Unraveling In a Humorous Way

Honestly, I believe it'll take months before I tell all the stories and happenings from the Middle East. So I'm just going to have to start somewhere to help myself process a little bit.

Interesting facts about places we went and things we saw/did:

- The first four days we were there, we were in a sand storm. Its like a rain storm in that you can't see the sun, and when its really bad you can't see the cars in front of you. People use their headlights (although still  driving like maniacs) and sometimes you can see headlights but not cars.

- In the first country we visited, it didn't get below 96 degrees. It was 98 degrees F when we landed at 11:30 PM and the temperatures continued to climb throughout our time there. Yikes.

- Many Arab places don't use toilet paper...they have a water sprayer to wash yourself with after you go to the bathroom. My thought is: you just made yourself wetter...so how do you dry off? But I've heard its very refreshing to use the sprayer and the women would rather be wet than dry.

- The first country we were in was a closed country, completely Muslim, no alcohol to be found anywhere (all cocktails are virgin, no bars), and prayer calls happened at all hours of the day and night (which you know all too well if you sleep in a house across from a mosque). But the country is actually made up of 50% foreigners. It wasn't til day 5 that we met a native.

- A popular food choice over there is raw meat. Lamb and beef in particular. If you eat raw meat, it has to be prepared a certain way and the animal had to have been killed within the day of it getting to your plate. Salmonella anyone?


- The first restaurant we went to in country #2 had food options such as: beef tongue, brain, testicles, pancreas, fried fat, eyes, etc. The people that took us there thought it was awesome and wanted to us to try everything (because the team that came before us wanted to do this, so naturally they figured we'd want to also)...however we were not that team. :) Really terrifying way to start a trip...

- In conclusion- I'll leave you with a picture of me and our group's hookah/shisha/narghileh. This is one of my love languages...in strawberry and mint.