Entries this day: AM_walk_to_the_Last_Crusade Climb_above_stadium Dog_tired Hitomi_walk departure niveen

AM walk to the Last Crusade

8:50am AST Thursday 16 June 2005

We are now walking from our hotel in Petra: the Crown Plaza Resort, Petra to the facade that has been made famous by the third Indiana Jones movie. I am walking barefoot, cause I like it that way.

We are in a refuge of sorts, like a national park.

12:32pm

I seem to have misplaced my frisbee.

Found it; well the restaurant manager found it and had it behind the register. I had remembered correctly where I had left it.

Climb above stadium

1:34pm AST Thursday 16 June 2005

Up at the viewpoint for the stadium. Pretty good climb. I'm a bit worried about getting back on time. I'm up here with Rie and Dani now.

I'm seriously looking for a shortcut way to go back, but I don't know which way that would be. To be safe, but slower than *if* we were to find a shortcut, we are going back the way we came.

- - - -

At the same time we were climbing around Petra, other passengers were floating and reading in Dead Sea.

Dog tired

2:52pm AST Thursday 16 June 2005

Back on the bus; too tired to mail postcards. Hopefully we will find another place later.

3:59pm

We arrived at our little ice cream stopover place on the way back to the ship. There was a truck accident; a truck was turned over in the middle of the highway. Hitomi said the tire was still spinning when she saw it, so that shit just happened. Holy crap.

Hitomi walk

5:52pm AST Thursday 16 June 2005

We have arrived back at the ship and then left the ship again.. Hitomi and I are walking from the ship toward the center of town to see the huge flag and the sea and whatever else we can find.

This city seems like it has such potential for huge growth. The boulevard is new yet not crowded with traffic; there are lots of lots with some under construction. Even old houses are still being used. The Red Sea is utterly beautifully fantastic. If nothing else, I could just get scuba training license and teach people to dive here. If there were enough wannabe divers, I guess.

For some reason I was quite taken with the ice cream and its wrapper.

departure

9:29pm AST Thursday 16 June 2005

I just said bye to the Sri Lankan students, and secretly I kinda gave up on learning all their names. I couldn't keep the syllables straight in my head. I know four names, well five. I know three of the guys and two of the girls names. I just ran briefly off the boat to give them my yellow name cards.

I saw one of the guys at the door and was like, "can you give these to the Sri Lankan students?" cause they were standing right there at the bottom of the gangplank. He was like, "aw yeah, go ahead.."

"What?" ... "kickass!!" so I got to run off the boat *after* the absolute deadline for getting on the boat! Whooooo!!

10:15pm

We are leaving the Gulf of Aqaba. Lots of screams and "we love you!" and "I can't believe we are leaving!!" People are in huge spirits, chattering at hundreds of meters per second. Now Jasna, Eilat, and Niveen are on the boat. Jasna has been on the boat many times; she is the person in charge of coordinating meetings and stuff for Eilat and Niveen. Eilat is from Israel and Niveen is from Palestine.

niveen

1:08am AST Thursday 16 June 2005

This is the night I met Niveen and chatted with her for a couple hours about everything.

Niveen lives in a nightmare situation every day. Having to avoid guards and checkpoints on her way to school.

We talked about religion and god and everything. She said she would love to believe what I believe about god.

Right now I'm in Sunshine Bar with Natalie, Brandt, Matt, Adriana, Angie, Shawn, Petra, and two women I've not met before. And me. They are partaking of a water pipe. It's not actually *smoke* but it's close enough that I am choosing not to join them. I had one puff, and it wasn't all *that* good.