Summing Up November

So November came and went with a flash.  The month started off with some hard news for work--not bad news so much as just hard news.  Two different supervisors called me over the course of a weekend to let me know they were retiring.  Ugg.  Some people might be glad to have no supervision, but I knew the ramifications of losing both sets could be big.  Plus I liked working for them.  It was a bummer.  But the work continues on and thus so do I.  After licking the wounds of those phone calls, I began packing for a much needed vacation in the US.

The day before I left, a dust storm descended on the city, blanketing everything in white...but nothing like a snow blanket.  Haha.  

I flew to the US and beelined for some hot doughnuts.  People often ask what foods I miss from America, and this is always the answer.

The purpose of this visit was to meet and get to know my nephew, Jock, and so that's what I did.  I hung out with this little guy every day.  I also went to a football game, which is what we were all dressed up for in this photo.  He is the most precious little guy, and I enjoyed every minute I got with him.

While I was home, I got a text from Maple about what was happening in my beloved city of Paris.  Oh how my heart ached.

Then, I watched as Islamophobia reared its ugly head in America and people began to react in fear and hatred instead of compassion, love, and mercy.  I was astounded as Christians spoke out that we should prevent refugees fleeing war from coming to our country for safety.  I was horrified and embarrassed as the president of my university said that we should carry guns to protect ourselves from Muslims.  Jesus taught us to love our enemies, pray for them, and bless them.  We are to be the Good Samaritan--to our enemies--and not the ones who scurry away from the difficult situation.  Jesus Himself was a refugee fleeing persecution as a young child.  This was a month that I watched the news and thought, "The whole world's gone mad.  Come quickly, Lord Jesus."

If you don't understand the process of refugees coming to America, here is a great video to start learning process.

While the world was still reeling from the Paris attacks, and Brussels was still under lockdown, I flew to England.  I never thought I'd see the day when I felt safer in my home in the Middle East than in Europe, but that day has sadly come.  One day, while walking around in Bristol, I saw this graffiti, and thought how true it is.

People are seeking safety, peace, comfort, love, truth, joy, friendship, status, power, God, and perhaps more. All of these can be found in God, who I believe IS seeking each one of us.

While in Bristol, Maple and I got to walk down by the waterfront one day.

After Bristol, we headed to Cardiff, the capital of Whales.  It was my first time there, and I was excited to see the country.  Christmas season had fully arrived to the UK, and so I got to enjoy decorations, music, food, markets, and more for a few weeks.

While we were in Cardiff, we went to the Castle, which I'll post about separately soon.  After Cardiff, we headed over to Birmingham, where I got to spend a glorious 10 days with so many of my good friends.  On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we celebrated Thanksgiving and watched football all evening long.  (Here was a first: I got to watch the Iron Bowl on a big screen TV, not streaming through the internet!  I love the UK!)  Then on Sunday, some of us ladies went to Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare.

We had high tea at a teahouse called The Fourteas.  It was decorated like the 40's, with all things from the war.  Music from the 40's, servers dressed in clothes from the 40's, menus were "ration guides" and so much more.  It was so great!  And...the food and tea were delicious, and the company great.  It was a really fun afternoon.

During our meeting in Birmingham that week, I got to have some good talks with good friends.  (How lucky I am to consider my coworkers to be friends, and good friends at that.)  We had some retirement celebrations for those leaving us.  While out in the city one day, the Superhero made me and Mrs. Superhero laugh with this mug.  I'm so glad they're not retiring yet.  They enrich my life.

Birmingham's Bull was dressed up for the holidays!

Princess William drove over one afternoon so we could have dinner and catch up.  So good to see that girl!

This sign cracked me up.

Before I knew it, it was time to head back to London to fly back to the Middle East.  On our way to church, the Soul Twin showed me this great door in Clapham.

I also liked this one just a little further down.  Speaking of church, I got to go to English speaking church for five weeks straight!!!  Not sure that has happened since 2010!  Yippee!

After church, the Soul Twin and I went for a lovely walk in downtown London in the rain, to take in the pretty pretty Christmas lights.

Even the London Eye is decorated.

The last time I was here, it was May 2000.  Wowzah.  Considering I'd been back to England so many times since then, and even to London, it was a little surprising that it took me that long to get back down to this area.  It was lovely at night, lovely in the rain, lovely at Christmas, lovely to share it with a friend.

