Ok...I am terrible. I never finished documenting my trip around the Middle East. Maybe I will someday. It was an incredible journey. I spent almost three months in the region. I visited Saudi Arabia, Oman, Jordan, the UAE, Egypt, and Bahrain; and I spent a week of vacation with a very important person in Greece after I finished my project.
To 
give you a sample, here are a few pictures from the rest of the trip:
Egypt
Oman
Greece!
Weeks 4 and 5 in the Middle East were a whirlwind of activity.
For week 4, after spending the week in Jeddah, my teammates and I traveled to Muscat, Oman, for a weekend of relaxation. After working all day on Thursday, Raphael, Stelios, and I hit the road in Muscat looking for the local market (souk).
The market was beautiful, if not as extensive as the one in Dubai. These places are loaded with clothes, jewelry, and (in Oman, at least) spices like the local favorite, Frankincense; and I managed to load up on a few things for the folks back home. The markets have been one of my favorite things in the Middle East. They are full of life and possessed of more character (though not as much choice or utility) as the megastores I am accustomed to back home.
After shopping, we headed for dinner, ending up at a hole-in-the-wall suggested by the cab driver we had taken on the way into Muscat from the airport. We weren’t disappointed. We ordered 5 things off the menu family style, including shark and a dish called “bulls eye”. I’ll leave that to your imagination (and Stelios’s stomach).
Later that night, Stelios and I camped out outside the hotel and smoked Shisha (kind of like a Middle Eastern cigar) and talked philosophy (he is Greek, after all!) in what became a nightly routine, before meeting up with another team in the area that night to do a little late night sightseeing around the city.
I slept in the next morning while everyone else went to the market, and after lunch, we all met up to go snorkeling off the coast. Our tour lasted 3-4 hours, and the coastline was beautiful. Oman has mountains that run right into the sea, and the hilly terrain creates shelves in the ocean that drop off hundreds of feet just yards from shore. The cold water brings in a variety of creatures, and our first encounter was with thousands of jellyfish that had invaded the waters. We jumped in unaware, but within 15 minutes we all notices our skin was on fire. The water was crowded with a long series of strings, but we didn’t realize until asking our guide that they were actually jellyfish. We all quickly vacated the water and washed down with vinegar (an aid for stings, apparently) and went in search of a location not inhabited by our soft-skinned friends. We eventually found a clear patch of water where we viewed sharks, coral reefs, and an assortment of other fish.
The next day my team returned to Jeddah for another long week on the job, and continued to enjoy the client and restaurants in Saudi. However, my weekend routine this weekend was disrupted as I came back to the U.S.!
This weekend I had to attend a retreat in Florida, and I got to see my Mom and Dad, my wonderful girlfriend (Jackie!), and all my friends and colleagues from back home. After more than 30 hours of travel (including 6 hours of airline delays and three separate flights), I made it to Naples, Florida where I spent the weekend eating, swimming, sea kayaking, and learning about leadership. I spent the whole time with some of my best friends, and I was able to meet my parents (who live in Florida) for breakfast Sunday. It couldn’t have been better.
Now I am on my way back to Jeddah, hopefully ready to work again and soon to head out to Cairo, Egypt…
This weekend was by far my best in the Middle East. On Wednesday, my teamate Raphael and I flew to Amman, Jordan to spend the weekend and meet up with our friend and colleague Alison. Upon arriving in Jordan I received some excellent news from my future graduate program, and Raphael and I went to a jazz bar in Amman to celbrate with a couple of smoothies and some Jordanian food. In the morning, we worked from our hotel before meeting up with Alison and grabbing a car to Petra that afternoon.
We randomly picked a driver on arrival (we just called one of our first cab drivers friends), and ours, Mowih, ended up being one of the most spectacular people I've met in my travels. Mowih is a native Jordanian with a large family in Amman. He was amazingly friendly (by the end of the trip we had learned of his near-marriage, the death of his father, and his favorite foods), and knew everything there is to know about Jordan. It is a two and half hour drive from Amman to Petra, and by the end, we were hooked and asked Mowih to stick with us the rest of the weekend and drive us place to place.
That night in Petra we went to dinner at a local place and hear some traditional Jordanian music, then ran to see Petra at night.
