Book Club Month 2

I have now been to my second book club meeting (although they have been meeting for years). At the first meeting, we discussed Isabelle Allende's novel Inez of My Soul which no one loved.

In May, we read and discussed The Shadow of Kilamanjaro: On Foot Across East Africa about a travel writer (and entourage) who climbed Mt Kilimanjaro and then walked to the coast across National Parks for elephants and rhinos. It was a great read because Africa remains on my "must see" list but also interesting as he discussed the need to walk with multiple armed guards in case of an elephant or lion attack. Several of the women in my book group had visited or worked in Africa (either as Peace Corp volunteers or with AID) and had their own Africa safari stories. One second-hand story (a friend of 2 book group members) involved kayaking in Zaire? Zambia? and have the boat knocked over by a crocodile which then ate the second kayaker and the woman swimming two hours back to where they had started paddling and then being suspected of murder.

Our June book is Winter in Kandahar which I haven't started yet - it's pretty long but I am only halfway through my current book The Host by Stephanie Meyer and want to finish it. I highly recommend her teen vampire romances - this one is purer science fiction about a species of "souls" that live in human body "hosts." I don't like it as much but I still want to find out what happens.

I highly recommend Julia Child's My Life in France a memoir about her time at cooking school and writing cookbooks in France.

Weekend in Tel Aviv

We spent Memorial Day weekend in Tel Aviv with our friend Randy. The highlight was an English-language walking tour sponsored by the Tel Aviv Tourism Council on Bauhaus architecture. The tour was great and indeed you could clearly see the importance of two styles in Tel Aviv: "eclectic style" and "bauhaus or international style." We all preferred the eclectic style which was quite simply prettier with more art deco influences but we had all warmed somewhat to the charms of bauhaus by the end of the tour.

BAUHAUS:

ECLECTIC:

We also went swimming in the Mediterranean Sea which neither Dan nor I had done before. The water was warm (ish) and very clear especially considering that we were swimming in a city beach with a skyline of skyscrapers behind us. There was also very loud and profane music playing at a club along the beach which along with beachwear was a vivid reminder that we weren't in Jordan.

We went to the movies and we all would recommend Bank Job and not recommend Indiana Jones. Indiana Jones was a disappoinment - there was some great art direction in scenes set in Nevada and the ant special effects were good (although creepy since we have ants in our apartment) but somehow the alien things was too much for us. We all loved Bank Job and agreed this movie which included royal scandal would NEVER be shown in Jordan.

U.S. States I Have Visited

States I have visited

http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/map.php


See this one looks much more impressively filled in. I made this and then realized - oh wait I have been to Utah and stayed at the beautiful Robert Redford-owned Sundance resort. I am certain I have never been to Alaska and Idaho and I am pretty certain I haven't been to Oklahoma and Arkansas and even thinking about the trips I have taken to neighboring states those two weren't included.

Countries I Have Visited

Countries I have visited

Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

Wow - it doesn't look like so many when you look at it like this. Dan would need to add Morocco and subtract some European countries for his own map.

Disclaimer: We are not important.

This weekend we went to a friends house to play Guitar Hero. After an entire evening, I was able to play the two easiest songs at the easiest level without being boo'ed off the stage. Now the people booing are electronic characters but it still hurts to be boo'ed.

The friends who hosted us are also the friends who introduced us to the work of Eyad Al Masri. They told us they were back in his apartment this weekend and Mr. Al Masri said that someone famous had written about his art. Apparantly, when you google Mr. Masri our blog shows up and he assumed any one who knew Senator McCain must be important. Alas that is not so.

I did receive really nice thank you notes from Senator McCain and Senator Lieberman (or at least from the no doubt under-paid and dedicated hill staffer who operates the autopen).

The Month in Pictures - Qasr Al Abd and Iraq Al Emeer

This weekend we headed out to ruins. Yes it is true that every weekend before we leave Jordan in 13 months we could probably go see different ruins. This is Qasr Al Abd. Palace of the Servant. It is about 45 minutes west of Amman in a town that is nearly all Circassian. I don't know why a lot of Circassians moved to Jordan (I think they were at war with somebody) but they did.


This palace is renowned for its lion and leopard sculptures. If you squint at the next photo you can see a baby cub under the lion.
Nearby is also the caves of the prince. Here you can see Hebrew letters carved into the wall next to the caves. Did you know that Iraq means cave - I only learned this by going to this site but then I confirmed in Arabic class today which was made more complicated by getting a second word that also means cave and then another word for big cave (I guess like cavern)

The Month in Pictures - Menopause Parade

This Friday morning we were happily drinking coffee (a thank you gift from Joel) when we heard a band in our neighborhood.

Look - it's the menopause awareness parade.
The blonde woman in the t-shirt and jeans in the front of the group is Princess Muna - the King's Mom. We left our apartment to find out what the parade was and we were invited to join the parade but we opted out so we could head to Qasr Al-Abd instead (see next post)

The Month in Pictures - Kate and Larry's wedding

The day of the wedding we headed to the National Zoo which was celebrating Migratory Bird day. Corinne and Alex stocked up on stickers and Dan got to meet Woodsy Owl.












We timed our R&R to attend my cousin Kate's wedding to fabulous-guy Larry. Here we are at the church. Here I am with my favorite aunt Sharlie - look we have matching outfits!

The reception was held at the Audobon Society which had lovely grounds, a beautiful old house and hundreds of dead birds.











Bride and groom looking happy. Dan trying out zoom feature on our new camera by taking this picture from really far away

The Month in Pictures - Ajloun Castle

Before we went home for R&R (so you can see how slow we are about downloading pictures), we went for a day trip to enjoy Spring in Jordan.

