Saving the Best for Last: Exploring Dubai & Sharjah

Abu Dhabi's new souq

Abu Dhabi Corniche

 My time here has come to a close - and I spent the last weekend of my two and a half-month long jaunt across the Middle East in Dubai and Sharjah. Abu Dhabi is the capital of the UAE, and of course the site of my dissertation research, but ...there is something about massive cities in the desert where you drive fast with the stereo up loud and the cities are criticized for being modern and soulless, but they are places where larger-than-life dreams come alive. They are cities of possibility. Los Angeles is one of these, and I didn't expect to like it before I lived there and fell in love with it. Maybe that's why Dubai immediately felt right to me: I recognized the humming of energy and big dreams. Emily Dickinson said it best: I dwell in possibility.

The Burj Khalifa by night

I stayed at the Ramada Downtown Dubai, right next to the Burj Khalifa. It is the tallest building in the world, and it's really beautiful. The hotel was really great, too. It was a quick (but sweaty) walk to Ara Gallery around the corner, which had a really beautiful exhibition on Arabic calligraphy. If I hadn't been so desperate to see Rob, I might have pawned my ticket back just to buy something so beautiful to look at.

Ara Gallery, Downtown Dubai

Backstage

I also drove up to the Museum of Islamic Civilization in Sharjah. Getting there from Dubai wasn't a directionally complex story, but the roads got skinnier and the traffic didn't slow down accordingly, so it was a bit harrowing. And the signs didn't point to where they were supposed to, which is always disconcerting. I was really thankful I had paid $7/day for the GPS, it proved invaluable.

Sharjah, of all the Gulf cities, has the jump on museums. The government has about 16 of them, incorporating various facets of Gulf history and built heritage. Many of them are located along the Corniche in or near the Arts Area in the heart of Sharjah. The Museum of Islamic Civilization is located in a former souq, and it's a really long skinny building that's quite beautiful. Due to Ramadan, entry was free and there was free parking. Fantastic!

Museum of Islamic Civilization in Sharjah, UAE

 The museum's ground floor is dedicated to temporary exhibitions, a hall on Islamic faith, and a hall about Islamic scientific and technological innovations. The display above was entitled "stretching assist." Uhm....what? When paired with the drawing behind the little mock-up, and the slicing & dicing tools in the foreground...call it what it is, folks!

Upstairs, the galleries attend to Islamic decorative arts chronologically. The museum houses over 5000 artifacts in total, and many of them are just stunningly beautiful.

After the museum, I headed to Maraya Art Center. I thoroughly enjoyed this place, even if I had to do some minor off-roading in my Mitsubishi Lancer (that's right!) to get there.  

It's the Middle East, so yes, obviously it's about camels...

Installation from The Beginning of Thinking is Geometric

by Basmah Felemban

Both the exhibitions were excellent. The Beginning of Thinking Geometric felt akin to exhibitions in New York & LA, big open white cubes that are covered in various interpretive contemporary art. In a different vein, the RE:Oriented exhibit of Arab modernists was thought-provoking (even if there was only one female artist included). While the security guard followed me around the exhibit, and I was the only one there at the time, it wasn’t as awkward or oppressive as some similar experiences have been (ie, Crafts Museum in Bucharest, Romania – that security guard takes the prize for creeper guards). At the end, he handed me a pretty sweet canvas tote with the exhibition catalogue and a bunch of swag inside. I’m a grad student, so please understand I am extremely susceptible to being bribed with free swag or food.

While in Dubai, I thought I’d check out Al Serkal Avenue, which is a trendy new consortium of galleries that have set up shop in the warehousey, industrial area of Al Quoz. Many galleries are closed or operating on restricted hours for Ramadan & August (because, really, who leaves their air-conditioned office, car or home during this heat? Really.). This crazy girl, apparently. A half-block walk from where I parked into Ayyam Gallery had me coated in a slick film of sweat, and I wished there were some way to un-awkwardly hang out in the entryway and cool down sufficiently under the A/C before any of the immaculate gallery attendants saw my pink face. Alas.

