Goodbye, Amman - also, Petra/Wadi Rum/Beirut

The past two weeks have been incredibly busy - last weekend, we went to Petra and Wadi Rum (aka Jordan's two big tourist-y sites) to see, respectively, Nabatean ruins and the deserts that drove T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia!) to basically swoon and fall in love with all Arabs everywhere. It was awesome, exhausting, and I'll tell y'all more when I get home! Pictures will eventually end up on facebook when I stop being a complete and utter failure with technology...

The school week after that was super intense, as it was the final few days of class. I gave a presentations, wrote two essays, and sat through 4 hours of final exams and then I was FREE! To celebrate, my roommates and I headed to Beirut for the weekend. Beirut is basically the coolest city ever (its old tourism slogan used to be "The Paris of the Middle East," which is kind of patronizingly accurate - the Beirutis take their French influence seriously, more seriously than Parisians, I think), and people go to Beirut to, essentially, have a good time. Lots of bars, shopping, cafes - there are so many ways to spend tons of money in very little time...which is what we ended up doing at all of those places...totally worth it, though, just to get a different perspective on life in the Middle East. Also, Courtney Dagher - your last name is EVERYWHERE - Dagher is apparently still a very popular family name in Beirut - so now you can convince all the unbelievers who doubt your "ethnic" heritage, right? But in a nutshell, Beirut is the bomb. More detailed stories (aka not meant for the internet, necessarily...stories to come when I can talk to you guys without worrying about what the CIA will think :o) Not kidding. Well, kind of kidding.

OK, so that's why I haven't really been posting to the blog - I know I'm a fail, but hopefully this has been amusing for you, though only sporadically amusing, I will grant, given the infrequency of updates and the fact that I think I'm funnier than I am...

I can't wait to see you all SO SO SO soon (well, most of you) and some of you not SO SOON, but KIND OF soon, potentially! Getting on a plane in t-36hrs to come back to America!

Love, love, love - Amrita

P.S. I don't know if I've mentioned this here (probs not) but apparently the easiest way for most Arabic speakers to say my name is to replace the "k" in the Arabic pronunciation of America (Amriika) with a "t." I've gotten this comment from at least 5 different people....since I suck at getting people to pronounce my name without saying "Rita" or something else silly, I may be switching over to this explanation instead...