Turkey Again

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted here. My college and its dormitory are closed for two months, so I came to Turkey with the Turkish students. The trip was definitely not boring, but bus trips through Syria never are; we took about five different buses, the first of which was at least eight hours late, most of them were far too small, and one of them wouldn't start and had to be pushed. The Syrian police love hassling people, but we eventually managed to get through the borders. It has gotten harder since the niqab was banned in Syrian schools. The police are always extremely suspicious of me, wearing Arab clothes and carrying a Canadian passport; they think my passport is fake and tell me I'll have to spend days in the police station waiting for permission to travel through Syria.  But they let us all in eventually. As usual, none of us used a bathroom the whole trip, bus station bathrooms are that bad.

We saw two of the Syrian border officers get into a fistfight in the border station as we were crossing into Syria from Jordan in the wee hours of the morning. They had to be separated several times by another border officer; every time he moved away from them they would start punching each other again.  There were many bus loads of travellers lined up in the border station waiting, and they had been waiting for a long time, but the police mostly stood around smoking and ignoring them.  And then the fight happened.  I don't know what was going on.

I spent a week and a half in Ankara, and have been in Istanbul for about a week. I love Istanbul and wish I could spend more time here.

Figiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Spitting Camel.

I can never think of post titles. I don't think we should have to have them.
(Thanks to CrazyNewt for suggesting an awesome, eye-catching title. I have a huge mental block lately.)

As quickly as the Turkish group arrived, they're gone again, after only two weeks. The college is closed for the next several weeks, and there are only three or four other people in the dorm. It is blessedly quiet, for once, and miraculously the internet is also turned on. Good thing, because the college library is also closed, so I can't use the computers there.

I have a week of intensive classes with one other student, and then a weeks' vacation before the next semester, when another Turkish group arrives. Our college is planning an umrah trip to Mecca during the last week of the vacation, but we don't know yet if it will happen. It is very difficult for single women to get into Saudi Arabia.

We went on a lot of bus trips around Jordan while the Turkish students were here. We visited all sorts of neat places - Ahl al Kahf, Petra, Wadi Rum, the Dead Sea, the Roman ruins at Jerash (actually just the gate, the girls wanted to go shopping instead), Ajloun Castle (one of Salahadin's castles), the shrines of three Sahaba and a battle site in Karak, tons of masajid and shrines, and other places that I can't remember right now. I am too tired to write about it now, but I did ride a camel, and almost fell into the Dead Sea (luckily someone caught me, and it isn't very deep around the edges).

I miss the Turkish girls, but I am very tired, and I am glad for the quiet. Alhumdulillah.