On Saturday, I visited a colleague at his university office at Al Ayn. In two days, I put 700km on the rental car and visited 3 of the top 4 cities in the UAE – much more movement and activity than two weeks in Abu Dhabi. I couldn’t help but think, at the end of my first research trip here (inshallah, one of many, if I do my job well!)…I think we, Westerners who reside in the West, perhaps judge expats in Dubai and Abu Dhabi unfavorably at times. But this is a place where people who don’t belong anywhere can belong, and as someone who belongs nowhere and cringes at the question “Where are you from?” I understand the desire to live somewhere that question is irrelevant. My professor friend here said that belonging and citizenship are different things. They are. And one of my interviewees told me, “The great thing about Abu Dhabi is that you come here, no matter who you are, and you are accepted. It is open.” And it is incredibly diverse – more than just a lip service diversity.* The UAE has made itself a land of dreams coming true, of big aspirations, of grandiose plans, and a desire to shape the future. We can criticize the Gulf and its expats for this, but at the end of the day… at least they’re going for what they want. They're doing. By putting it out there, they change the terms of the conversation and make it necessary to acknowledge them. And they may just represent a post-nationalist way of belonging.

*To be clear, diversity does not always mean equality and there are always discrimination and exploitation issues where migrant labor is involved.

The Last Weekend

Manarat al Saadiyat by night

This is my job: going to art exhibitions, going to talks about minarets (for real), and hitting up an affordable art sale (and no, I didn't bring anything home). Not bad, all in all.

Did you know minarets existed before Islam, and served a general announcement function - often doubling as lighthouses for coastal cities?

Ramadan Cultural Talks: on Minarets at Manarat

Affordable Art Sale at Abu Dhabi Art Hub

I recognize that I don't really have any right to complain about my job, especially not right now (talk to me again in winter, and I will have grounds for copious complaints)...but I'm so excited to go home in three days. It's been a long trip, and not all of it easy or comfortable. This weekend, I'm giving a talk at Art Hub, checking out some galleries and museums in Dubai and Sharjah, and visiting two friends before heading to the airport late Monday evening. Hopefully all these fun things will make the time fly by!

The adolescent phase of anthropology

This is like middle school, all over again.

I'm in this agonizing phase of crafting my elevator pitch, figuring out who I want to be to strangers, and struggling to find a good way of presenting myself. See, when you're an anthropologist, you basically hang out and try to talk to people, and then build relationships with them, so that you can understand where they're coming from. I feel like a junior high school kid, asking people to be my friend. So I've been going to art and cultural sites here in Abu Dhabi and basically talking to strangers.

On Friday, I decided to visit the Abu Dhabi Heritage Village and see what they had going on. It was surprisingly like the heritage constructions in Oman: Bedouin tents, weaving, falaj systems, and frankincense burners. And of course, displays of sailing ships in their various incarnations throughout the history of the Indian Ocean.

Empty vending machines - you shouldn't be eating during Ramadan anyway!

Abu Dhabi Heritage Village: the "Desert Environment" section

Giant frankincense burners! A Khaleeji (Gulf) staple

 Then on Saturday, I attended an art workshop at Manarat al Saadiyat. The workshop was entitled "Metal Etching," and was specifically targeted to adults. I signed up because I wanted to see what the workshops were like, and gain a better sense of the offerings on Saadiyat. Who goes to them? What are they like?  I had no idea what I was in for, and on top of that, I'm not good at art and have no previous experience with metal etching. But...gotta get started somewhere!

Manarat's workshop room

 We began by taking a piece of carbon paper, a picture of our choosing, and a metal plate covered in a blue varnish. Taping the carbon paper on top of the plate, and then the drawing on top of that, we used pencils to trace over the drawing. When we removed the papers, penciled outlines of the drawing appeared on the plate. From there, we used nails (really, long metal sticks shaped like pencils) to etch the penciled outlines into the plate. Our instructor, Fatima, explained how to do shading: essentially, with etching, you're creating an mirror image. So what you etch into the metal, even though it shows up light against the darker blue of the varnish, will actually show up in the print as black, and any text you write should be backwards.

After we finished etching our designs into the plates, we washed it in a chemical bath (you can find recipes for how to make safe, nontoxic varnish and the chemical bath here). As the plate sits in the bath, you use a paintbrush and swirl over the plate. As the chemicals interact with the plate and the varnish that's coming off, they start to rust and create these little brown flecks. You use the paintbrush to get rid of these, and to prevent the chemical reaction from corroding so deep that it ruins the metal plate. After ten minutes, you remove the plate and use bathroom cleaner (no joke!) to clean the plate.

