy until I had to check out, since the rest of my trip would be super active.  After finally checking out mid-afternoon, I checked out and grabbed a taxi to the hotel where I'd meet up with my tour group.  Now I've taken many, many group tours over the years on several continents, and while they've all been great, it's always a toss up.  Sometimes your group is a little off, sometimes the guide is overly quirky, and sometimes you end up paying extra for activities that really should have been included.  I've been meaning to try a trip with G Adventures (formerly Gap Adventures) for several years, but timing never quite worked out.  This time, luckily, it did, and I signed up for the Highlights of Jordan tour.  It hit all the major sites and a few of the minor ones and was the perfect length of time, affordable, and with a smallish group. 

The taxi driver had a difficult time finding the hotel, even with the address.  We got to the general area in only about 15 minutes but spent a good 20 minutes driving up and down streets, asking other drivers, and calling the hotel for directions.  Finally, we found it.  I tipped the driver about 30% over the meter price, and he looked at me like I was crazy.  "But we drove so long!" he exclaimed.  "But the meter never lies!" I said back.  And I walked into the hotel. 

The great thing about G Adventures is that they don't charge a single supplement and simply pair you with a roommate for the duration of the tour.  (Some tours allow you to pay extra for your own room, but it didn't seem worth it to me.)  An hour or so after I checked in, my absolutely lovely roommate arrived.  We got on great, and our routines complemented one another, so we were never fighting for the bathroom, thankfully. 

We had our welcome meeting where we met (most) of the rest of our group, save the few people with late flights.  Our group of 15 included three couples, and the rest of us were on our own.  It must be said, this was possibly the best group I've had.  We all got along great, had lots of laughs, and nobody was perpetually late or perpetually stinky.  I was the youngest person on the tour (which I loved - no crazy partying 18 year olds!), and many had done previous Gap/G tours, while always says quite a lot.

Anyway, we met our guide, a young Jordanian with impeccable English, and we were immediately in good hands.  Zuhair did an amazing job throughout the trip (and, yes, I wrote the same thing on the evaluation form!) and really looked out for each of us.  He brought us to the 'old' part of Amman for dinner at the famous Hashem Restaurant.  We had an absolutely delicious meal of falafel, hummus, foul, bread, and mint tea surrounded by Jordanians young and old.  It was the night before Eid, and the streets were busy with merry makers and families doing the last shopping before the holiday.  It was a great atmosphere, and we walked around for a while before heading back to the hotel and getting a good night's rest. 

As I wasn't really in tourism mode until the end of day 3, I don't have photos for this post, except of cupcakes.  However, the next few accounts will be chock full of photos, I promise!

Could You *Be* More Excited?!

The FS Blog Round-Up is back!  Many thanks to Jill of The Perlman Update for taking the lead on resurrecting this wonderful community feature.  Maybe this is the inspiration I need to get back to blogging on a regular basis.

Mosey on over to The Perlman Update for information on how to participate in next week's Round-Up!

(And thanks, as always, to Kolbi at A Daring Adventure for being the brainchild of the Round-Up!)

Snippets From an Ordinary Day

We had a great Sunday morning with my brother, sister-in-law-to-be, niece, and nephew today, finishing the last of Christmas present opening, playing a lot of Mario on the DSs (how does one make that plural?), eating pancakes, and watching Up.  These two cuddly and fast-growing kids are absolutely wonderful - I truly adore them.  And the things they say!  "Mommy, I need to take a break from the DS because my thumb is turning into an arrow."  "Mimi, I can only hug you on this side because you broke your knee."  So excited to spend more time with them this summer!

After an afternoon of watching football and getting annoyed with Snapfish, I headed to the grocery store to get the fixings for lasagna.  As I got to the bottom of our hill and passed the small village general store, I noticed that there were no cars there.  Just a horse.  Sans rider, tied up to the porch railing.  Yes, I live in a town where riders abound and we keep the old road signs from the days of horse transportation - "walk your horses or pay two dollars fine" and similar.  As my friend's fiancé marveled this week, it's a place where few front doors or cars are locked, and it's not unusual to keep one's keys in the car ignition in the driveway. 

