Traveling Adventures Hi! Welcome to my travel journal. I created this so friends and family can keep track of me on my adventures. I'll update this when I can.

after we left petra on the morning of the 8th, we headed towards the dead sea, stopping at kerak castle on the way.  kerak castle was known at one point as the "walled city of moab" and thus learned that moab is not a native american word, but a biblical one.  this castle was built by the crusaders and had great views of the dead sea and the surrounding jordanian country side.  we explored this area for a bit and then continued on our way to the dead sea.  the castle was at about 2500ft and we dropped straight down to the dead sea at -1358.  i wasnt sure if the altimeter on my watch could even register such a low elevation, but it seemed to work without any problems.  we had a buffet lunch at a resort and then went floating in the dead sea!  it is so salty!  we had mosquito bites from egypt and they stung so bad.  one girl got some water in her eye and it was still bright red last night before she went to bed.  we walked out a little ways and then we couldnt touch the bottom anymore because you just float up.  no matter how hard you try, you cant sink far enough to touch the bottom even though it was pretty shallow.  it is really awkward floating though because your feet shoot up about a foot above the water so it feels like your head will get dunked.  also when you flip onto your stomach, your feet shoot up behind you.  you really float right on the surface.  the consistancy of the water is really strange too- it feels really oily on your skin.  after floating for a bit we had dead sea mud applied to our bodies and hair.  this mud was really really dark brown and we were all completely covered except for a bit around our eyes and mouth.  our trip leader took pictures for us so we started posing like mud monsters and attacking eachother.  all sudden about 20 random tourists were taking our pictures and telling us to pose again and these non-muddy japanese tourists came and posed infront of us, pretending we were muddy godzillas.  people were producing cell phones and cameras from all over.  i suppose they may have been thinking "ooo look at those idiots!  take pictures!" but we thought it was funny.  even the owner of the mud spa had his little 5 year daughter pose infront of monica and i pretending to attack her.  silliness.  it was really fun although really hard to get out of our hair and swimsuits!  after the dead sea we stopped briefly at mt. nebo where moses saw the promise land.  we then arrived at our hotel in madaba.  and FINALLY ditched our idiot jordanian guide.  for aunt cindy, aunt jenny, grandma and nick; this guy was a reincarnation of mataywa our tanzanian guide.  we would read something out loud to eachother and then he would repeat it like he had thought of it.  he gave us the wrong info several times.  he sapped all energy out of our group with his monotone voice and awkward pausing in the middle of sentences.  he talked nonstop while we were in the bus.  we were sitting in the back doing all we could to not rip our hair out.  needless to say he didnt get a very good tip.  well, that is about it for jordan.  today mon and i are checking out some mosaics here in madaba.  tomorrow we head for syria!  we are all looking forward to syria as it is normally the highlight of the trip according to our trip leader.  everyone here loves us because of obama and we have received discounts at several places because we voted for him.  i have been taking lots and lots of pictures and cant wait to post them when i get home.  hope all is well at home!