My plate post-chemical bath

 After the plate is clean, you cover it with black ink. Then, you put it into a press with a piece of cotton paper. Fatima told us if we don't have a press handy (clearly, most people have them in their homes, what cretin wouldn't), we could "run over it with your car in your driveway." Unfortunately, we had to make do with the printing press...I'd like to try the other method sometime soon!

 I started with the far right image, of the Hindu God Vishnu, and traced that onto the metal plate (middle) and then printed it out (far left). I definitely have some work to do as an artist, but it didn't turn out half as badly as I expected. In addition, I met some of the other workshop participants, got some valuable observational data, and made some friends who work here in Abu Dhabi and in culture. All in all, I'm counting it as a success.

Art Hub's Ramadan tent

Yesterday, I went to Abu Dhabi Art Hub to attend an artist talk. They have a Ramadan talk series. I got there five minutes before the talk was supposed to start, and sat down in the Ramadan tent on the roof. About half an hour later, I asked the girl setting up the a/v and serving me coffee if the talk was still happening. Long story short, the speaker never showed, and I ended up meeting the staff of Art Hub and chatting with them for an hour...and they asked me to give a talk on Saturday!

It's been a completely uncomfortable week. I feel like an awkward teenager again, stumbling all over everything, but I've been lucky enough to meet and speak with so many key people in the art scene here and they've been open, supportive, and welcoming. A week ago, I was really afraid that my project wouldn't be feasible in the long run. But now, I have some new contacts and some openings to work with people here in the future.  I might just be able to pull this off after all, and I'm growing up as an anthropologist. Slowly, painfully, but growing up all the same.

I definitely feel like I live a blessed life. 

Some things just get lost in translation

Signs don't always look the way I'd expect them to.

 And sometimes the translations into English just make things weird. Have I been eating ...inauthentic cheese?

And sometimes, big companies like Baskin Robbins go local!

The Waiting Game: Or, Joys of Fieldwork

These days, there's a lot of waiting. I should be grateful for it, because it's a chance to catch my breath after going non-stop for ... well, a year. As my generous boyfriend never fails to remind me, it's been a busy year full of change (although I think he lets me off the hook too easy). I have never been one to relax well. It's an art, and I am a novice.

I'm here in Abu Dhabi, having put out feelers to all my contacts in the Emirates...just waiting for them to get back to me. In the meantime, it's also Ramadan - which means shorter working hours. Most places in the UAE follow the requisite 9a-2p workday, and since it's illegal to eat, drink or smoke anything in public places (including buses and taxis) during daylight hours in the UAE during Ramadan, you can't even go work in a coffeeshop for the afternoon. They're all closed. Things open up at night after evening prayer, and iftar, when Muslims break their fast. So the tea shop I'm currently sitting in is only open from 7p-midnight, daily. The weather in the evenings is nicer, a blistering 95 degrees instead of the 111 during the day.

Abu Dhabi's Corniche at dusk - today's mandatory "you can't stay inside all day alone or you'll go crazy" preventative outing

Another slight complication for my plans is that I don't have a keycard to get into the building I'm staying in, and security has to buzz me in every time I come back. Half the time they remember me and it's no problem - I've taken to trying to make eye contact and smile every time I exit the building to encourage friendly recognition - or asking questions I already know the answer to so that they remember talking to me. The other half of the time, we have an awkward conversation where I show my passport and the key and namedrop, attempting to communicate across multiple language barriers to the Filipina/Singaporean/Pakistani/Indian security guards that they should let me back in. It makes every outing an adventure. Can I go home again? Will I ever see my belongings again? Stay tuned!

I have been busy making plans, hoping that, as the Beatles song promises, life will start happening because I'm making other plans. I am interviewing the ED of the Tourism and Culture Authority tomorrow, and she has promised to put me in touch with her senior culture managers to interview them as well. Hopefully that starts the ball rolling. One of the artists I reached out to has responded to me. I have signed up for a couple of talks and workshops on Saadiyat Island, and looked up talks at the Abu Dhabi Art Hub. There are a bunch during Ramadan - and all at 10:30pm. I've been working my schedule sideways to accommodate Ramadan, but in general I don't like going out at night, and I definitely don't like going out alone at night via taxi. But I'm going to bite the bullet, because otherwise I'll just hide in my overly air-conditioned apartment and never get any actual research accomplished. And figuring out these sorts of logistical things are important - they are clues and indicators of how I'm going to have to structure fieldwork in the long-term. Important to know, but honestly, a pain in the butt and seriously outside my comfort zone. Is this what I signed up for? Oh. Yeah. I did. 

