Merry Christmas

My bestest birthday present

My New City

I recently 'broke fast' with my language helper's family. It was quite the meal. We had chicken,rice, and almond dish, chicken and onion wraps, rice/minced meat wrapped in grapeleaves, squash filled with minced meat/rice, various salads, and traditional apricot drink, mint tea, and drink made from dates. Also here are some pics from my new city.

creative drying

This place I'm staying has a beautiful courtyard with all sorts of plants and flowers, but no place to hang my clothes to dry, so I had to get creative :)

Hey, its me and my new haircut. I was told haircuts in France were expensive and most likely wouldn't be able to communicate how I wanted it done. So I thought I'd wait until I got to Jor where I'd have a better chance of getting what I wanted. But I didn't know I would be getting the triple de-lux haircut down at Saleem's.
I had just a bit of trouble communicating what I wanted, mainly b/c there was someone in the barber's shop that actually spoke english....and he confused us all. But after we got what I want settled, it was great. Afterward, he washed my hair. Its always weird for me when someone else washes my hair, and it obviously doesn't happen to often. This had an added scalp massage and I found a new tickle spot on my forehead where the hairline is. It took all of me to keep from laughing and squirming when he put the water nozzle on my tickle spot, but I couldn't keep in the HUGE smile that came across my face.

Then the strangeness began. I thought we were done. But he guided me back to the chair and put some cream type thing in his hand. I thought 'Oh, he's gonna style my hair', but then he instructed me to close my eyes....not a good sign. So, then the dramatic pause, do I actually close my eyes? I did. He began to rub (not massage) my face and neck with too little cream. It became much like a indian burn and then he did some weird stuff by leaning my head back and putting his chin (scruffy mind you) on my forehead and pressed down. My ears had never been manhandled like that, not even when I was wrestling! I believe it only takes 7lbs of pressure to rip an ear off, I felt mine approaching their threshold! Then the beating of my back and neck. I am sure it was meant to be a massage, but it was more like punishment :) Then he said we were done. I was expecting a smirk from the guy who spoke english-seeing as I got the 'special treatment', but nothing. I asked him if this was normal. 'oh yeah, normal' was his response. Then, as I'm standing there talking to the guy, the barber dude starts up again, beating my back, neck, then continuing down my legs and my oddly enough, my sides. I did somehow escape without bruises. I think I'll keep looking for a barber.

snippets from Marseille

Me enjoying one of the regional favorites: Mussels. I believe every little restaurant had 'em! So I thought I should atleast try it since SO many places were offering. It was good. They were cooked in some sort of garlic and onion stew and having a BUCKET of them helped to fill me up. It was also my first coke in the region for a deal, only 3euro for 4 ounces!




What do you mean take my white socks off? The result of bearing your pasty legs that have not seen the sun in years to the intense sun of Southern France



Can you spot where the band aid was?

Goodbye France, Hello JOR!

I have said my goodbye to Marseille, spent a little time to see a wonderful person in Paris, and now I'm in Jor. adjusting to a new country, newish language, and new friends. I have visited here before, but this will be my first time living here. So right now I am slowing getting to know the city. I have a huge mall within walking distance which is nice (read: starbucks) They have friday/saturday weekends here, so that will take some adjustment as well. I will hopefully have some pics to add later!

Bastille Day

Well, my July 4th was without fireworks, so I celebrated with the French on their '4th' called Bastille day. These fireworks were shot over the Med. sea! It was quite a sight. Now, of course, I was not accustomed to people bringing their OWN fireworks to a show. Having m-80's explode around you as you walk down the street is quite nerve racking!
I wish I had a video of the mass exodus that occurred after the fireworks! Glad I survived :)

4th of July

For the 4th of July, I gathered with some teacher friends and grilled out. It was actually quite chilly!

Paper Fun

I had a fun experiment with paper recently: Why not make your own paper!
all you need is old paper, LOTS of water, and a blender!

Open Mic Night

We got talent
Yes we do
We got talent,
How 'bout you?

Paris in Pictures

My Parents in Pictures

I Promise...

