RETURN OF THE BLOG!

All apologies to those of you who intended to be avid followers of my overseas adventures in blog form. The pressures of school work and the lack of reliable computer access have kept me from actually writing the regular entries that I had promised to all.

 However, having returned to the Arab world (albeit a part devoid of felafels) I figured this was a good time to return to my felafelsophizing.

 I figure that a bit of distance from experiences can be a good thing for storytelling (hopefully my forgetfulness will help me leave out the boring bits) and that, after a long journey, some reflections are in order.

 A quick update since I haven’t exactly been clear about what I’ve been p to or where I’ve been:

 I did indeed, as promised go off to Jordan to learn Arabic. In a word, the experience was difficult. Hence no blog. In a few more words it was enlightening, at times exhilarating, at times frustrating, at times full of more chickpeas than any human being should be expected to consume. High points include making many amazing new friends, American and Arab. Low points include sleep deprivation and burning trash. There will be blogs on the more interesting bits.

 After I finished my CET studies in mid-December I headed off to Lebanon for a week to hang with this nice girl named Emma who I’d met there during my midterm break in early November. Following Lebanon I had a “Flinstones meet the Jetsons” moment where I traveled through Israel, the Palestinian Territories (well, one of the “territories”, the West Bank), and Jordan with Terry, my crazy Australian friend from the Camino, and Victoria Wolfe, aka Thomas’s sister. Special guests included high school friends, CET people, and Dylan, the coolest experimental piercing death metal artist-cum-social activist person I’ve ever randomly met at a hostel and invited to Bethlehem for Christmas.

Following this I squatted in friends’ apartments in Irbid, becoming essentially nocturnal (thanks in no small part to my growing Yemeni tea addiction), cooked all sorts of preposterous food experiments, and loafed in a way that few slackers can dream of.

 At some point I realized that all this chicken and rice had to stop and so I hopped on a plane to Prague (via Abu Dhabi, land of sand, stupid buildings, and amazing Indian food) and, under the cover of “getting certified to teach English as a second language” proceeded to swim through rivers of ham, milk, and beer. I studied a lot, made many new friends, and almost froze to death. It was basically Carleton with more dumplings.

I got fancy cake in Vienna, took a fancy bath in Budapest and wound up back in Ireland where I traveled for two weeks with Emma (remember tat girl I met in Lebanon 3 paragraphs ago?) and reunited with Rebecca of Camino fame, ate lots of scones, drank lots of Guinness, listened to some sweet trad sessions, and watched a man dressed as St. Patrick sing to some bridesmaids: just like when I was young . . .

 The nostalgia-thon continued with a return to Spain, this time accompanied by my parents. Needless to say, no one can stand and look at pretty things for hours/talk forever about politics over wine and ham like the Hildebrandts. Both were done in excess.

In order not to die of a ham overdose we headed down to Morocco which I where I am now. I am currently studying Arabic at the Arabic Language Institute in Fez (or ALIF). I’m living with a host family which, on the one hand, is great because, as the family is the center of Arab life, I get an amazing view into what life is really like in Morocco (probably more so than I ever did in Jordan, honestly). However, Moroccan Arabic is basically incomprehensible to me, as is the French people try to speak to me when I give them the “uuuuuuh” look. I therefore spend most of my time speaking my well-honed and now well-useless Jordanian Arabic to baby Mohammad who, though he lacks any true language skills (and probably even a sense of object permanence), seems to understand me.

I’ll be here for about 6 more weeks and then will head off to Tunisia for a week or so to see if it’s all I’ve cracked it up to be and whether or not I should get a job teaching English there. After that, it’ll be time to return to AMERICA!!!!!

 See you all then. In the meantime, why don’t you send me some life updates, I’d love to hear what you’ve all been up to/where you’re going.

Felafely (couscously?) yours,

Robert