i wholeheartedly give up studying tonight. just not going to happen until i get to journal. i've just cleaned up my room, and new additions to my room include two rocks from Petra, a bottle with sand in the design of a camel walking in the desert, and a film canister of red sand. that and some more stamps in my passport and a few very dirty clothes.

where to begin. so, i haven't traveled that much. but Jordan is BY FAR the most breath-taking, the most BEAUTIFUL place i've ever seen. by far. i already know that whatever i say won't do it justice. i also already second-guess myself, wondering if maybe my wonder will fade, maybe it was because it was so recent, and did i feel this way when i left Kyrghyzstan? Guatemala? Grand Canyon? other random places? but i don't think so. i guess time will tell, but i think i sort of fell in love with petra and wadi rum. and i would go back again in an instant.

so last week, i called the American embassy in tel aviv to ask if there were any travel advisories against going to Jordan from israel, and they said nope. so marni, her boyfriend jeff, and i left friday morning for Eilat, a resort-ish city in the very southern tip of Israel. it has beaches on the Red Sea. it was about a five hour bus ride. grueling bus ride. very hot, even with feeble air conditioning. just long and uncomfortable. we spent the evening in Eilat, jeff and i swam a bit in the Red Sea. i was like wow…! i'm in the Red Sea!!! it's salty. i don't know that i want to go in the dead sea, bc it's supposed to be that much more salty! yuck. but it was cool. then we got drinks at a hotel we sort of snuck into, had an overpriced dinner, and stayed in a dorm room at a hostel in eilat.

the next morning we left to cross the border, which is very close from eilat. i have a picture of me walking through the "no-man's land" between Jordan and Israel, heading toward the Jordan side, with a big "welcome to Jordan" sign in the background and Jordanian flags around. crossing the border, there are some departure/entrance fees, etc, but no big deal. from the border, we took a taxi to Accaba which is a city like Eilat on the Red Sea. we had a disappointing lunch, and then headed off to go snorkeling.

oh, let me tell you that Jordan is not really the place for eating. at least this is true judging from our eating experiences. maybe you'd have better luck, but oh well. Jordan is also relatively expensive to travel in. like compared to Egypt, where food is like a quarter, a meal in Jordan will cost you about 3.5 dinars, which is about five dollars. so not that expensive compared to what we pay in the states, but relative to like Turkey, it's expensive. and the food doesn't taste so great…water is also pricey inside the city of Petra, like 2 dollars for a 1.5 liter bottle. at every meal we ate in Jordan, we had this flat, wide pita bread. except it's not soft and fluffly like Israeli pita, it's very flat and pretty dry. actually, it's more like the pita you'd get in the states.

anyway, so we went snorkeling in the red sea! wow, lots of fish and coral! some pretty large fish. so many colors. and bright colors like hilighters! i saw a pair of these things that looked like squids, they were the neatest things. i don't know if they were squids, though. but they had this neat sort of wavy/stretched out skin(?) that would ruffle, ripple in one direction to move forward, and in the opposite direction to move backwards. not a fin, but like a border along the body. almost like a bed skirt. they were really pretty. they say some of the best snorkeling is in the red sea, in the Sinai. it was good, but i feel like maybe it's somewhere else that has the best snorkeling. the coral reefs and fish were great, but i feel like there's got to be better somewhere. i remember (maybe it's just my memory) seeing things that were really cool in the bahamas a long long time ago, on these little coral reefs they had. but maybe it's bc i was a lot younger then, and the memory is disproportionately cool.

anyway, it was a lot of fun, even though we didn't stay for too long. i got sunburned on my back. then we went by taxi to this place called Wadi Rum. a "wadi" is a riverbed or a valley. but i think maybe they use this term to name places that also used to be a riverbed, but are no longer. like the name just stuck. anyway, Wadi Rum is the place that made my heart just beat like mad. again, i'm already second-guessing myself. was it really so beautiful?? was it that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and if i saw it again would i wonder what was so great about it?? or is my memory right, and it's gorgeous. i'll believe my memory is right until it's disproved or something.