Easter Present

Isn't that lovely, if only bunny poop was really that tasty...its not kids, trust me.

Desert Vacation

I recently took a vacation into the desert and on this vacation I realized how selfish vacations can be, or really, how selfish I can be on vacations. I saw the ugly face of selfishness arise several times as we had two distinct agendas at work on this vacation. Two of us who went on this vacation live in country had the lovely thought of getting out of the big city and out to a more relaxing, place where we could drink coffee and talk or read or listen to music and if there were some interesting sites to see in the towns we visited, to peruse those as well. The other, I would say, more touristy agenda at play involved stopping quite often to take random pictures of people who didn't want their pictures taken, or haggling with boys selling rocks on the side of the road for long periods of time, or saying extremely culturally inappropriate things and then laughing at it as if it were all right, or telling endless stories about himself or famous people he knows, or well, I could go on and on. So as you can see, things didn't go the way I wanted to, and oh did I boil inside...and I acted like a child unfortunately even to the point of pretending to be asleep to avoid listening to some endless series of stories. It took a little while for us to find a common ground to vacation on, but we did! A story I know about a 'wee little man' that was unloved and not honored in his community was honored by the Good Teacher. When he teaches us to love, he doesn't give stipulations to love in this situation, oh, but you don't have to love in this other situation, he just says love....So through it I think I grew a little, or at least realized areas in my life where I still need to grow.... I did have a good time riding a camel, spending the night in the desert in a Berber tent, exploring Kasbahs, seeing a movie studio (Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, Babel) and a beautiful gorge (which was similar to a wind tunnel!), awesome oasis's.

My Blog

Well, my blog was recently deemed a 'spam blog' by blogspot and shut down temporarily. What is a spam blog you say?

"What Are Spam Blogs?

As with many powerful tools, blogging services can be both used and abused. The ease of creating and updating webpages with Blogger has made it particularly prone to a form of behavior known as link spamming. Blogs engaged in this behavior are called spam blogs, and can be recognized by their irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text, along with a large number of links, usually all pointing to a single site."

*OUCH* Irrelevant AND Nonsensical text?!?! I know I'm not the best writer in the world, but that hurts, blogger folks. Kinda feels like my blog is bleeding with red ink from some english teacher.

They did however, give me an option to have someone from their blogger staff go to my site and see if their spamblog sniffer program made an error. I am happy to say they recanted and my blog is regular ole blog now and they sent me this letter:

Hello,

Your blog has been reviewed, verified, and cleared for regular use so that
it will no longer appear as potential spam. If you sign out of Blogger and
sign back in again, you should be able to post as normal. Thanks for your
patience, and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

Sincerely,
The Blogger Team

So I suppose that if i wanted to, now would be a good time to make my blog a spam blog since it's been cleared :)

anywho, more posts/pics/vids of my recent vacation (which I needed a vacation from) to come

Happy Valentine's Day

I remember giving WWF wrestling valentine day cards to all my female friends....man, wish those days were back...yeah, those college years were nice.

Official Pants-Holder Edition

I was invited to this marathon to hold my friends pants while he ran. I was honored.

Understanding Mr. Rogers

I use to watch a show called Mister Roger's Neighborhood It perplexed me some when Mister Rogers would come in into his house and take off his jacket and shoes, and put on another jacket type thing and more shoes. I can relate some now without having central heat/air. The buildings here tend to hold in the cold, making it cooler inside than outside typically. So I have started to wear a jacket inside (as well as houseshoes as tile floors are like ice). Now I think Mister Roger's did it to be comfortable, while I do it as to not lose feeling in my extremities

and this is how i'm keeping my hands warm these days

Happy New Year

The cows came away unscathed, but the sheep on the other hand... Mor. seems to be the happening place on New Years.
There were approximately 5 million sheep sacrificed in Mor. on New Year's Eve and with prices going up this year, to an average of $350 for an average sized sheep, that's alot of spending! (Especially when that's about an average monthly salary here)But on the other side of the region, there seems to be a need of some training on how the sacrifice is actually done because there were some injuries over the holiday.

Now for something completely different