The ruins of Petra are tucked away in the canyons of Petra, Jordan -- a remnant of a civilization that peaked sometime at the turn of the first millennia (i.e. 1 A.D.). They are perfect mausoleums, temples, and monasteries actually carved into the face of the canyons, and they are some of the most spectacular ruins on the planet. Walking to the site the first time, everything was dark, but the staffed had lined the entire path with candles. We were the first in the procession, so there was no one in front of us, and after a five minute jog, there was no one close behind us either. It was exhilarating. The walk to Petra is enough to take your 2000 years back in time, and once we arrived, we were greeted by the main ruin, hundreds more candles, and a series of traditional Jordanian songs.
The next morning, we woke up at 5:30 a.m. to be the first to the ruins. We were almost completely alone. Picture walking the halls of a great civilization with nothing but the sunrise and bird calls to distract you from the emptiness and silence. We viewed all of the ruins at the base of the site -- dozens of facades, a colliseum, and amazing engravings -- then hired a Bedouin guide to take us five miles up the mountain (by donkey) to an ancient monastery carved into the peak. We ascended more than 850 steps carved more than 2000 years before, and when we reached the peak, we were greated by an ancient temple hundreds of feet high. There is nothing that can prepare you for a site like that. The sun was rising behind us and just catching the interior. We all went into the temple (there hours before the other tourists and so, alone) and sat talking. Leaving the monastery, we climbed a path that took us to the very peak of the mountain and overlooked all of that area of Jordan stretching in the distance to Israel. We picnicked and climbed the rocks. It was stunning.
Finishing our tour of Petra by lunch, we descended the mountain and made a last minute decision to leave the city that night and drive to the area's most famous desert Wadi Rum, before proceeding to the Dead Sea the following day. Mowhi drove us. The desert was unbelievable. We hired a jeep to take us through the dunes and plateaus. It was honestly one of the most expansive and stunning places I have ever been. Inhabited by about 1200 bedouins (and only a handful of tourists) we had the desert almost entirely to ourselves, exploring canyons, the ruins of Laurence of Arabias old home, and watching the sunset from the top of a dune. That night, we decided against a traditional hotel and the three of us stayed with a Bedouin family in the desert.
They spoke little English, and we speak no Arabic, but some of the younger ones knew enough that we could talk, and the family of 10-15 people welcomed us into their tent, made us dinner, cooked us tea around a campfire, and prepared us a bed in their home. The desert night was cold and quiet. The tent opened wide to the world outside and I spent my night with my head a few feet from the dying fire listening to the sounds of the desert before falling asleep.
In the morning we departed our family and made our way to the three sites for the day: Mt. Nebo (where Moses stood overlooking the Promised Land), the site of Jesus' baptism on the river Jordan (and the border between Jordan and Israel), and the Dead Sea.
All three were better than expected. From Mt. Nebo you can see why the valley stretching from Jordan to Israel along the Dead Sea was, to Moses, "the Promised land". On the River Jordan, we saw the very line between Jordan and Israel, viewed the historic site where John the Baptist baptised Jesus, and dipped our hands in the river's water. The Dead Sea is just as described. You can't swim (you float!), and you can cover yourself with the mud at the bottom until you are covered head to toe in black.
I've had very few chances to really walk the halls of history. This was one of my best.
My second week in Jeddah was eventful to say the least. One day into the week, 3 of the 4 people on my team lost their computers (they all crashed), and mine was in the worst condition. Something in my hard drive had literally melted, so I was without a computer for four days. It was actually kind of refreshing. I spent three days working with pad and paper, and the week flew by. And to cap the week, the weekend was a spectacular, drawn-out thing.
After an evening at the world’s most extravagant hotel on Wednesday (the Burj al Arab - don't worry, it was so expensive I think we bought one thing), I took off for a hotel in the desert called the Bab al Shams.
It was beautiful. My schedule for the weekend went something like this:
10:00 a.m.: wake up
10:30 a.m. Eat
11:00 a.m. Go to the pool
2:00 p.m. Eat
3:00 p.m. Go to the pool
5:00 p.m. Write, eat, run, hang out with friends
Midnight: Sleep
That was it – for two days.
On the plus side, I actually got some work done, I wrote an article I’ve been meaning to sit down and crank out, and I took care of a few personal things. Of course the crowning moment of the weekend was the dinner at the Bab al Shams Sunday. I was joined by my friend Bryan, and we had a great time eating, and watching the assortment of singers, belly dancers, and, for lack of a better term, colorful twirlers.