Additionally, I made an executive decision to spend the last three days (2 nights) of my trip in Dubai. I want to check out the gallery scene in Dubai, as well as the museums in Sharjah, and connect with an NYU colleague who works for the Sharjah Museums Authority.  Dubai is a 2-hour drive from here, so I wouldn't want to make the trip multiple times, and since everything is open at night, it makes sense to stay overnight rather than drive back to Abu Dhabi at 2am. In an odd way, I am looking forward to my little trip - I will have a key to my room and unquestioned access (!), wifi on my own computer (I have to borrow my host's because NYU, despite still taking chunks of my meager income for my MA degree, won't let me sign onto the NYU wifi WITH MY NYU LOGON), a car and the flexibility to go where I want when I want, and a pool. When I come back, I'll drive to Abu Dhabi to attend one final talk on Saadiyat on Monday evening, then go to the airport, turn in the rental car at 11pm, and (in sha allah) board a 2am flight to London, connecting to a 10am flight to Chicago O'Hare.

Lessons from Jordan & Musings of an Anthro-in-Training

Memorial to Moses at Mt Nebo

On Saturday after the Dead Sea, we stopped at some Christian holy sites on the way back to Amman for our final night in Jordan. First, we drove up to Mt Nebo, where God showed Moses the Promised Land (it must have been a clearer day, that day; I couldn't see much land for the haze). We also went to see the Madaba Map, at St George Orthodox Church in Madaba. It's one of the oldest portrayals of the area, and as such is an important map of Jewish and Palestinian sites.

Guard of the Mt Nebo mosaics

The Madaba map

After we dropped our suitcases off at our hotel, we returned our rental car with great relief and decided it was time to relax with a discreet cocktail at the Intercontinental. Jordanian rules about food and alcohol during Ramadan have been spotty and inconsistent, which means every time you ask if you can get food or alcohol during daylight hours you feel super awkward and vaguely like I imagine alcoholics feel. Our hotel in Petra didn't serve beers after Ramadan started at all (the day prior, we tried Philadelphia beer, a local brand - can't recommend!). The Movenpick resort only served alcohol on their roof deck, not at any of the indoor bars. When we had lunch in Karak, the Jordanian owner responded to my question "Are you open despite Ramadan" with an "of course" like my question was crazy. "Some people eat, some people don't eat, but all are welcome." And our hotel at the Dead Sea opened their restaurants for breakfast, lunch and dinner (after nightfall) but didn't serve alcohol. You could order food and alcohol at any time from room service, but you couldn't consume alcohol anywhere but your room. And at the Intercontinental Amman, you could order alcohol indoors or in your rooms but you couldn't take it to the terrace, for example. The Intercon served food regularly. I found this interesting - at some of the other places we ate, like the Movenpick and the Dead Sea, our servers were non-Arab, which makes sense why they would work in food service during Ramadan. But the places that were the most open or unrestricted were staffed by Arabs.

I had an incredible vacation in Jordan, thanks mostly to Rob. We learned a few tougher lessons, though. Before I share them, know that in Jordan, a dinar is the basic unit, and 1000 fils make up a dinar. So 500 fils is half a dinar. $1 = 700 fils, so each dinar is like $1.25.

Lessons from Jordan

1). There is no such thing as "too short to merge," "too steep to drive up," or "too intense of a hairpin curve" in the minds of Jordanian civil engineers. This makes for funny jokes afterwards, but a harrowing driving experience at the time.

2). Sometimes speaking Arabic puts you at a disadvantage. It doesn't always win people over. I think sometimes it makes you seem condescending.

