Dead Sea and Jerash the last couple of weeks new blog coming soon

So wow I can’t believe that it has taken me this long to write another blog. It has been I think two weeks now and much has happened. As most of you know I am working all the time so I have very little down time so there is no time for me to blog although I am getting to continue to meet a lot of interesting people. And as I said that this huge network of people that we are building up will begin to start to pay off and this week it did. We signed over $57,000 this past week and we haven’t even scratched the surface or begin really going after any of the corporations yet. So that is very exciting news. Well I have this weekend and last weekend to tell you about.

As for last weekend it was very short on Thursday night we went to the interconitential hotel which is actually very nice. It has a huge pool area that a night they turn into several different them restaurants each with their own live music. We decided that we would spend the night at the Arabic one, who had a real live 4 piece Arabic band playing. After a while I couldn’t tell if they were singing or reading the Koran (not the right spelling I know) but anyways all of the tables had the hookas and then after the band would take a break this women came out and started doing belly dancing as they call it, which is basically a women gets up and dances with her stomach showing, but she had this cane that she kept swinging around very interesting to say the least. Then the next day we had arranged with one of the tourism offices to take us on a tour of Jerash ( more http://www.bamjam.net/Jordan/Jerash.html ) anyways it is about one hour north on the direction towards Syriah. It is a great drive along the way because you can see all of the olive farms where they grow all kinds of different olives both to eat and for the olive oil which is harvested each year in October. A lot of the aribic food they drizzle the olive oil on top of so it is a big part of the cooking. In fact the driver said that every year he buy barrels of it.

And along the way we stopped at one of the many fruit stands selling everykind of fruit that you can imagine but what they really wanted us to buy was the eggplant which was apreantly in season at the time. But what I was really amazed with was the baby apples I mean I really can’t believe how small they were (photos at http://community.webshots.com/user/chadgriggs ) anyways so we tried a couple and then what the driver really was excited about was the cactus. I know I was a little skeptical at first but anyways he was saying that it is the choosen fruit here instead of an apple his kids would eat some cactus. Anyways its not the typical texas cactus it is round and still has the thorns on it. But you cut away the outside layer of skin and it is green inside and really sweet. I don’t know if it is worth the trouble I guess the closest thing that I could compare it to is a pinapple.

When we finally got to Jerash the first thing that you notice is the roman pillars and ruins that are in middle of the city. And they said that there is still tons of ruins yet to be uncovered but where most of the people lived is where the housing for all of the people lived today it is underneath and so it probably will never be uncovered. But there are tons of roman pillars and the guide did a thing where he put a stick under the pillar leveraged by a rock and the pillars actually are moving just ever so gradually to adjust for the winds (this is why they believe because they give just a little bit why they have lasted so long) anyways what I was really impressed with was the roman theatre which was amazing. Round shapped with a stage and the actual seats where numbered in greek, and they said that there was actually a VIP section even back then which was the seats to one side that would be in the shade during afternoon and early evening performances. But what was the coolest part of all was when you would stand in the very center on a certain stone and you would speak every seat in the whole place could hear you perfectly. And if you would step one foot to anyside it would through the hole thing off and it would not be half as loud. It was one thing that really impressed me and showed the intelegience of the Roman people even way back then. There were also remains of Churches that were where John the Baptist would preach at when he was in town.

Jerash is said to be one of the largest collection of Roman archetcture outside of Rome and Amanada said that she liked it better then what was in Rome. That afternoon we had a traditional Arabic lunch there in the area of the ruins. It was quit good and since it was a buffet I was able to try many different types of their food. On of the main things that you find is a big bowl of yellow rice with pieces of lamb in it that has been soaked in what they call yogurt (that it has been cooked in and very thin) but it was a great meal and very fun. On the way back instead of going up through the mountains we went through the valley to Amman where there is the largest Palestinian camp. And why they call it a camp is because originally it was just a camp site where the Palestinians put there tents when they forced to leave the West bank. Anyways they finally built buildings and houses/apartments but very close together and since it was just kind of done piece by piece there is no real planning of it and there is no real roads just walkways but today it is home to a little over 100,000 Palestinian refugees.

Sadly the next day we had to work but we ended up signing a $20,000 contract so that’s not so bad after all. Then this weekend was a lot of fun too. On Thursday night after working til about 7 or so and taking a nap Colleen and I went to dinner over by the mall in an area that was apearntly the big hanging out for the upper class lots of porches etc which I really hadn’t seen since leaving Dubai. The food was good Italian and we had nachos for an apitizer which were ok considering that they were outside of the states oh how I miss my Mexican food. Which was one thing that we discussed the fact that almost anywhere in the world you can get Chinese food, Indian food, Italian food, etc even Japanese food with such a small island. But you can forget Mexican food I just don’t understand.

