Wow.

I've been in Jordan for over two weeks.  There are multiple reasons for my lack of updates, the most prominent being that the country of Jordan blocks blogspot.com, along with many other arbitrary websites. Right now I'm using a proxy server to post this.  Although I've heard that Jordan is a pretty progressive country for being in the middle east, there are still many restrictions that surprise me.  As my friend Zack put it, it's like every citizen (and visitor) is treated like they're in junior high.  Another example was last week when I was with another instructor (who is a girl) who accidentally bumped into a local man on the streets of Irbid.  According to Islam, men are inherently animals and will revert to their animaliztic state if they are touched by a woman, or if they are allowed to see a woman's hair.  Thankfully, however, this man was able to control himself and only spat on the girl's feet and shouted obscenities at her.

Now that I'm completely settled in and the excitement of being in a new place has worn off, I feel like I can be much more objective about my opinions.  There are many things I like about Jordan: the people are quite friendly and welcoming, things are cheap, and the food (for the most part) is great.  I don't like that everything is dust covered, there are few to no lakes around, and Islamic prayer is almost constantly being amplified over strategically placed speaker towers (everywhere).

My class, on the other hand, is going great.  The students are highly motivated, and while there are definitely signs of them having only 6 w

eeks to learn what would usually take months, I think they will emerge from the program with a fair level of competence.  I enjoy my time with them, and at the autism academy.  Although there are many breaches of ethics happening on site, it's good to be able to disseminate what I've picked up over the next year and do a little good.

Here are the visual highlights:

The kings of Jordan.  In the middle is the current Kind Abdullah- this guy's face is literally EVERYWHERE.  To the left is his father the previous king.  

Jordanians have a different idea of what a "cocktail" is than we do in the states.  This was a delicious "royal cocktail," compose of guava juice, fruit, and ice cream (no alcohol).  Apparently these are very popular over here. 

The streets of Irbid.  Notice the dust. 

A market in Irbid.  Very busy, lots of smells, and lots of shouting.  

A Bedouin hut.  Lots of these folks around, herding goats in fields of plastic bags.  

Ruins of the Roman city Jerash (not far from where we're staying).  For more preserved than some of the ruins in Rome I've seen... 

And here's the complete Jordan album:  

Later!

JT

Last days in Prague

Oh man.  So having been in Jordan for a couple of days now my time in Prague is already fading, guess I better write about it.  First and foremost, my roommates were two of the coolest people I've met traveling ever.  Oliva and Luke reminded me of an Australian version of my friends Mollie Grewe and Will Thomas.  It was refreshing to find out that there are such like-minded people on the other side of the planet.  The day before they left we started a tour of Prague together, which ended up being surprisingly cool.  Our tour guide was an Irish firecracker, and I learned all about the history of the Czech people.  It's insane how many times their government has been overthrown and reformulated!  I wish I could go through each picture and describe for you what I learned, but it would take hours.  If you're as interested as I am, however, let me know and I'd love to tell about any of the things I've seen.  I saw some beautiful architecture.  After the tour I took it easy for a while, then headed out for a drink with Olivia and Luke.

The next day my new friends left, and I decided to go for a paddleboat trip on the Vlatava organized by the hostel.  Only one other person went on the trip- it was nice but didn't really amount to more than a few more views of things I'd already taken pictures of.  After that I reluctantly debated going on a bar crawl, and ultimately decided to stay in for the night and get an early start on my Museum day.

My last day in Prague I visited the Communist museum, the Biedrich Smetana Museum, and the Museum of Natural History.  All of them were "innaresting", but I was particularly amazed at the Museum of Natural History.  I've never seen a larger collection of taxidermied animals (ones I never even knew existed).

Then I left Prague, and things turned to shit again.  The airline lost my freakin luggage, and it's been 2 days now.  I bought some real awesome cheap clothes on the streets of Irbid.  Tune in tomorrow for more of the scoop on Jordan.

Visual highlights:

Olivia and Luke (Australian Mollie and Will) in an underground pub

Night shot of the National Theater, according to the Czechs it has "the best acoustics of any theater in the world"

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Paddleboatin'.  Saw lots of dead birds in the Moldau. 

Then after having spent some time on the Moldau, I hung out with Mr. Smetana (composer of The Moldau symphonic poem, one of my favorite pieces)

Lenin!  Gotta love communism monuments...

Me and an anteater at the Museum of Natural History

For more pics check out my Picasa album. 

A quick update

For anyone who cares, I didn't die.  I just haven't had time to blog the past couple of days.  My last couple of days is Prague were wonderful, however, and I will be posting pics soon.

I made it to Jordan, and suffice it to say it's quite the transition.  Long story short, I got in at 2am and the god damned airline lost my luggage.  So I'm stuck here without clothes or a toothbrush pending the unforeseen arrival of such necessities.  Yuck.

Gonna go get some shawarma, maybe buy a clean t-shirt, take a nap, and try to absorb my surroundings.  Prepare yourself for weirdness, this is a wild ride.

<3

JT

Bikin' N' Castles

WOW.  So much to tell.  In a nutshell:  today started at 5:30AM, with a stroll up to Prague Castle, followed by a bike a journey of epic proportions, and ending with beer and potato soup.  

