King Tom uncommon is back!

Well I am back in Cairo now...with dissapointing news. I lost my camera! All the Jordan and Turkey pics are gone! Ouch! But whatever it really doesnt mean anything all said and done. My perspective on life has already changed soooo much.

I have settled into Cairo once again and am studying Arabic here as well as living in an apartment with some cool guys and visiting griends from the past trip here. It is a great place but very large and lots of traffic. My stomach is well accostumed to many kinds of microbes by now so the battle with the street meat is being won by me!

I traveled to Alexandria with my friend from UW and his family and that was quite a nice trip. We also met a really nice young guy stuyding at Al Azhar and we have been touring around quite a bit...visiting the graves of Imam Shaffi and others.

I am going to keep this one short as quite catch up and then write a bit more about my thought about being six months into this crazy thing tommorow inshAllah!

Indiana Bones and the Fast Crusade

Petra was a highlight of my entire trip. I have always wanted to see this place since I was a kid watching Indie try to get the Grail! And now I ve seen it! It was amazing. I spent an evening and a full morning hiking around the whole canyon which is much more than just the Treasury buliding. I met the leader of a mosque in the town of Wadi Musa and it just so happened that his brother worked at the entrance to the park and got me in for free both days! I sat and had tea with him in the morning and then headed back off into the park just after sunrise and hiked to comanding views of the whole area. I also stopped and had tea with some Bedouins who were trying to sell the tea but I didnt have change so they gave it to me anyway...and then I gave them ten dollars because they were just too nice. Then around the bend was a little girl who was selling trinkits who at age 6 or so had amazing selling techniques. She also made tea in a cave and managed to sell me a rusty spoon from "nabatean" times for another ten dollars. THese things were only a gew dinars/dollars or so but I gave them gifts because not many tourists make it out that way...it was well off the beaten path. I loved the time to be in nature by my self. I like to share experiences with people but nature is one place I like to be alone. It was a recharging experience.
At the same time I heard angry speeches in the mosques...it is not that they were bad but people are fed up with the situation in Gaza. Everywhere the TV is showing the carnage and I had a few tear a few times. It is very difficult being so close to the disaster which is taking place in Palestine. I pray that ends soon...like now.
On the way back to Amman I made freinds with a buch of studnets on the minibus which was a good time. It made the three hours go by faster. Then that was followed by the craziest cab driver ever! Not in driving skills just in bat shit crazy! This guy was wild. He was saying...in very fast colliquial arabic...that he loves Bush because with high fuel prices he gets more customers because they don't want to drive! He was also saying let the Palestinans die...he was plain crazy...at least I hope so. I was glad to get out needless to say.
I have been laying low in Jordan and resting alot. I'm excited for Egypt on Sunday and seeing my friends from back in the day and from UW. People are blown away by this trip and quite frankly so am I. almost 6 months now! Pics coming soon from JOrdan on Facebook.

Jordan almonds

So I hae since moved on to jordan and back into the middle east. I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand I feel very comfortable in these countries...espcially this one for some reason. I like speaking arabic and I am familar with the food etc. On the other hand the situation in Gaza makes being so close to Palestine very tough. A day doesn't go by with our getting a lump in my throught. I hate the thought of war and people dying for silly reasons and the thought is inescapable here. But rightfully so. Life isn't all Turkish house and meal to fill your belly is it. The media here does what it does best and innindates you with images at every chance...but I can't help to have much sympathy for all of the innocent people who are dying because of military prowess. If militaries fought militaries...this would be different but it is not the case.

i took a visit around to some places and visited some of the companions of the prophet Muhammed (pbuh) grave sights and at one point was able to look straight into the West Bank. On another day we were at the dead sea and once again was hit with the fact that Palestine whas just Kilometers away. I felt excitment on one hand and then the crushing pain of reality on the other that just south of us there was termoil and death. Quite a juxtaposition. This did not deter our plans however. Us being me and two pakastani brothers I met at the guest house of Sheikh Nuh's Zawia. They were great...from the UK ...one of them had planned a tour to Syria and was now doing research for a posible tour to Jordan. It was nice to visit these places with knowledgeable lads and it was nice to hae the company as well. We visited many graves in two days as well as the supposed tombs of the prophets Joshua, Shuyab and Noah (pbut). We topped the trip off with a visit to these wonderful hot springs under waterfalls in the middle of a desert canyon! Nice way to relax the mind.

amman is very relaxed to me. I love the company here at the zawia and being around Sufis again is very nice. The quality of education here is top notch. The city itself is not extremely exciting but it seems like a decent place to live. The people at the zawia all dress ery traditional and so the driver did not recognize me when I got off of the plane in my western clothes.

The land is very beautiful in a desert fashion and I hope to head off to Petra tommorw and wee the famous rock dwellings from Indiana Jones and the last crusade. Looking forward to that. Other than that I am taking it easy a bit and eating lots of delicious shwarma! Missing all of you.

End of the Turkish road

The last week in Istanbul and Ankara went very smoothly. I arrived back at the dorms in Istanbul, and one thing I loved about these places was that I had many press confrences! Meaning, all these young guys gater around me and a translator and I re tell the same stories oer and over! I love it. I felt like a super star ha ha. The program continued and the people I was with, espically my shining star Utku planned trips to the topkopi palace and other places including more pleaples house and thier food! I gained some necessary pounds in turkey. (I'm afraid they are already gone though.) I also made it back to Ankara to say goodbye to my many new friends there and was welcomed by snow. It was cold! but I have to say that it was nice to get a proper winter. I have never met such warm and wonderful people before in my life. It took me years to gather friends like these and now I gained at least a hanful if not two more in one month! I'm am going to miss Turkey for the rest of this journey and until I return I am quite sure.