Middle Eastern Halloween
Monday, October 31, 2005 | Amman, Jordan
Soon we were sipping beers in a crowd of assorted Jordanians, Americans, and Europeans dressed as ancient Greeks, modern sheikhs (my pick), cowboys, comic book heroes, and animals. Good times.
Categories:
Amman,
Jordan,
Study Abroad
Living it up at the Dead Sea
Saturday, October 8, 2005 | Dead Sea, Jordan
Dead Sea: buoyancy like nowhere else. Sadly, my camera did not like its encounter with the mud. |
The Dead Sea is famous for two things, the first being that it is the lowest point on earth. Because it's actually been a few hundred meters below sea level for millennia, the Dead Sea has no outflow to the nearby Red Sea. The water that trickles in from the Jordan River and from the region's scant rainfall hardly replenish what evaporates every day in the hot sun, so the so-called "sea" is really more of a dwindling lake.
The second reason it's famous is the salt—because the Dead Sea has no outflow, sediment from the river and salt that washed in eons ago from the Red Sea just continue to concentrate. Today the water is about eight times more salty than the ocean. It's actually only about 2/3 water and 1/3 salt, which makes it uninhabitable for most life forms—hence the name—though apparently there
Categories:
Amman,
Beaches,
Environment,
Jordan,
Study Abroad
Grand Tour of Jordan: Jerash, Umm Qais, Pella
Sunday, October 2, 2005 | Jarash, Jordan
Fellow members of our study abroad group explore the Roman ruins at Jerash. |
Categories:
Historical Sites,
Jordan,
Study Abroad