I love the UK, I really really do.  I could live there quite easily, I think.  Only time will tell, though, where I end up after this year in the Middle East.  Perhaps it'll be back in Paris, or in the UK, or somewhere entirely new (to me) in Europe.  I didn't come away from my meetings in England with an answer, but I came away with a peace that God knows...and He'll get me there.

Camel Trek

Disclaimer: I didn't take most of the photos in this post.  I was grippingonfordearlife enjoying the experience.

Warning: There are a lot of photos in this post, most of which I didn't take (see disclaimer above.)

Maple, being the great tour guide that she is, figured out that if I do one major touristy thing a month during my year in the ME, I should be able to see and do all the big things.  So for the three-week repose I have in the ME between #teamsuitcase trip #1 and trip #2 (stay tuned!), she thought it was a good time of year (weather-wise) to take a camel trek.  She invited Curls and Fawn, and that led to other invites, until it ended up there were 7 of us going.  

I was a little excited, but a little bit nervous too.  What would 3 hours on a camel do to my back?  Would there be scorpions?  What if we were kidnapped by raiders from a neighboring at-war country who then dressed us in orange jumpsuits (if you catch my drift)?  What if I had to go to the bathroom while on the camel?  Would I get any sleep at all?  Would I show my newly earned 40-year-old-age to this young whippersnapper crowd?  Would I get cold?  Would I get hot?  (I know the temperature in the city...I don't know it in the desert at night.)  What if I fell off my camel?  How many bedouins would there be?  Are bedouins nice, trustable people?  What about all these state department warnings we've been getting about driving on that very road (that we take to get there) and not to drive on it at night?  (We drove on it in the day time.)  So many questions.  But just like my fear of heights, I don't ever want to let a fear keep me from doing something I want to do (wisdom, yes, fear, no).  I talked all these things through with Maple and she assured me we'd be safe, I'd have a chance to go to the bathroom before getting on the camel, there are no scorpions here, (I still don't believe her about that one), and bedouins are nice people.

We arrived at the entrance to the Wadi, and ate our lunch at the guide's house, in this area:

Then Salim took us outside to meet our camels.  Here they are, all lined up ready to go.

Maple loves camels and was so happy to be riding one again.  Me, I was not that fearless and didn't want to let go on my gearstick handle.

Maple had advised me during our calm-down talk the night before to sit with my legs crossed on the camel's neck--that it would give a different position to sit and enable me to change and move a bit, and thus take pressure off my back.  I tried it out almost straight away, but as my heel hit Stanley's neck, he jerked and grunted and growled in displeasure, which scared me that I was going to fall.  What I didn't know, however, was at the very moment I was moving my leg, Fawn's camel Miriam bit Stanley in the backside, hence his displeasure. Fawn was kind enough to take a picture of me.  You can tell my smile is still in slightly freaked out mode. And you can see how close Miriam's mouth is to Stanley's backside...

I've ridden a camel before.  Twice, actually.  The first time was for my 30th birthday on a desert safari in the UAE.  The second time was on a beach in Morocco during my first trip there.  So I am familiar with it, although not for 3 hours familiar with it.

Salim started us out in two lines, with the camels tied to one another.  He sang most of the trek.

Stanley was tied to Pearce's camel, and he wanted to stay nearby.

Pearce did a good job leading our line of camels.  His camel was very obedient and well-behaved.

This is early enough in the trek that I am still having fun...and still holding on tightly.

I really think Stanley had a small crush on Pearce's camel.  Or his love language was physical touch, because he wanted to stay very close and nuzzle with his buddy.  Both camels would stop for snacks along the way.

Look at that sweet face.  Stanley and I were getting along just great.

Stanley and his buddy, having a little chat.  They really did get along splendidly.  No biting between them!

What it looked like in front of us about 30 minutes into the trek.

Again, with the "I'm having fun!" face.  (That face changes later.  Keep reading.)

Because of the biting incident earlier, Miriam had been untied from Pearce and my chain of camels, and Fawn was given permission to jockey Miriam on her own, since Miriam wasn't really a team camel.  After a little while, we noticed that Fawn and Miriam were getting further and further behind us.  No matter how hard Fawn tried, she couldn't get Miriam to go the same speed as us.  Also, Miriam kept stopping to graze at every bush.

