Tourists and Tour Guides

Well, another semester has been put to bed. That's two down, seven to go until the end of my contract...not that I'm counting!

These last couple of weeks have been very laid back around the college. After administering and marking final exams, and taking care of all the administrative tasks that accompany the end of a school term, there was little work pressing. I did have some tweaking to do on my semester-long projects, and Darren has been meeting with his teammates for next semester, but we were able to spend a good deal of time with his parents and still get everything work-related accomplished.

Speaking of Darren's parents, we sent them off to the airport last night with a trustworthy driver. They should be arriving home in about 5 hours' time, I think. We had a very busy, very fun-filled week with them. A trip to the camel races, desert safari, overnight in a Bedouin camp, visit to a family farm, BBQ with Darren's boot camp crew, silk painting class, campus visit and 'job interview' for Doug, henna application, visit to the Islamic Museum, browsing at the Old Souq, trip to the Oryx sanctuary...it's hard to believe we fit it all in! We now feel like seasoned tour guides and we're ready to show our next guests around our city.

But first things first - Darren and I are heading to Jordan tomorrow for a week. Our private tour is booked and paid for and all we have to do is pack our bags. We've heard nothing but good things about Jordan and we're really looking forward to seeing Petra, sleeping overnight in Wadi Rum, and swimming in the Dead Sea. I don't know if we'll get a chance to head up to Mt. Nebo or not (it's not on our current itinerary) but I'm going to ask about it when we arrive in Amman.

When we get back we'll have a day to recover and do laundry before jumping into the Intersession. We're at work from May 3-July 14 before we get a break for the summer. It's getting hot here, so the coming months are sure to be a challenging ones. But I think we'll be up for it - after all, we will have just had a week of being tourists after a week of being tour guides.