What's your name?

There's a conversation I have every week or so it comes about when I introduce myself, it goes a little something like this:

Me:    I'm Rachel
Guy:  Wa...?
Me:    Ray-Chill
Guy:  Way...
Me:    Ray-shill
Guy:  Rassha?
Me:    rA-chill
Guy:  rash..?
Me:    Ray-shell
Guy:  reachelle
Me:    rA-shell
Guy:  reeshelle?
Me:    Yes! Rachelle
Guy:  Oh Rachelle? Jewish?
Me:   I'm not jewish
Guy:  don't worry, it's ok, no problem, you are safe here
Me:   thanks, I know, but I'm not jewish
Guy:  ok, sure *knowing nod*

I went to a modern art gallery... and I liked it.

I went to the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts. It was good, really good. This is surprising for me, I enjoy art, and I like galleries, but I don't like going to anywhere that has modern art. In London I avoid the Tate and go to the National Portrait Gallery, in New York I skipped the Museum of Modern Art and went to the Metropolitan. As wanky as that last sentence sounds, I just don't like modern art. There has been a recent blog post getting attention from someone who also just doesn't get it.

I did a one year course in the foundation of visual arts, I liked painting and drawing and printmaking, but I hated all the wanking on about crap, all the wallowing in lake me. I chose instead to do graphic design. Design takes information from the client and communicates it in the right way to reach the audience. I thought it had more point.

Anyway, I digress. In the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts (two buildings with a sculpture part in the middle) has beautiful modern art from all over the Middle East. It's interesting, it's skilled, and it looks good. Sure there is concept, but I don't feel like I need to 'get' anything, I could just look at it and think that's cool, or I like that.

Here are some pictures... (sorry I didn't get the details of the artist, artwork title, country or origin or anything useful like that)

Fortunately for me there was a calligraphy exhibition in one of the gallery spaces.

The exhibition included some works from Iraqi calligrapher Hassan Massoudy, I had some of his work in postcard form up on my wall in my house in Edinburgh... I think I still have the postcards somewhere, anyway he's ace.

Started Arabic classes and found a flat

I stayed in Hotel Farah in downtown Amman for 3 weeks, it was ace, there was an abundance of travellers coming though with information, inspiration and stories. I wanted to get a homestay with an Arabic family so I would learn Arabic faster. I met one family who were awesome and lovely, but they all spoke English perfectly, they lived way out of town, and when dropping me off the dad hit on me. Stink. 

So I have moved in with and American chick who has been living here for 4 years. She lives 20 minutes walk away from my school and 20 minutes downhill walk to downtown. The only disadvantage it that it is uphill to get home. 

This is Farah Hotel, I totally recommend it.

My room is twice the size of the 6 bed dorm I was in, and it's also a bit cheaper too. Bonus. 

I started Arabic classes at the Modern Language Centre, the first class they put me in was at 9am and had 3 chicks of above average attractiveness (Australian, Tanzanian & French) who all live here and are light years ahead of me in Arabic. So I asked to move class. They had no other beginners, so I'm now in a 11am class by myself. It's hard but it is good. My teacher is incredibly patient, she has to be. 

I'm so glad I learnt the alphabet before I came, otherwise I would be totally lost. I enjoy the writing bit. I don't mean I enjoy spelling or grammar or reading or learning words, I mean I enjoy drawing the letters. Today I did some dictation on the whiteboard. I tried to make the word for giraffe (zrafa) look like a weird looking giraffe. The teacher did not find it as ingenious and witty as I did. 

This is a pretty mural I pass on my walk to school

Classes are 2 hours a day, 5 days a week. It's a weird having so much free time. I'm reading books at a snail's pace. At the moment I'm reading a great book by a Gaza doctor called I shall not Hate. I've also been doing some research and writing for Wikipedia, I hope to get better at it and do some more.

I finish classes at the end of May, I have lined up a volunteer position teaching in Nablus, West Bank. 

I enjoyed the lowest place on earth

I went to the Dead Sea a week or so ago, I've just been a bit slow getting this up online. Amman is about an hour's drive away from the Dead Sea. Which is 423 metres below sea level, and the lowest place on earth. Here's a map, look how close I am to Jerusalem, it's only about 2 hours as the crow flys. It feels wrong to call it a sea it's only 18km at it's widest point (Lake Taupo is 33km wide and 46km long) I could totally see the other side.

I went with a group from my hotel, we stopped off at a church, apparently famous for mosaics and pilgrimage, but as they were in the middle of service and it's an orthodox church, their services go on for hours, literally hours, we didn't get to see the original mosaics, only reproductions in the nearby museum which were pretty cool. 

The town was celebrating something, I don't know what, but they had a lot of signs up... perhaps Easter? 