Salim was in the front singing, and didn't notice how far back Fawn was with Miriam.  Then, Miriam wandered off the main path.  Bad camel.

We finally got Salim's attention about the dilemma in the back, and he had to walk back to rescue Fawn.

He told us Miriam is a very lazy camel.  Fawn lost her jockey privileges and got tied to Pearce's camel...which put her side-by-side with me and Stanley.

Fawn thought maybe Miriam didn't like her hat, so she shared it with another camel.

Meanwhile, Maple was still having a grand ole time.  We noticed that her camel was foaming at the mouth...

...because her poor camel was dragging Herman, Curls' camel.  Nearly the entire trek, the rope between them was staunch, because Herman did not want to go as fast as Maple was leading him (which mind you, was not fast at all.)

The drama between Stanley and Miriam continued for nearly all the rest of the trek.  Miriam would get near to Stanley and try to bite him again and they would fight, and my leg would caught in the middle, crushed between the two harnesses.  Here you can see Fawn telling Miriam to behave and me eyeing my leg safety zone.

We apparently weren't the only ones having problems keeping the camels far apart, as you can see here.  But we were the only ones with fighting camels.  Multiple times, Salim would put a muzzle on Miriam, but she was smart enough to figure out how to get it off and would bite again.  Mean Miriam.

Curls had no problems at all with Herman.  He was a chill camel.

They'd stop to snack from time to time.

Can I just say that there is absolutely nothing attractive or flattering about being on a camel?  Every picture that someone took of me looked awful.  If the television camera adds 10 pounds, being on a camel adds even more!  You can't sit right.  Every part of your legs are pushed in funny directions.  It's just awful.  This was the only picture I saw that I was okay with.

With Pearce in the front, we asked him to try and get a selfie of all of us.  Since there are already 1000 pictures in this post, I'll spare you the very funny attempts (all 14 of them!) he took until he got this one with all 7 of us.  Curls and Herman are chugging along in the back at Herman's chill tempo.

So the first hour was fun, especially once I was able to relax a little bit and figured out how to put my feet up and move around a little bit on the camel.  The second hour, however, was much more uncomfortable, despite the fact that the scenery got prettier and prettier.

We saw that campsite in the distance and wondered if it was ours.  Our hopes were dashed, however, as we kept on trekking.

Another campsite, another time our hopes were dashed.  By the start of the third hour, I was in terrible pain.  My thighs hurt.  My bottom hurt.  My shoulders hurt (from gripping the handle).  My feet hurt (from keeping them pointed out so as to better kick Miriam whenever she came near Stanley).  My legs hurt (from getting crushed between saddles).  We'd passed from fun to not-so-fun anymore.

It got sandier and sandier, which would make you think that the ride would be softer.  Not so much.  Because of the sand, the camels had to slightly trot to move easier, and we'd go up and down a lot more.  The bouncing was not fun at that point.  But the scenery was amazing.  I tried to take my thoughts captive and just focus on the scenery and not the physical pain.

We were in a place called Wadi Rum, which is where two famous movies were filmed: Lawrence of Arabia (because it's where the real Lawrence marched through in real life!), and the recent film The Martian.  It is said to look like Mars on Earth there in Wadi Rum.  I can see it.

Salim was tired of our lazy slow moving camels and got way ahead of us for awhile.

Apparently everyone in our group liked taking pictures of Salim from behind, with the desert out in front, because every single one did.

No campsites in sight, I thought Salim was going to just have us sleep on the sand...

He knew what he was doing though, as he's been leading treks for 22 years!

On and on he led us, singing all along the way.

Apparently, you're supposed to take shadow pictures when on a camel.  I didn't know.

Good thing others knew and shared their photos!

More Mars photos.

(You'll notice there are no more friend photos at this point, because none of us were smiling anymore.  )

At the 2.5 hour mark, my backside had actually gone numb, so I wasn't in as much pain as I'd been after 2 hours.  Still in pain, just not as much.  Ha!

I just marveled at the beauty around me.  You can see in this photo, the sand changes color from red to yellow.  There was almost a distinct line where it happened.  That was cool.