3). In Jordan, you're ALWAYS negotiating. Even things like bottled water - which should be 350-500 fils - were quoted at 1 dinar (2-3x value) or even 2 dinars (4-6x). It was such a relief when gas station attendants scanned water bottles, and the price came up instead of having to haggle. Cab drivers would say their meters weren't working, and ask for ludicrous fares. For example, one driver asked
for 3 dinars, and our actual cab fare - with another driver - was 158 fils. That's 3% of what he asked! Then, that driver, who had agreed to the meter, argued that 158 on the meter actually meant 1.58 dinars, after I gave him 1 dinar to pay (and didn't ask for change). That means I gave him ~8x in tip what the fare actually cost, and he still pushed to cheat me me. The Lonely Planet, usually reliable, says that most Jordanians wouldn't dream of cheating you...but that wasn't our experience at all. It was incredibly frustrating. As an anthropologist, it's also really hard - in the US, I am always advocating for Arabs and and trying to tear down prevalent and crappy tropes about them. Westerners ask me weird and oftentimes ignorant questions about the Middle East, but I'd rather answer them than have people continue to believe in the stereotypes. In some way or another, by my profession I often serve the role of ambassador or cultural-explainer or advocate, whether I want to or not.

But when I come to the Middle East, and have experiences like some of the ones we had, or have experiences like that of being a woman in Oman, it's hard for me to negotiate...I can't lie and say that we didn't get cheated 80% of the time in Jordan, and that the only people who were really nice to us were those in fancy hotels or resorts. I can't say that it wasn't really hard to be a youngish woman in Oman or that it was comfortable to be in my own skin. But I don't want to contribute to these ugly tropes...which puts me in a really awkward position. Not all Arab men are creepers and cheats. These boxes don't contain the entirety of a culture, and can't...this is what anthropology is all about. It's about the realness and the messiness and the way things don't fit in boxes or do or occupy a space that straddles or overlaps or destroys or touches or talks back to stereotypes and accepted ideas about the world, often in ways that are difficult to comprehend.

I recognize that this is the messy part of doing fieldwork and being in this profession is dealing with people, and that social sciences is considered a "soft" science because the facts of life and human experience are too varied and divergent to offer comforting and consistent predictions or explanations. Lila Abu-Lughod wrote about the difficulty of anthropologists "writing culture," and how writing about culture can create a consistency that isn't there in real life. So here, I've tried to write an honest depiction of all of it, the good and the bad, and not cover up where the edges don't line up. It's not easy, but it is an honest portrayal of my experience and my understanding of it. That is a contribution that I can make.

You told me I was like the Dead Sea, you'll never sink when you are with me

Thursday we took off from Petra to head up north, to spend two days in Hammamat Ma'In Hot Springs at a resort. On Hotels.com, it looked like it was close to the Dead Sea.When we arrived later, our local map told a different story.

On our way up, we stopped to check out the Crusader castle at Karak. It was pretty sweet. Turns out the castle was initially built around the time of Jesus (lots of stuff going down in this part of the world at that time, it turns out) and then rebuilt and expanded by subsequent empires including Crusaders and Mamluks. Perched high on a ridiculously steep hill, it's easy to see why Karak was chosen as a site - it's easily defensible. Bonus note: during the Crusader era, they had three ovens: two for bread. This system sounds great (guess who loves carbs?).

Afterwards, we drove on to the Dead Sea Highway, meeting up with it at the very southern tip of the sea. The view was pretty amazing - you just round a bend in the freeway, and then the Dead Sea spreads across the valley below you. It's so blue. The GPS freaked out a little bit (our suicidal GPS, that kept trying to get us lost) because the Dead Sea is the lowest place on land and the shore is about 350 ft BELOW sea level.

Our GPS, the bane of our trip and our attempted killer, told us to make a right off the Dead Sea Highway to get to our next hotel. The road was one lane, and after we passed a hotel and a few houses, got insanely narrow and steep. Jordanian civil engineers have a rather loose understanding of what "acceptable grade" and "manageable turns" are - both Rob and I were totally freaked out as we basically slalomed up a one-lane road with massive potholes, surrounded by boulders and a devastating dropoff. Our little Citroen (never buy a Citroen) ate so much gas...there were points where I was afraid I was going to have to get out and push because we were driving so slowly and the car was barely negotiating the grade. Both of us were being calm to avoid freaking out the other one, which I suppose is good, but when we hit the top we began breathing easier and congratulated each other on surviving (without fighting) another attempt by the GPS to kills us. When we told the guy at the hotel what road we came on, he said, "What? There is no road where you say." Exactly.

We spent two incredible nights at the Evason Resort at Hammamat Ma'In, a spa built onto natural hot springs in a stark desert valley, a lush oasis of green between two cavernous mountains and the Dead Sea visible in the distance down the valley. It reminded me a lot of Palm Springs - same climate, same landscape....just Arab. The resort is SO beautiful, and I'm glad we arranged our trip this way, to cap off a week of scrambling around Amman and Jerash, Roman ruins, Crusader castles, and Petra with a few days of peace, a massage, and lots of time by the pool.

