reading and rebelling

having frequented almost as many used book shops as churchs, we have been reading alot on our trip. the last 2 books i have read have been 2 of my favourites and i wanted to recommend them.


"the last report on the miracles at little no horse" by louise erdrich is a fantastic book about a priest working with the ojibwe indians in north dakota in the 1900s. it is slightly fanciful with arresting language and provides a beautiful take on the plight of the american natives from 2 different religious viewpoints.


"picture this" by joseph heller is a dizzying ride through history focusing on the philosophers of ancient athens and rembrandt in 17th century holland but secretly about the US and the world in the 80's (and today i imagine). joseph heller is the author of another book i enjoyed which has transcended its novellic past and become a part of the english language. i will not mention its name b/c i am sure heller is sick of having all his other books compared to it. this novel is full of logical labyrinths, repetitiously reflective ideas, catch 22s (oops) and startling juxtapositions. it makes my mind dance (in a good way mom). i highly recommend it as a philosophy and history lesson, as well as a way to make you think and laugh out loud.





finally, i would like to share some pictures of graffiti on the wall surrounding the west bank. kylie and i returned there on saturday to visit our new friends and see the place where jesus was born when it was less crowded. we were once again astounded at the level of hospitality and friendliness we were shown.

first, the official israeli govt wall art:

followed by the palestinian side:

Wanna join my band???!???

The man of the hour...

and the day and the month and the year!! Darren has successfully recovered our pictures from our memory card. We are so happy! And through the wonders of technology we have a picture of him with said memory card three days after we shipped it from Jordan!!! Thank you Darren!!!!!!!!!!

Jerusalem Gold

Jerusalem Gold was the name of our hotel when we stayed in Jerusalem previously and I thought it would be a fitting title for this post, as you shall soon see. First off we went to the very GOLD and shiny Dome of the Rock yesterday.

The Dome of the Rock (a mosque) sits on the site of the former Temple that stood for 410 years, being built by the Israelites in 996 BCE and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon in 586 BCE. In 630 long before the Dome of the Rock was erected, the Muslims recovered the Rock (the name of the Rock at the hear of the dome) and dug it out of the dust and cleansed the area which had been abandoned for hundreds of years since the Roman destruction. (Thanks to Wikipedia with a little help from Kylie for your excellent summarization!)

The ceiling inside a "mini" dome.

We also headed back to the golden coloured (yes that one is a stretch) Western Wall yesterday. Here is Marc praying for peace in Kenya and also for the restoration of all our pictures, but mainly for peace in Kenya with a little help from a rabbi.

America's golden (just to keep the continuity of my post) boy (sic), has also arrived in Jerusalem on the same day we did. Although we have not personally seen Georgie we have witnessed the plethora of security as well as witnessed a protest by what we believe are Zionists protesting Bush's allowance of the existence of the Palestian Territories?!???? Our trip to the Holocaust museum was also thwarted today by the big man himself.




Lastly, my hair is now the colour of gold. After not getting a REAL haircut since last January I decided that Jerusalem would be the place to do it, since many girls here have very curly hair and Jerusalem has many salons. The stylists were ALL men (my first male stylist!)and I not only had my hair done by one man but four. The first combed out my hair, the second put in the highlights, the third took out the foils and washed it (I also believe he was manic judging by the speed at which he removed the foils, scrubbed my hair and nattered at me incessently in Hebrew even though I told him multiple times that I don't speak Hebrew and that I did not understand him) and the fourth did my cut and blowdry. I told the highlightist (is that a word?) that I wanted highlights the same colour as my current ones, which are about halfway grown out. He nodded that he understood and put in the foils. What I did not realize at the time was the large amount of foils that he put in. I soon found out though, especially after expeditious removal that my hair was in fact mainly blonde.

Before
After

Marc has a new look too!

The stylist who cut my hair did not speak ANY english and after trying to tell the neighbouring hair dresser that I wanted layers he said he understood. Apparently layers in Israel mean I want a mullet like haircut. I now look like an 80's rocker with my hair down. I unfortunately do not have a picture of this yet but will be posting one as soon as my hair is blowdryed when it looks most rockeresque. (If you want a preview of my hair, I look like I could be a member of one of these bands.)

Here's to seeing if blondes really do have more fun!!!

we love jordan!

the title of this post sums up our feelings about this country, its people and its sites. we would love to stay here much longer, but our time in the middle east is quickly waning and we have a lot more places to visit.

why, you might ask, do kylie and marc have only one measely picture on this post, amidst a blog known for its photographic largesse? let me tell you why... we brought our camera to a kodak shop today to burn our pictures onto a DVD and though the camera was working when we brought it into the shop, as soon as the employee plugged it into his reader it started sending error messages. now our memory card is corrupted and cant be read by any immediately handy source. this means that all our pictures from egypt, israel and jordan (including and most achingly petra) are currently GONE!! we tried for an hour to retrieve them, but the photo guy didnt speak english and our efforts proved futile and EXTREMELY frustrating. we cut our loses, bought a new memory card and walked out shaking. luckily we have our personal tech mavens darren s. and lowell on the case, and the memory card is being fedexed home for them to work their magic.

one the bright side, when we returned to our hotel, shaken and depressed, i opened our email to find a plethora of messages (we love communication). we found out that in addition to our known mkginbc afficianodos, friends and family theresa p., pam d. and nathan g. all read our blog. yaaay! thanks guys, knowing that really lifted my spirits. if any other readers (tuscaloosa alabama anyone?) want to comment and let us know that they are out there, rest assured that my spirits could still use further lifting.