Here are some highlights:

I took this at around 6AM on the Charles bridge.  Prague is so peaceful in the morning.  It's a perfectly innocent looking statue from a distance, right?  Take a closer look: 

baby head tumors.

Eraserhead?

The faithful companion.  This rental bike was the best use of Koruna's I've made yet.  Miss her already.  She got me many places I would have never ventured. 

My first destination:  St. Wenceslas square.  King Wenceslas is regarded as the only rightful king of the Czechs, everyone else has been borrowing the title.  After rising to fame as a righteous man in the church and winning the crown by his good deeds,  he was killed by his bipolar brother.  His brother then brought him back to Prague to have him exalted and subsequently he became a saint.  Go figure?

Next stop was this giant pendulum.  This is where a statue of Stalin once stood.  After the fall of communism in Prague a statue of Michael Jackson was put up, and now this giant pendulum is there.

                                        

                          

This one's for Dr. Malott.  I just like the fact that the portapotty company in Prague is called "Toi Toi"

And the view from the Prague Castle:  speaks for itself.

And finally my Old Czech Potato Soup.  

It was in there, I promise.  And it was good.  

Here's a slideshow recap of it all: 

I'm gonna rent bike again tomorrow, so there will probably be another billion pictures.  Havin fun, don't wanna leave!

Downtown Prague, Pretty cool (pretty cool)

So i got about a 3 hour nappy in before the sun started beaming in my room and I started sweating uncontrollably. I then decided to go out and take some pictures. Here are the results:

      

Then I decided I should eat something.  I ended up getting some goulash (which by the way is NOTHING like any goulash I've ever had), drinking two cheap czech beers, and listening to a czech band play Beatles covers.  All in all not too bad.  

Later I stoppe by a church right in the old town square and checked out the New Prague Radio Symphony Collegium.  The church was right on oar with some of the mosques I've seen in Rome, check it out: 

                                   

                                            

   

The ensemble was real good.  Mostly standard Vivaldi and Mozart stuff, but it was good to hear it in that setting.  I forgot how beautiful Dvorak's Divertimento in D major is. 

Here they are:

                                   

Good times.  Now for more sleep!  Perfect opportunity while everybody's out watching the world cup.  

<3

JT

IN PRAGUE

I'm here!  My journey that started at 3:30pm EST Friday in Kalamazoo has finally ended at 7:30AM EST Saturday.  My total over that duration probably adds up to around 5 hours, consisting only of intermittent airplane naps.

So now I'm waiting in my hostel's kitchen until 2:00PM Prague time, when I can check in and get some real sleep in.

Here's the view from the kitchen:

Nothing special, but I am less than 100 yards form the astronomical clock, which I passed and looks way cool.

Only 20 minutes to go now!

Bloggin in the air

Finally made it on the freaking plane!  Only after being escorted by a rather brutish airport officer out of the “Transit” area to the gates.  My prayers were answered (though not the anvil prayers) and I’m out of the most prison-like airport on the planet.  I just finished a pretty decent meal courtesy Turkish Airlines (scrambled eggs and assorted cheeses!) and now the Flight Attendant is coming around passing out what looks like Skittles. 

Now just a quick 5 hour stop in Istanbul and I’ll be home free!  I’ll probably sleep through my entire first day in Prague.  Geez. 

Peace out honkeys.

JT

PS They’re not skittles they’re hazelnuts.  Gotta love the Turks.  

Yellow Fries

 So right around my 8^th hour in Queen Alia airport, I got so bored that I decided to purchase some overpriced shawarma.  For the record, it wasn’t as good as Shawarma King Kalamazoo.   I thought I was in for a delightful treat when my sandwich showed up with an unexpected side of fries.  This was the peak of my evening, until a) I realized they were unnaturally yellow and b) they were cold and coagulated. 

Here they are:

What do you think? Exciting stuff, right?  Hopefully this blog gets a little more exciting when (and if) I get to Prague. 

Horrible, horrible, horrible.

All in all, the trip is off to an awful start.  After a 12 hour and 20 minute plane ride, I am now forced to sit in a "transit" area at the Jordan Queen Alia airport for an additional 10 hours before boarding my plane to Prague.  The transit area consists of a duty free shop, a starbucks, a shawarma hut, and a world cafe.  This is perhaps the most absurd set-up I've ever been subjected to at an airport; I have absolutely no access to anything besides what is included in this microcosm, which by the way does not include the ticketing counter for any of the airlines or baggage claim.  This means that the bag that I checked to Amman has been waiting on the conveyor belt since I arrived 6 hours ago (hopefully).  Since I booked my flights separately, I would assume it's my responsibility to pick it up.   When I inquired I was told I would be "escorted to baggage claim 2 hours before my flight leaves."  Why?!

And here's the icing: my freakin bank disabled my new debit card for unknown reasons (I think it's a fraud protection thing, but after spending hours skyping with Chase they concluded that they would have to send me a new one).  So it looks like I'll have to rely on credit card cash advances and any money I can scrounge up turning tricks on the streets of Prague for all the cash I need for my trip.

Here's me, as I have been for the past 6 hours, sitting in a Jordanian Starbucks praying for an anvil to fall on my head:

Do I look like I'm going insane?

God help me.

LOVE JT.