This week is full. I travel t
o UAE, Bahrain, Saudi, and Jordan in a matter of five days -- and this weekend is my trip to the ruins at Petra. I miss you all!
My first weekend in Dubai was spectacular. I already mentioned the airport and the accommodations, but the real fun here has been making new friends and being part of an entirely different culture.
Dubai is, essentially, a city full of people from everywhere else. I have only met one or two other Americans on my trip, but I have met countless Europeans, Asians, Africans, and Middle Easterners. My first night out on the town (Thursday – the Dubai weekend in Friday and Saturday) our group consisted of Iranians, Romanians, Greeks, Tunisians, Turks, Americans (two from Berry College!), Germans, one UAE national and a half dozen other folks I am missing; and walking the city the mix is the same.
Despite or perhaps because of this cultural mix, everyone is extremely open and kind. I haven’t experienced tension with a single person here in Dubai, and because everyone is from somewhere else, everyone wants to be your friend. Today was the best day of the weekend. One of my colleagues, Attila, was in town from Atlanta, and I started to morning with him and two of my new friends in Dubai, Raphael and Alison.
We went to the market in downtown Dubai where they sell spices, silk, and gold, and wandered the marketplace and surrounding areas. We caught a ferry across a river running through the city, haggled over fake Prada bags, drank kiwi juice, and generally acted like the tourists we are.
Today I am headed back out to Jeddah – but look for another post next weekend! If you'd like, check out my growing picture album on Facebook.
On arrival in Jeddah last weekend, I was gearing up for a somewhat adventurous stay. Obviously, I don't know any Arabic, and, in a business suit or jeans (as opposed to the formal Muslim garments that most Saudis wear), I stick out like a sore thumb. The hotel in Jeddah is nice, and the people have been incredibly friendly so far; but the country can be hard to navigate. In my first solo experience at the airport yesterday, for instance, I somehow ended up buying two airplane tickets -- one of which was not an actual ticket, but, as far as I can tell, just a piece of paper.
But now I am in Dubai; and things are quite different.
First, the Dubai airport is fantastic. It is probably the most international place I've ever been. Pick a country, and someone is arriving from that country in Dubai at any given time. The place is clean, beautiful, and easy to navigate; and the visa process is quicker than baggage claim in Atlanta.
Second, the people are incredibly friendly. Dubai is a city in its infancy, and there is a palpable energy here. People KNOW it is growing. They know they are at the center of a new and exciting region -- pioneering the growth of one of the world's next great cities; and they are excited about it. On the way in I sat in the front of the cab with my Indian cab driver. He has been here for nine years and seen the city evolve in that time. He was excited about his town (even if he complained about the prices), and was happy to chat about it the entire drive.
Third, there is the Shangri La Hotel. I am really roughing it.
Gourmet dining facilities. Saunas. Two pools (indoor and out). Jacuzzis. Spa. Salon. Whirlpool bathtubs. High tech everything, and a view from the 41st floor. It is one of the two nices places I've stayed.
So, this weekend I am off to explore Dubai; and I am planning a few trips to the surrounding region. Stay tuned...
I'm here. After flying through Paris yesterday, I landed at approximately 7:00 p.m. local time (11:00 a.m. for all my friends on EST). The flight was pretty uneventful. On the way from Atlanta to Paris I sat next to a retired army veteran named Marcel who was working in Burkino Faso. He was an exceptionally nice guy and helped me navigate Charles De Gaulle airport on arrival in France.
From Paris, I departed for Jeddah via Air France. As we were about to board, they held up the other passengers to allow an African man and his body guard in ahead of us. I have no idea who he was, but he was apparently important. The food on Air France was marvelous, and there were was an interesting mix of ethnicities, with a large number of Europeans (only two or three Americans). Waking up at one point, I think I saw the Alps from my window!
On arrival in Jeddah, I got through customs fairly quickly (even though one of the guys hassled me about my laptop for some reason), and after exchanging some currency I met my driver and went to the hotel.
I am right on the Red Sea which I can see out of my window. I think this should be an enlightening experience.
So far, almost everyone has been extremely pleasant (even when I have no idea what they are saying!), and even the Parisians I met were a delightful bunch.
I am awaiting visa approval, but if all goes well, I'll be headed to Jeddah this Friday. Wish me luck!
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