I didn't have to wait long for the next interesting anecdote - a psychic hotline on the radio was trying a new marketing strategy and extolling the virtues of their hiring process.  Apparently, only 2% of psychics who apply make the cut and are subjected to rigorous screenings such as applications, interviews, and sample readings.  Oy.

I adore going to the grocery store here.  I walk up and down every aisle and marvel and gawk.  True, the stores in KSA are pretty well stocked.  Amazingly well, it must be said.  But, they still don't quite compare to the depth and breadth of weird and wonderful products, novelties, and cooking solutions that abound in the American supermarket. 

I realized making lasagna in the U.S. is somewhat simpler than in Saudi.  First of all, it doesn't take me weeks to find ricotta cheese.  There, I can occasionally order it from the commissary, but it's always frozen.  Fresh ricotta is found once in a blue moon, sadly.  I have colleagues who have their loved ones bring coolers full of it when they fly in from the States.  The other novelty was being able to fill the pasta pot with tap water.  In Saudi I fill it from the water cooler.  This is probably slightly overkill, since the tap water there falls victim mostly to rusty (and who knows what else) pipes and doesn't carry amoebic dysentery or other nasty pests, but I still err on the side of caution.  And filling a stock pot from a water cooler is not easy.  Nor is it quick.  A mere inconvenience, of course, but something to notice when you don't have to do it. 

The lasagna turned out great, the football was exciting, and now the house is quiet, and it's time for bed.  Or mouse hunting.  There's a particularly brave one haunting the pantry tonight, but s/he doesn't want to appear on camera.  Yet. 

Bridging the Years

So clearly R&R has not been the time/internet connection/inspiration I needed to get my blog up to date.  Yet.  There's still some time.  The hectic part of R&R is over, and now I should have plenty of time to rest and write and catch up on movies and TV.  And to mail the myriad things I've purchased back to KSA. 

A driving force behind the timing and length of this R&R was the desire to be home to help my mom as she had total knee replacement surgery.  My FB friends have been kept up to date, but all went well with surgery and the initial recovery, and she's at home now.  She's up and walking around and is on track for a great recovery.

I am one of the few people on earth who truly enjoys spending time in hospitals (especially when I'm not the patient), and this was no exception.  And after five knee surgeries, I know my way around this particular hospital.  (Though I only had three of them there, on reflection.)  Timing worked in my favor when a friend conveniently had her baby while I was at the hospital, so I get to meet the precious wee one on her first full day in the world!

So 2012 is off to an exciting start.  I will leave Jeddah this summer and move to Kampala, via home leave and Con Gen.  I am excited about all to come!  My brother is getting married while I'm on home leave (ah, the fun for FS folks of cajoling friends and relatives into leave-conducive matrimonial dates), so I've been getting up to speed on the planning and working on my role (I'm the officiant).  A very exciting summer indeed!

Kampala looms closer, especially since my transfer schedule has been approved.  I have been amazed by and appreciative of my future colleagues in Kampala who have reached out with offers of question-answering and advice and helped me start some of the transfer logistics processes.  This.  Totally.  Rocks.

And thanks to Carla at Carla Runs the World, I have fallen in love with this little techno-gadget. 

2011 was a good year.  I lived entirely in one place for the entire year, for the first time in a long time.  I spent time in seven countries on three continents, plus airports in two other countries on another continent.  I got to attend the weddings of two cousins and spend quality time with family and friends, including reuniting with one of my childhood best friends.  Work has been challenging, engaging, and enjoyable, and I am lucky to have some great coworkers who make the days feel shorter and fill them with laughter.  PAS is the fun section, as we always say.  And, of course, I have two healthy, happy kittens who add just the right amount of snuggle and play into each day.  (Who I miss very much right now...)

And can I just say that I am SO, SO psyched to be moving to the land of safari!!  Safari makes everything better.  I love, love, LOVE watching animals in their natural habitat.   It's one of the very few acceptable reasons to wake up before dawn.  Perhaps the only one.  Watching for deer on the highway just isn't the same thing.  Though I do get a little thrill whenever I spot (and don't hit!) a live one :-).

Life is good.  Sure, there are things that could go better.  There always are.  But, overall, I am extremely contented with life.  And it doesn't get much better than that!  Wishing you the same in 2012.