Despite that the Martian was filmed here, I didn't expect to see any martians wandering around near those rocks.  I did hope to see a bedouin camp, our bedouin camp...but to no avail.  

We stopped by this rock to "watch the sunset" (which was behind the rock).  We were a little confused because we didn't know if he wanted us to get off the camels to watch it...but they weren't sitting.  They were just happy to eat.  And we were in enough pain that we were ready to just get to the camp and be off the camels permanently. So we didn't stay by the rock very long, and continued on to our sight.

Suddenly, we stopped and Salim was getting camels to sit.  There were no tents anywhere in sight.  All the camels were sitting, but Stanley wasn't going to do it on his own.  Maple caught this awesome reaction on my face as Salim yanked Stanley's chain and his front legs went down.

Apparently that part was either painful or scary (or both).  You can see Pearce giving Stanley a "you better behave, buddy" face.

Then Stanley got distracted by a bush and wanted to eat, and forgot that he had to put his backside down.  My face was when I was saying, "You gonna sit, buddy?"  (Check out Fawn's face on the left as Miriam was sitting.  Haha.  Getting on and off a camel is by far the funniest part.)

Eventually Stanley did sit.  I wanted a picture with him, but I couldn't get him away from his bush snack.  I eventually had to pull his guide rope, and this was the closest we were going to get.

Look how sweet he is.

I mean, who couldn't love that face?

Maybe it's a face only a momma could love, but I loved it.  Camels are awesome.  Painful to ride for 3 hours, but awesome and worth the pain.

Me and Maple with Stanley.

She can't ever be serious and let us have a good roommate photo opportunity, can she?

Neither can the Newbie to the group.  Salim took two photos of our whole group with our camels, and the Newbie was looking in her bag for both of them.  Front and center and not looking at the camera.  Bummer.

As I mentioned, there were no tents in sight, so we wondered where our camp was.  Salim led us through a crack in some rocks...

 ...and there was our camp down below, nestled in a perfect hiding spot by a bunch of really high rocks!  Here is one of our tents.

A welcome sign painted on the rocks.

I was so excited!  Bedouin tents are cool!

We went for a quick hike before the sun set and it would be super dark.

Sunset in the desert.

Back at the camp, we moved our beds out of our tents to sleep outside under the stars.

We had dinner inside one of those tents there.  The bedouins cooked us a traditional meal, with meat and veggies that were roasted in an underground pit, and some hummus and bread and such.  It was so good!  (Somehow, I didn't get a photo, sorry.)

We played hand and foot for a couple of hours and had fun talking and laughing.  There were other tourists there as well, and they played another game nearby in the dining room tent.  (You can see some of the bedouins in the top left corner.)

We slept under the stars, which was amazing.  One of the things that astounded me the most was how silent it was.  There was no city noise.  No cars driving by or honking.  No sirens.  No call to prayer.  No man with a megaphone selling stuff.  No appliances humming.  No birds or bugs chirping.  No leaves rustling in the wind.  Nothing.  It was as though the sand swallowed up all noise and made it a black hole of sound.  I loved it.

I wish I would have put my glasses on multiple times during the night to see the stars, instead of just the one time I did.  I also wish I would have gotten up early at sunrise to go spend some time with the Lord in that awesome place.  Oh well, live and learn.  Next time.  In the morning, we had breakfast, and a few minutes to freshen up in the bathroom (the bottom left below), and then it was time to load up in the jeeps to head back out.

The girls rode in the back of one jeep, and Pearce rode with some other tourists in the back of the other one, which you can see here.

So glad I didn't have to ride a camel 3 hours back into town!!!  I hurt all over with muscles I didn't know I had for multiple days.

It was such a great trip!  So much fun!  I'd probably even do it again.  I wouldn't mind spending a day there, hiking around the wadi, next time.  Even though it was super cloudy that day, I was so glad.  We didn't get sunburnt, we didn't get hot.  It was perfect.  One of the reasons I didn't use the photos I took was that they nearly all came out blurry as I bounced along on the camel.  I did, however, take my real camera (and not just my phone) for the trip, and once back on solid ground, I took this photo.

Favorite.  Camels are awesome.  Bedouins are nice.  The desert is beyond beautiful.  Friends are fun. If this is what the #40nJordy year is going to look like, it's going to be a great year.