 We had a lovely dinner at a (the?) panoramic overlook, and watched the sun set over Israel. The food was really delicious, and it was a beautiful evening. You can tell how high we are by the road and the lights in the photo below, at the bottom of the mountain - so tiny!

On Saturday, we woke up and went for a quick dip in the Dead Sea. It was pretty trippy - you just pop right up, and the salt is so intense that you immediately feel every scratch and bug bite, anywhere there's a cut on your skin, you feel flames. Rob opened his eyes under water, and couldn't see for a few minutes. It's called the Dead Sea because all life dies in it, fish and birds can't survive the intensive salinity. It coats your skin with a weird film, too. However, it was worth the experience, and pretty fun to sit down and just be able to lay back like you're in a pool chair...the Dead Sea takes all the effort out of floating. That song is true, you'll never sink when you are in the Dead Sea. Like how I feel about my loved ones - I never sink when I am with you. You all keep me floating.

(Dead) Sea salt anyone? Dead Sea Beach

(The subject line is from this amazing song by the Lumineers, Dead Sea. You should listen to it.)

An Ode to the Rose Red City: Three Days at Petra

Safely to Petra! Alhamdilleh

 So....Monday we had a bit of an adventure. We took off for Petra, armed with a map and a GPS. The route should have taken about 3 hours, and we headed out of Amman about 9:30am. We were looking forward to getting to our hotel in Petra, which had a pool, as a reward for our drive. Our GPS seemed a little off, but it had taken us safely to Jerash and back the day before, so we trusted blindly in technology. Our first sign something was off-kilter: Rob asked, "So...what are all these signs for Iraq and Syria for?" We passed multiple exits for Syrian border crossings, which was really strange, considering Petra is in the opposite direction. Also, none of the names on the exits matched the names on my paper map, but our GPS said we were doing fine, so we kept driving (technology knows best, right? Right?). We drove past the exits for Saudi Arabia, the Jabir crossing into Syria, Iraq, and ignored the fact that the paper map showed mountains and ragged terrain around Petra and the land kept getting flatter...and the temperature kept going up.

Our hotel had warned us that the US embassy encouraged all US citizens to avoid the Desert Highway near Ma'an in Jordan, which is usually what you'd take south out of Amman towards Aqaba, and turn off at Ma'an to take mountain roads into Wadi Musa and Petra. Apparently rival tribes have shut down the freeway a few times, and these events have been violent (not systematic, but enough for the embassy to tell Americans to take the Dead Sea Highway or the King's Highway instead). Due to this warning, we had been on the lookout for any road blocks or sketchy circumstances and had planned to get off the Desert Highway long before Ma'an. At about noon, we saw two buses parked in the middle of the road and a bunch of people gathered around them in a throng. My heart started palpitating immediately, and I told Rob to flip a U-turn. I was incredibly nervous, knowing that I had brought Rob here (Nancy Lee will kill me if something happens to him here!), and it was my Arabic skills that we were surviving on...and according to the GPS, we should have been 50km outside Ma'an and therefore in no danger...

Both freaked out but trying to be calm for the other one, we drove a few miles back up the road and took the first major road heading west, towards the interior and away from the troubled territory. But the road we were on, and the town the road led to, weren't on the paper map and the GPS kept saying we were still on the road to Petra with no mistakes or corrections...confused, I rebooted the GPS, and it said something really strange...we were 72 kms from Amman. How could that be? We should be something like 250 kms from Amman...

Well...our GPS had been simulating the trip from Amman to Petra, not updating with our actual progress - we had been off the actual route for 2 hours. Turns out we were in northern Jordan, pretty close to the Syrian border (hence...the signs for the Syrian border). So whatever it was we saw in the road, it wasn't rival tribes from Ma'an closing the Desert Highway - because we were not ON the Desert Highway.

Lesson learned: technology is great, but trust the paper map first and foremost, and make sure that analog (paper) map matches the digital (GPS) map. Also, if you're seeing road signs for Iraq and Saudi and Yemen, no matter your destination, you're going the wrong way.

