la mer morte

On Sunday, after a small snafu (I'll give you more details offline), I joined two of my Rhodes College friends on a quick excursion (we stayed only until Monday...all three of us wanted to take up residence here haha!) to a place I now know as one of the most beautiful in the world:  the Dead Sea.  It was an absolutely amazing experience and I am so glad that I was able to go!

First, shoutout to David M. for the suggestion of the resort--the Movenpick.  It was quite fancy and was a really great place to stay.  Can I be honest?  One of my favorite parts about this place was that it had air conditioning!!  After more than two months without air conditioning and a fan that won't work, it was great to feel the cool omfort of a/c once again (note:  while I don't have a/c in my apartment, it isn't extremely hot, and I am grateful for that...perspective, my mantra during this trip).

I'm just going to post a few pictures here from my short but very relaxing trip.  The benadryl I just took won't allow me to write for much longer HA!

On the way to the Dead Sea, we stopped at the point where Jordan is at sea level.  The Dea Sea is 390m below sea level...Wow!

Again on the way to the Dead Sea, we saw a herd of camels and their shepherds crossing the road.  There were about 20 camels all together!  A neat sight to see!

At our resort, we went down and covered ourselves with the mineral-rich Dead Sea mud.  Sunday's mud was watery and didn't stick very well--we got to the beach late in the afternoon, so all the good mud was probably gone by then.  Monday's mud was much much better!  Can y'all believe I did this?  Haha!  In this picture with me is my Rhodes classmate Claire.

Dead Sea water is really oily, not in the sense that it is thick or anything, but not what we expected.  I thought it would be gritty from the amount of salt in it, but it wasn't.  This is me FLOATING in the water!!  I can't float in a pool to save my life, so this was a really weird but neat feeling for me!

Sunset at the Dead Sea is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life.  I definitely took a lot of time to appreciate God's wonders and my life and the opportunities I have.  I know you can't see my face, but that's not the important part...Behind me is that gorgeous sunset and Jericho (we think), Isreal (Jerusalem is behind one of the mountains and you can't really see it) and Palestine.

In short, I am sooo very grateful for this experience, at the Movenpick as well as Jordan in general.  As much as I felt like throwing in the towel when I wasn't understood by people or when I was frustrated with not having water or when my project was a little crazy, this short 24 hour excursion gave me a boost to keep going and finish strong.

I'll give more detail about my trip to the Dead Sea next time (read:  when I've awakened from my Benadryl-induced sleep haha), but until then, salaam,

jMed