anyways, after that small aside with large ramifications, i will tell you a little bit about amman. it is a beautiful city replete with the ubiquitous arab hospitality we have come to love, and without the attendant hassles of egypt. the argilaah (aka sheesha aka hookah aka water pipe) is smooth and the juice and baklava and falafels are cheap. you may remember amman from your old testament readings (nathan your dad could help us out here) as the capital of the ammonites mentioned numerously in numbers and dutifully in deuteronomy, not to mention sagely in 1st and 2nd samuel (i also really wanted to type genuinely in genesis, but i won't b/c that is going too far) in passages such as:

"and the lord god said unto them, go forth and smite all the tribes east of arnor, except for the ammonites as they are the descendants of lot and verily i say unto you that they are nice guys and stoke a mean sheesha"

deuteronomy 2:19

also in numbers 21:24

"Israel, however, put him to the sword and took over his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, but only as far as the Ammonites, because their border was fortified. Upon reaching the city of Petra, Moses saith unto the Lord, "Seriously man, do you want us to march around this place seven whole times? That's a crazy dynamic hike, and I've heard these guys make kickass baklava!"

near amman is the roman city of jerash, the best preserved of the ancient decapolis. even after petra ruined ruins for us, we still managed to wonder at the splendour of ancient rome this far from home. i would love to show you some pictures we took of jerash, but we've been over that (i'm serious about comments and emails lifting my spirits here folks!) so i found a couple on the trusty interhypersuperweb.

tomorrow we head back to jerusalem if the border guards will let us. we will stay in the old city and visit a few more places before making our way up to the galilee. don't worry, we will keep you posted. ;-)

beyond belief

petra has surpassed all of my (rather high) expectations for it. all i really knew about the place previously came from indiana jones, national geographic covers and recently lonely planet. let me tell you, it is beautiful! in addition to being a stunning archeological site, it is also a fantastic hiking/scrambling area. most of the pictures you see of petra are of the main temples, but the city is huge and spread across several valleys. we have been exploring it for 3 days now and we still did not see all of it.

let me give you some background. petra is an ancient city in jordan built into the rock of a protected valley in the first century BC and the first 2 centuries AD. the nabatean people located their capital city inside an eclosed rock valley that served as a fortress. the only practical entrance to the city is through the siq, a narrow canyon that precluded the entrance of any major military force.


the nabateans were adept at aquatic engineering and the city grew and prospered in the desert with the use of aqueducts, cisterns and canals to store rainwater for times of drought. unfortunately, the city was largely abandoned during the 5th century after 2 major earthquakes.

now the remaining rock structures have been eroded by the wind and rain into fantastic swirls of red and white and yellow and blue as the layered sandstone has been exposed.


what made petra for us was its rock temples and houses combined with fantastic rock formations and mountains. the main site areas were fairly crowded with tourists, but as we have found in many tourist attractions, if you were willing to hike for 5 minutes you could quickly find complete solitude.

every day in petra we climbed a different peak. first we would be walking up a set of beautifully eroded 2000 year old stone stairs.

then we would skip off the beaten trail to find some fantastic free hiking.




not to mention excellent rock jumping topography

and just when we thought we were in the middle of nowhere we would turn the corner to find an abandoned temple or tomb.
or a bedouin family living in the hills and raising little goatlets

or selling jewelery on the side... "only 1 denari! i give you good price my friend!"
suffice it to say, petra is in fierce competition with lamu island for my favourite place in the world thus far. i highly recommend a visit to this stunning city. tomorrow we head to amman, the capital of jordan and after that, who knows? we are really loving the friendliness of this country. crossing the border was an extremely enjoyable experience, with the border guards teasing kylie and welcoming us wholeheartedly. we are not ready to leave.

joshua's shot from the hip

Mish Mash

We haven't blogged for a while so we have quite a bit to post about. We are currently in the country of Jordan to see Petra and just arrived here this afternoon. In the last few days we spent some time in Mitzphe Ramon which is in the Negev desert in southern Israel. We plan on being in Jordan for a few days before heading back to Jerusalem and then Turkey which will probably bring our first snow in well over a year!

Before we left Jerusalem we headed to the Israeli museum. We saw some of the original Dead Sea Scrolls as well as a model of Jerusalem in 66 AD before it was destroyed by the Romans.


We also saw an exhibit on modern Chinese art that was probably our favourite part of the museum. Nothing to do with Israel but extremely interesting and provocative nonetheless.

Sorry this is sideways and since it took so long to upload I am going to post it anyways. This artist had someone write an ancient Chinese legend about a man who tried to move a mountain on his face as well as different Chinese words about fate until he was completely covered in black.

After leaving Jerusalem we headed to the desert where I thought of a post I could do. Since we haven't had internet access in awhile it will be lumped in the middle of this one. The title is:

You know you're in a militarized country when:
1. The girl in front of you in line at the Burger Inn has an M-16 on her back. (Sorry I forgot to rotate the picture but I think the gun is still visible.) ;)
2. When hiking through the desert (on a very beautiful hike I must say) you hear several fighter jets above you and then see some dropping pretend bombs.

3. At the museum there is a place for you to check your weapons. Marc also got asked by a security guard if he forgot to check any weapons he had in his bag. ummmm no.

4. Your hostel (that cost $100 #$**% per night) looks like a jail cell.

5. The hiking sign is riddled with bullet holes. I am almost out of time here so I can't upload this picture but I'm sure you all can imagine it.

Tomorrow or the next day hopefully you will see some beautiful sandstone picture on this blog o'ours. Also please keep Kenya in your thoughts and prayers. We have been watching the news with extreme sadness the past few days. The church that was burnt to the ground where over 50 people died was the city that we always did our shopping in. Hopefully some sort of settlement can be agreed upon soon!