wadi rum is like a big desert filled with fine red sand, with big red mountains rising up out of the sand. the mountains have all these patterns in the rock, made of sandstone. and they've been carved into different shapes and many crags and caves by the wind. the individual mountain clusters are separated by each other by pretty vast expanses of sand. the entire place is vast. and dotted with sparse desert brush. we rode through wadi rum in an open air jeep. it was so fun. i never knew a jeep could travel so well in sand. it's like the jeep almost makes its own road through the sand. very fun to have the wind running right at us, and being able to see all around. gorgeous. we drove to a sunset point, where we climbed up a little bit. the sandstone is great for climbing. beautiful beautiful beautiful. the desert is just breathtaking.

that night we drove on to wadi mousa, which is right outside of the city of petra. for those of you who don't know, petra is where they filmed the very last scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. you know where they go through this canyon and find this huge entrance cut in the side of the mountain, and inside is the final resting place of the holy grail. remember? anyway, that entrance they filmed is called the Khazneh, the Treasury. they called it the treasury bc people believed that there had to be treasure hidden inside somewhere. it's actually just a façade. not a real building. it's a façade for a tomb. inside is usually just a chamber, no real rooms or anything. there are many of them, all cut right into the rock, into the side of the mountain, the same hue, the same texture, the same feel. they are beautiful.

we stayed in a hotel, and the next morning we went to petra. petra's an ancient city that was inhabited by the nabateans sometime around 300BC-106AD. the location was a good one bc it's protected on the sides by the canyons, and it's also hidden. they supposedly thrived in organizing trade routes from the Mediterranean and the middle east, until goods started traveling more by boat through the red sea. anyways, they had a lot of contact with romans, greeks, and others, and in their architecture, supposedly there is a lot of mixed influence in their work. the city was "lost" for 700 years or something, and rediscovered by a swiss who went sort of undercover, posing as an arab who wanted to make a sacrifice on the tomb of Aaron. there were rumors that a phantom city hewn into the rock existed, but no one really knew about it, bc the Bedouins protected and kept it hidden.

anyways, the Bedouins still live there. many of them work in the tourist business at petra. owning shops that sell jewelry, sand things, maps, postcards, etc, and who offer rides on camels, donkeys, horses, etc. i need to learn more about the Bedouins. apparently there are different tribes of Bedouins, and some are still nomadic, and some are less nomadic or not at all. the Bedouins we saw at wadi rum lived in tents, nomadic. but the Bedouins of petra seem to live in a village not far from petra, in regular apartments. but then these Bedouins don't always go home to their village, lots of them sleep and stay in petra, living in the caves that the nabateans used to live in.

i've never been to a place that's so strongly a place of ancient history. like i've never been to rome or Greece, or Egypt, or the pyramids at mexico. so this was my first, really. and wow, it gives you an appreciation for ancient history. it's just really interesting. it's like everything you're looking at, a people used to live there, made all these amazing things. really remarkable. you can almost feel their presence left in their marks.

one Bedouin was really nice to us, invited us into his shop for tea, and played his mandolin-esque guitar. i don't think it's a mandolin, but it's shaped like one, with a convex back. 12 pegs for strings, but i think he only had ten strings on it. he played and sang, and later he took us up to a good site to see the sun set. he said i was a good climber! to me, that was a huge compliment! these Bedouins grew up in petra, and they know every inch of it. every cave, every path, every stone. and can they climb! so to be called a good climber by a Bedouin from petra is like a huge compliment, even though i'm sure he's saying, a good climber for a tourist ;) i don't care. he also said that if i had more time, he would teach me to climb like a Bedouin, but that it requires like four days. he said he'd take me climbing in wadi rum. i would LOVE to do that. i really wanted to camp out a night or two in wadi rum, but we didn't have time. and i really would like to camp out in petra a few nights too. so i would so love to return and spend like a week there.

petra is great when the sun is setting and most of the tourists have left. they stop letting tourists in at 6pm, and around that time, most people have gone, bc as it gets dark, you can't really climb trails so well. and also people think they need to be out by 6pm bc the way the sign's written, it sounds like it closes at 6, so you need to be out. but actually you can stay pretty much as late as you like. it just gets much more quiet when the tourists have gone home, and the Bedouins start closing shop and relaxing, and drink tea and play music and sing. they are really pretty friendly. there's just a feel to the place that returns when the tourists are out. and the Bedouin feel or something, of people who love petra and live in it, and are part of it, takes over. and it's much nicer.