First we went "hiking" - really just walking around because there weren't really trails - in one of Jordan's protected forests. Trivia: I learned at a tourism conference this weekend that Jordan has designated just 4% of its land as protected nature areas whereas the worldwide average is 10%




After Dibbeen forest we went to Ajloun castle with our friend Nadjla - you can see that the hills in the background are green-ish. Okay not Virginia-green which we admittedly found overwhelming when we were home but more of a Mediterranean green. Even since these pictures were taken the hills have started turning brownish since we are done with rain until probably September or October.

This castle is one of I think 10 castles that are lined up on hilltops across Jordan from an old security system.

Last minute holiday weekend planning

Memorial Day will be the first weekend in a while when I don't have a congressional delegation and so we actually have a 3 day weekend (good news!) The bad news is that Jordan's independence day is the same day as our Memorial Day and so hotels here are either expensive or booked in-country.

We looked into flying somewhere for the weekend maybe Aleppo or Cairo but plane tickets were really expensive. I met the president of Jordan's airline last week and he said worldwide plane tickets are expensive because of fuel prices - so I can't blame Jordan (or its high taxes) for the high ticket prices.

We turned next to our fall-back - let's go to Israel and watch movies (although yet another movie theatre opened this month in Amman - bring the number of movie theatres up to 6 - all with multiple screens). We saw Iron Man this week which I recommend. Anyway back to Tel Aviv planning - our favorite hotel (because it is inexpensive and near beach) is booked! And I don't think it is even a holiday in Israel (and certainly no Jordanians are going there). The next hotel recommended by a friend who used to work in Tel Aviv was also booked.

Thankfully, we think we have made reservations. Art films here we come! (We have seen Indiana Jones posters here so we don't have to travel to see that one.)

Jordanian movie theatre trivia - movies cost $7 in all of theatres except the new one where they cost $8.50. At the two newest theatres you can also pay another $5 extra to sit in the VIP section which really means sitting in the back rows. Like in Europe (or at a play) your ticket has a seat number on it. The new theatres all have stadium seating and they sell the same movie snacks as in the States although I have never seen anyone buy the snacks mostly because their are so few customers at any given movie. Only when we went to the Jordanian movie Captain Abu Raed was the theatre even half-full. Usually there are less than 10 people. $7 is a lot of money in Jordan and you can buy the DVD for $1.50 at innumerable shops.

Another day another reception

Good article in Economist on Palestinians

The amount of evening events I go to is mostly up to me. They aren't usually very fun and are mostly akin to when you go to a conference or training session where you don't know anyone and on one of the nights the conference organizers throw a cocktail party and you can't tell if the people who are talking to each other ACTUALLY know each other or if they are just making small talk.

Tonight I will be attending a reception held by the Central Bank (like the Fed but smaller and staffed by people who will answer my phone calls) in honor of a conference that is starting tonight on Islamic Banking. This means it will be a cocktail party without the cocktails - this is not necessarily a bad thing in Jordan where the wine is bad but the fruit juices can be outstanding. I still remember a particularly good strawberry juice at a reception in honor of some software launch at the Customs authority.

Last Wednesday, Dan and I both went to the residence of the Ambassador of the European Commission to celebrate Europe Day. During the reception Dan recognized the anthem for the EC (Beethoven's 9th or 5th) and I recognized the Jordanian national anthem which is big and booming. The party was weird in that it had very few Jordanians and mostly just a lot of European diplomats. They did have very good wine and pretty good appetizers which we ate as dinner.

On Thursday, we went to Bar Night at the Australian Embassy. This was not a formal reception but instead a monthly invitation to come hang out in their basement and drink Australian beer and grill your own lamb burgers. The lamb was from New Zealand - I thought this was weird but the convential wisdom seemed to be that New Zealand lamb is good and thus should be eaten.

Things we loved on our R&R

In no particular order although heavily weighted towards pork…

1. Getting of tour of Baltimore’s Flag Museum from our cousin Jill

2. Watching the Olympics at Mikayla’s birthday party

3. Eating ribs made by Justin

4. Seeing Falling Waters – the Frank Lloyd Wright house in Pennsylvania – if anyone is going, we also recommend Nemocolin Woods resort where we spent a rainy morning (Duffy at the spa and Dan at the coffee shop and both of us admiring the bear in their zoo high in a tree) and had a delicious lunch including their homemade potato chips and onion dip.

5. Playing with Kenai at Flagstaff

6. Enjoying a beautiful sunny day with lunch at Jaleo

7. Planning our 40th birthday girls trip to Paris

8. Kate and Larry’s wedding at the Audubon Society – especially hearing Rachel sing and seeing Corinne as flower girl

9. The crispy pork at Bangkok 57 and the shrimp and grits with bacon at Carlyle

10. Seeing ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’

11 The open house in Phoenix and stocking up on cereal from Costco

12. Visiting the new National’s park with a view of the Capitol AND imported beer

13. Meeting baby Emma


Things we didn’t love

1. Leaving

2. The surly woman at the United counter in Baltimore who made us grovel over the weight of our third bag after her colleague said “don’t worry” and after our two underweight bags were already en route.

3. Our jet lag here – although we both slept through the call to prayer last night which is at about 4 am. On previous nights Dan said “I was awake until the call to prayer”

4. Seeing ‘Deception’

5. Having to say “goodbye” to everyone we love again

6. That we couldn't make it to California, Boston, Reno or Juarez

Back in Jordan ... Jetlagged

We'll write more about our Phoenix, DC, PA adventures but know that we are back in Jordan safely. We slept really well Friday night and so I overconfidently thought - hey maybe no jet lag this time but then we couldn't sleep last night and so are now at work with dark shadows under our eyes.