christmas day and gingerbread making

Hey guys! So I am writing this blog in my hotel room in Damascus... Btu I have a little bit to catch you all up on...

So last weekend on Saturday, we went to Mt Nebo and Madaba. Mt Nebo was the mountain that Moses died on that overlooks the Promised Land. It was pretty cool, but unfortunately the photos aren’t brilliant ‘coz it was a really hazy. I still can’t believe how many amazing, historical things I’ve seen. Its also kinda cool, coz you read about all these places in the Bible, and you know how you read a book and then they make a movie of it, ad then when you read the book again, you seem to be able to picture it clearer... I think that’s kinda what it’s like now reading the Bible...coz I can actually picture some of these places now. So yeah...I’m very blessed.

Classes have been good... Not as challenging as I thought it would be, but I am still learning a lot. I caught up with my friend who studies Medicine here at the University of Jordan, and that was great because I was forced to speak nothing but Arabic for a couple of hours.

We also had Christmas this week! It didn’t really feel like Christmas was coming at all, but then two days before I started making the gingerbread house and that brought on some Christmas spirit. The house wasn’t a total disaster... We had a bit of a scare when it started collapsing on us, but some skewers and cardboard did the trick, so it held together AND made the taxi drive to the house where we had lunch.

Christmas Day was great. I went to bed at 1am...woke at 3:15am to get to the innternet cafe to talk to my family and James at 4am!! I am really glad I went... But I wasn’t thinking that on the walk there... We got absolutely saturated! It was bucketing with rain and it was so damn cold, and our shoes and socks were drenched!! But it was worth it. It was so god being able to see everyone eating Christmas lunch...

We got home at 6am, thawed out, and slept for another 2 hours before we got up again. We had Christmas lunch at the Deputy Head of the Australian Embassy’s house with his family! He is studying at the UOJ language centre too, and he has been coming on all our weekend trips with his wife, Sandy and daughter Amelia. The taxi drive there was one of the funniest experiences I have had since arriving in Amman. There must have been about 8 taxi’s in a convoy and NONE if them knew the address, so Hakeem was on the phone to all of them...some of them were getting really angry (our’s was nice... Although he did call us names in Arabic and told us we’d be better off if he just drive us to the airport and we catch the next plane home...several times...) So yeah...we must have taken 45 minutes to get to a place that is 15 minutes away from our apartments. But we made it.

Their house was AMAZING! It was sooooo big. And they had it all decorated and they had SOOOOOOO much food. Plus all of our apartments brought a couple of dishes each. They had also invited some of the embassy staff from the Australian, British and US embassy’s... So there we were, a bunch of rowdy students talking politics and religion with some pretty important people. It was so good! Sandy and Rohan are just the most amazing people and so incredibly kind. It really felt like Christmas being at their house.

So yeah.. Then today we got up at 5 am to catch an early bus to Damascus, Syria. But as soon as I woke I realised I was pretty sick with some kind of stomach thing. So all day I have been pretty ill. Kristy gave me some drugs to stop the nausea and they worked well...plus I had a bunch of people praying for me...alaamdillhillah (thank God in Arabic). So after sleeping all afternoon I was well enough to wander the Old City. Still not 100%, but I had lentil soup for dinner and was able to keep it down, so that’s a good sign. Still not sure if this thing is viral, or if it’s food poisoning.

Damascus is so beautiful! I love it here. It is so clean, and there is a mixture of arab as well as french style architecture and the shops are SOOOO much better here than in Amman. And cheaper too! So I think I’ll be doing my main present shopping here. The dresses here too are so much more beautiful! And today I bought this scarf which is made here in Damascus, and the quality is so good...you would have to pay like $80 for a scarf that quality in Australia. I paid 500 syrian pounds for it, which is $15 aussie dollars!! Btw, buying presents is really hard... ‘coz everything I see I want for myself as well!

Hopefully I can find an internet cafe soon so I can post this!

Lots of love

Carly