Our lengthy tour of northern Jordan meant that we actually ended up getting to Petra much later, as we had taken a 3-hour detour and then when we did get to southern Jordan, we got off the Desert Highway well before we got anywhere near Ma'an (safety first! Our Syrian-Jordanian roadblock, whatever it was, had seriously freaked me out). Taking the King's Highway was a much slower process, and I would argue that "highway" is a fairly generous term. Despite the slow pace of the road and its continual winding through tiny villages where cows, goats, chickens, camels and children played in the road when cars weren't double parked across all lanes of traffic, the drive was beautiful, through canyons and mountains and wadis. We were so relieved when we finally got to our hotel, having definitely taken the scenic route. We left Amman at 9:30am, and got to Wadi Musa around 6pm....most couples would have been at each other's throats in these circumstances, but Rob's patience, once again, carried us through unscathed. We rewarded ourselves with a drink at Cave Bar, a Nabatean cave that has been converted into a restaurant and bar. It was a lovely way to close a rather stressful day.

The next morning, we got up early and went in to Petra. It's 1.2 km from the entry gate to the Treasury, which is the famous (Indiana Jones) scene. But the Siq, the canyon that you wend through on your way down, is incredibly beautiful, with towering walls that are occasionally inscribed with Nabatean graffiti. I know my words and pictures are a poor substitute, but please believe me when I say this place is magic. The rock walls are every shade of rose, red, brown, charcoal, and earth, and the most azure sky is visible above you in snippets.

And then, when you think the Siq will never end, you see it. The facade of the Treasury is nothing short of magnificent. I have wanted to see this masterpiece of human civilization for myself for so long, and when I looked up to see it, I felt a stone in my stomach. It was just so beautiful.

And then I was there, standing in front of the Treasury, the Khazneh. I had goosebumps. I know it's silly, and so nerdy, but there are some places that are just holy in a way that has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with the possibilities of humanity and our greatest aspirations and capabilities.

Petra is not just the Treasury/Khazneh, though. It keeps going. There is so much to explore. When you walk further into the valley, there are so many more ruins. The valley is covered with them: the facades of tombs, homes, an amphitheater, a temple to Artemis, a monastery, a place of sacrifice, a colonnaded street...this massive valley and its walls are laced with traces of civilizations past: Nabatean, Roman, pagan, Ottoman, Mamluk...all these styles melding together in one place, all this beauty created around the time of Jesus that has survived 2000 years.

View from the High Place of Sacrifice, into the valley

Looking down onto the Tombs (in the cliff face)

The stone roof of one of the tombs

This is a facade of a tomb - musta been a big shot!

the facade of the monastery, ad-Deir

The path up to the monastery

Lunch after hiking to the top of the canyons to see the monastery

Tombs in the rock face

The Khazneh/ Treasury

New friends, who borrowed my sunglasses

We spent two days exploring Petra, getting completely filthy and covered in dust. It was worth every fils, every dinar, every time we had to say no to donkey rides or horse rides or Bedouin kid-hustlers selling postcards or jewelry...it is still one of the most beautiful places on this earth that I've been blessed enough to visit.

Last night, we bought extra tickets to go to Petra at Night. Growing up in New Mexico, I learned young that luminarias signaled the advent of Christmas every year. Luminarias are paper bags with candles inside, that line the paths and rooftops to shine the way for the Christ-child. Petra at Night evoked these memories of my childhood: luminarias lined the path down the Siq, winding through the canyon with inky black sky overhead pierced with the clearest of bright shining stars, and no real lights to dampen their beauty for miles and miles. We held hands as we shuffled our way over the stones and pebbles in the half-light, and made our way to sit in front of the Treasury, illuminated by hundreds of luminarias.

Sitting there with the man I love, with the light of hundreds of candles dancing on the facade of the Treasury, I was overwhelmed with gratitude: gratitude for all the travails of the past two years, because they brought me here; gratitude for those who came before me, who preserved this incredible piece of heritage that I might see it; gratitude to have chosen the at-times difficult but stimulating and rewarding profession that I have committed to (who gets to nerd out about interesting things in other parts of the world and go experience other cultures and others places? This is the best job in the world!). But most of all, I felt gratitude for the man sitting next to me, who loves me so much he'd drive to Syria, who understands the meaning of the word partner, who sees how crazy beautiful this ravaged, delicate, feisty world is and wants to explore it with me. I must be the luckiest girl in the world.