so as i said, i think i was quite taken with Jordan, wadi rum and petra in particular. more so than my travel companions. they had a great time, but i think i was more wowed by it, and more drawn to it. and it was interesting, bc i was saying how i would love to come back, and that i want to visit again. but their mindset was like, it was great to have come and seen it all, but been there, done that, and there are so many other places to see. and that you have regrets leaving a place, and want to return when you didn't get to see everything. i agree, there are so many places to travel. to spend a week to return to a place you've visited seems kind of wasteful. but at the same time, i don't agree that you have regrets leaving a place bc you feel you didn't get to see everything. i mean, i'm sure that can play into it, but i think there are also just some places that you fall in love with. places that you would visit time and time again, just bc of the place. bc of the place itself, the people, the culture. not exactly bc you want to see more, do more. but bc of the place. like some people just love paris. and it has nothing to do with having to see the Louvre bc they didn't get to do that. they just love paris. they love the feel for it, it's a city they love. new york city is like that too. people fall in love with nyc, and they return there again and again, and it's the city itself that people love. the place. not bc they still need to see something in it.

i feel like i have a taste of that in Jordan. it's the place. it doesn't have to do with seeing the winged lion temple that we didn't have time to see.

along with this idea, i think now when i travel, i see things sort of in connection to missions. just because my two major travel experiences overseas have been in the context of missions. so when i travel to somewhere, it just brings back memories of the other times i've traveled, and missions with it. so in a sense, i look at things with missions eyes or something. mildly, not like gung-ho, convert convert, etc. just i associate things. anyway, so this idea of loving a place sort of just sunk in. i remember that aibek in kyrghyzstan told me that he really loves kyrghzstan. specifically. like distinct from Uzbekistan, distinct from Tajikistan. he had a particular love for kyrghyzstan, and the people of kyrghyzstan. i remember this only vaguely, bc i don't' think i really understood this idea of being called to a certain nation or people. i kind of thought when people go on missions, they just sort of choose a place. maybe based on need, and vaguely on what area of the world they'd like to be in. but this idea of such specificity was really unfamiliar to me.

now, it seems to me that there is no way, absolutely no way that anyone could go on missions to anywhere BUT where s/he fell in love with that country, people, culture. i mean, in LOVE. bc it's like missions is a choice. no one actually forces you to go become a missionary in some country. you make a choice. and it's voluntary. and how could you choose to go unless you really loved that place. i think it'd be impossible to go, or impossible to stay in a place for missions. impossible to give up so much that we have in the states unless you really fall in love with a place and your heart goes out to it, and you want to be there. how could you possibly give it all up for some very theoretical idea that a certain people group needs the gospel. i feel like it's not so rational. i think it's much more of a gut feeling. that you are just drawn to this place, and you want to commit your life to living there. how else could you manage? how else would you adjust and have no bitterness or regret? how else could you even consider raising your kids there? i say it's impossible.

anyways, that was a revelation to me. i think if God ever calls me to full-time missions, He is going to have to put a place in my heart deep deep inside, some sort of unearthly love for it.

interestingly, when we were at petra, we heard that it's fairly common that these European girls marry bedouins! marry! like the subject came up bc we were having tea and this white girl came racing down through the siq on a camel, followed by a Bedouin on his camel, and they were shouting and laughing to one another, and she was speaking fluent Arabic! so it turns out she's a german girl, and she's married to that Bedouin guy! although she only lives in Jordan for something like three months out of the year. but still. and arabs take more than one wife, so i don't know. it was just surprising and interesting. shocking even. and also impressive that this girl was fluent in Arabic and was like one of them.

another thing was seeing how poor the people seem. i heard tourists complaining how the people try to rip us off, charge us more than what something is worth, etc, etc. i guess i feel like they're just trying to make a living, and so what if they're making some money off of relatively well-off tourists. and i feel like their tactics are by in large not sneaky and mean, the way some taxi drivers will put on a meter and then drive the longest way from point a to b. it's like you see what you'll get, and you decide to buy it or not. anyways, it bugged me a little that it sounded so much like these fat cats were complaining about something they didn't get. maybe it's my self-righteousness or something, but i feel like maybe they forget how much it was not their choice to be born in the place they were born, and that they could have been born in petra as one of these. i think i just felt sharply aware that it was just circumstance that our places weren't reversed. duh, i mean this is one of the classic most cliché things, but it bugged me, bc i felt like they were ignoring that fact and had little insight into how difficult the lives of these bedouins must be like.