Then we stopped into a shop that showed us how they make their mosaics, again, pretty darn cool. 

A hill where Moses hung out? Yeah, I know I should remember more of this, or I could look it up, but this blog will never get posted if I have to start researching where I have been. This is a view of the West Bank from Jordan. 

And finally we get to the Dead Sea. Yay! 

It really is as floaty as they say.

We came in through a hotel complex, and onto a private beach, you can see the fence on the left that stops the plebs from getting in. On the private beach we can wear immodest clothes. I thought I had grabbed the ziplock bag containing my black bikini only to discover when I got there it was the ziplock bag containing my black long-john top. Thankfully lovely Australian Catherine let me borrow her shorts and my bra could pass as a bikini top. 

I covered myself in dead sea mud, really it was the only an excuse to legitimately black up I think I'll ever have. It didn't make my skin soft nor smooth, in fact I had to buy moisturiser the next day. 

When I got back to the hotel my hair was crunchy with salt. Yummo. The Dead Sea is awesome sauce. 

Watching the Flytilla

Arabic classes start in 2 days, I’m doing a lot of hanging out. I haven’t managed to find a home stay, but I’m happy in my hotel. There are a lot of tourists who pop over from Europe, it’s weird to me, they catch a cheap Easyjet flight direct to Amman and have a one week or two week holiday, then fly home.

It’s a great place for intel. Heaps of single female travellers... we now outweigh the pairs and the guys massively, times have changed. And a lot of have come through Israel/Palestine, with stories of interrogation and how they avoided getting stamps in their passports... or failed and got the dreaded stamps.

Here is the deal. Palestine is occupied by Israel. Israel controls all the borders into and out of Palestine, and they really don’t like people visiting Palestine at all. So to get into Palestine, all visitors must pretend that they are only visiting Israel, or going to Bethlehem on a Christian pilgrimage visiting scared sites.

At the moment there is a pro-Palestinian campaign called the Flytilla (in reference to the flotillas that attempted to get to Gaza), International activists are intending to get to Bethlehem. The difference is, they are not going to lie at the border about their intentions. At the border they are saying that they are intending to travel to the occupied West Bank to stand in support of the Palestinians.

Of course they are being stopped at the airport and sent home.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/04/201241545637130915.html
(at the bottom is Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s response... he's a dick)

Israeli nationals at the airport have also been arrested for the crime of holding up "Welcome to Palestine" signs.

Israel also managed to prevent the activists from even leaving their home countries.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/07/2011712891421784.html
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/236403.html

and some airlines are getting in trouble for it
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israels-behest-woman-removed-air-france-flight-not-being-jewish

This is the 3rd year of the Flytilla, and I think it’s doing a good job of getting people talking and getting media attention to the issues of freedom of movement, and freedom of speech/thought. There has been some good discussion in Israeli media on the left
http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/sights-that-the-flytilla-activists-weren-t-allowed-to-see-1.424717

and on the right
http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?ID=266099&R=R1

Well I assume Jerusalem Post is the right... I might just be confusing right wing with terrible design.

Anyhoo, I won’t be crossing the Israeli controlled border for another month. And after talking to a lot of people travelling through, I have also decided not to join up with the International Solidarity Movement, I don’t know enough about the situation to join any political activist groups, and also word on the ground is that the use of short term international activists can leave negative repercussions for the Palestinians who do not have the choice to leave, long after the internationals have gone.

Instead I have started to apply for longer term volunteer positions teaching English.

Ruins of old buildings

I keep thinking about money, it’s a weird feeling having to pace out my finances for a long period of time, and also not earning. The Jordanian Dinar is about 1:1 with the British pound, but I have to remind myself, I don’t have British pounds in my New Zealand bank account.

So I have a daily budget that I always go over. But have allowed enough for trips to many of the historic sites. This place is oooold, really old, stupid old, like literally ancient history type old. And here are some photos...

A Byzantine place 5 mins walk from my hotel, and that white dot is the moon.

Inside of of the buildings at the Amman Citadel, 15 mins walk from my hotel.

Umm Quais at the very tip top of JOrdan, this is a view of Syria, and Golan Heights. 

Sun hats for sale. 

Jerrash, about an hour North of Amman. 

A museum in Jerrash.

Jerrash

Amphitheater in Jerrash... The roams love their amphitheaters, there were 2 in Jerrash, a couple in Amman, Also in Petra, this place is littered with Roman amphitheaters.

If I had read my guide book or paid for a guide I would be able to tell you what it is, but all I can say is the the fluro pink ice cream I bough of the kid was delicious in the heat of the day. 

Hercules temple at the Amman Citadel behind my hotel.  

Cool huh.