Anyways then yesterday we got into the car and drove down to the Dead Sea and spent the day at a different hotel this time at the Movenpick ( website http://www.moevenpick-hotels.com/hotels/dead_sea/ ) it is right next to the Kempenski where we stayed at last time. Very nice and built in the traditional Arabic Architecture. It had several cool pools the first of which was one that was a circle infinity pool (well it seems like all of the pools here are infinity pools [an infinity pool is one of those that if built next to a lake or ocean it looks like the water from the pool is that of the same in the ocean/lake]) anyways the cool thing about this one is the fact that it is one of those sand pools. Where the pool actually has a sandy peach and the bottom of the pool is covered in sand. This area was covered with kids and in fact at one point they even had a clown come out and the kids went nuts. Definetly a nice touch 5 star all of the way. But we finally made our way to the spa. Which they invited us to spend the day at of course there was a womens only side in fact of the room was where the women who were “covered” could go and lay out and get some sun but there were walls so you couldn’t see in. But the spa had two areas one with a infitinty pool which had the bar and restaurant all of this being inside the spa. And the other side was where we spent most of the time at the group of Hydrotherapy pools. They have these in the spas of most cruise ships and it is where there are different stations inside the pool where different jets, boubles and fountains do different things to relax and take tension away for you. And there are water chairs and places where you could lay down in the pool and have the boubles massage you. As you can imagine after a very intense week of no telling how many hours it was great to relax and unwind.

Lunch time, I got to enjoy my first Friday brunch (which is equivalent in the Middle East to Sunday Brunch in the states) but anyways it was fantastic with every kind of meat, seafood, dessert (even a chocolate fountain) and even aribic food it was great. After words we made our way down to the sea, and got all mudded up again and jumped right in. All though we were missing the Kempenskis bamboo walk way into the sea because on your way in at this beach you had to suffer stepping on all of the jagged rocks, I really was surprised that they didn’t do something about it. But it was amazing just laying there and enjoying floating around felling the salt and different minerals massaging you.

Later we went back up to the spa and experienced their indoor dead sea pools. They had two of them on was half regular water and half dead sea water and the other was all dead sea water. But this was a different experience from the sea because we were actually in an indoor pool with dim lighting when I would lay back and just float as if I was on a pool mat I almost feel asleep a couple of times. And finally the dead sea sunset is one of the best I have seen in a while. We got to enjoy the infitity pool, corona, and seeing the sunset into the Isreal mountains looking onto the cities of Jerusalem in the background. A great way to finish of the day.

On the way back it was night and very interesting takeing the winding roads through the mountains back into Amman. Along the way it was fun getting to see the huge firwork shows that were put on after each wedding. Again I can’t believe how many people get married here everyday. I guess the only time people get married is during the month of June.

Speaking of I just got back this afternoon from my first Jordanian and for that matter Arabic wedding. It is interesting it was this womens that we have become friends with who is in charge of the business center here in the hotel. She makes my life so much easier handling all of my faxes, printing, and technology troubles. Anyways this morning she swung by the hotel to pick up Amanda who she had invited to go get her hair done with her for the wedding (the same day of the wedding) now this is a great sign of the generosity, welcoming friendly spirit of the people of Jordan. I know in texas it is a special thing on the wedding day for the bride to go to the spa and get all of her makeup and hair done only with close friends and family there. But here she is hosting Amanda someone she has known for less then a month – I hope this shows you how friendly these people are. Anyways Amanda said that they went to her house first where she got to meet all of her family and then to the church, and then to the spa with all of Manals friends.

So the wedding is at a church on top of one of the hills right next to the Four Seasons and there is a band of 2 drummers and 4 bag pipe players (we see this all the time in the lobby as the wedding party walks through the lobby on the way to the receptions here at the hotel) anyways it is a beautiful church they are greek orthodox ) there are about four priests that spoke at different times where they constantly directed us to stand and sit. It was all in Arabic so I didn’t understand a word that they were saying but still it was a lot of fun. And towards the end they signed there names to a book where the priest made the bride, groom, maid of honor, and the best man all kiss the book. Then they touched two crowns that were linked together to the bride and grooms head several times and then finally put them on their heads then joined all of the wedding parties hands together as they circled the table about 4 times with the priest throwing rose pedals at them. It was a lot of fun. Something interesting during the wedding different men that were in attendance would just get up and leave and go hang out outside where you could see them through the open windows. Then the wedding party went outside and the band was playing and we formed a line to greet both sides of the family and the bride and groom. Both sides of the family were so thankful that we were there, and it was a good chance for us to thank them for including us to this special event.

So I started writing this one and was planning on coming back to it and then posting it but I have had several emails asking me if I am still here so I will go ahead and post it incomplete. Sorry you wouldn’t believe how buisy work has been I promise to do better in the future if anyone still reads this. Email a short message if you still read this so I know to keep trying to write or not. Thanks.

Chad