i just spoke with jane about my trip, and she told me she knew a girl at Princeton who grew up in Jordan and came to the states for college. she experienced major major culture shock. i'm sure. i wonder how it was for her growing up in Jordan. i mean, i didn't see the other cities in Jordan, so i don't' know what it's like, but judging from accaba and wadi mousa, it seems like it would be very different.

what else… oh, so it makes me very happy that i finally got to travel somewhere. my disappointment in not getting to go to Egypt was pretty big, and this makes up for it. it also made me happy, bc i think i kind of found something that is uniquely me. like davehong has talked about the curse of being the youngest, having trouble finding your own niche and your own thing to do. actually, in our behavioral sciences class, they talked about this. they said that the oldest child just picks whatever, and each successive child has to find his own role in the family, own place in the family, interests, etc. so the younger you are in the family line, it's like you have fewer and fewer options before you to distinguish yourself in your interests and your role in the family. anyway, so although i discovered i like to sing in college, because my sister also sang in college, and had told me before i left for Stanford to think about joining a cappella, i kind of discount it as my very own interest. i guess bc i feel like it wasn't my idea, even if i took ownership over it eventually and made it my own. but yeah, i did the piano, viola, model congress, science Olympiads, etc, stuff bc of my siblings. and i never really did anything to branch out on my own. i think i've found something that i love on my own, and it's these hiking, more outdoorsy and adventurous things. i really enjoyed climbing around petra, it was such fun. and i really love hiking. it's just great to be traveling and outdoors. like i said, i would love to go camping out in wadi rum and learn to climb. my sister loves to travel, and i think even my brother does too, even though he hasn't gotten to travel too much, so i can't claim traveling as my unique passion. but i think i can claim this sort of hiking stuff as mine. why is it so important to claim it as mine first? well, i think i'm learning it's not so important for it to be unique to me, as long as i make an interest my own in the end. but it's nice to have something that my brother and sister don't. i feel like they each have their own interests that are pretty clearly defined. my sister's strong interest in fine arts. my brother's strong interest in Go and fishing. i'd like to claim this sort of climbing/hiking/getting dirty stuff as mine. it reminds me of when i used to want to be a national geographic photographer. my mom squished that idea really well back in middle school. but i guess there's still a part of me that wasn't completely squished, bc i think it's coming back. who knows, i could be wrong. it could be a passing thing. but i don't think so.

i'd also claim running as something i've made my own, but i'd have to admit that it originates with other people. mostly Irene who's taken my hobby jogging to a higher level by having made me train for a half-marathon, making it possible that i could even really run one, and even train for a full marathon. she nurtured this interest, and now i hope that i've found a real life-long one. but who knows. when things get busy, i don't have time to run, and once you break the habit, it takes some effort to get started again. and when i'm in residency, will i have time?

but it makes me glad to feel some ownership over these things, even if it's kind of silly. and i'm glad that these things are good for me too-rough traveling, hiking, jogging. i took my resting pulse this morning, and my pulse was 55! in high school it was like 90. lately it's usually around 70, and i think all the activity just recently brought it down. so i feel healthy. and that's nice.

anyways, i should get to bed soon. i don't know if i talked about everything i wanted to. oh, actually i didn't. i have some comments about traveling with a couple, being the third wheel. but i'll save it for next time. but i gained some insight into how intimate couples are. leaps and bounds more intimate than regular friendships, and i think in a slightly different way. but way more intimate than friendships. and i also had some interesting thought experiments from scenarios, like how would i feel if this had happened, and how would i have reacted, how would it have been if i was the guy? etc, etc. anyways, next time.

last thing, thoughts of missions, as always, just revive my worries about how my life will be spent. will it be wasted? and i pray to God that He won't let me waste my life. that somehow He'd pour out grace that would not let me forget what's important, won't let me search for satisfaction in things that don't satisfy, will grow me in my love for Him. and that i could believe He is willing and able to equip me with everything i need to discern and follow His will to the very end. all in the mundane day to day things. forgetting the spectacular and the things that sound cool, like being a missionary. but just being faithful.

[2.22a 2001.05.30]