The 30 days of Ramadan: Day 10

On the 10th day of Ramadan, my true love gave me heartburn.

We learned a big lesson a couple days ago. We were spoiled with the good life in Turkey. Our arrival in Jordan marked a turning point in our travels. In one 2 hour flight, we went from "vacation" to "trip". Istanbul is Europe. Jordan is the Middle East. We saw little evidence of Ramazan (as it is called in Turkey) in Istanbul. There was no interruption in services, people were eating, drinking and smoking all day long. We ate McDonalds in public.

Fly to Jordan. For two days we held sympathy Ramadan by fasting until sundown with EVERYONE else. This wasn't because we're wonderful and considerate people, but because finding an open restaurant or market in our part of Amman just isn't that easy.

But today was different. After washing the salt out of my eyes and nose at the Dead Sea, we were lucky enough to find a restaurant catering to tourists. We ate so well that I was going to skip dinner, if you can imagine that. After a few hour drive down the King's Highway through a few Crusade Castles (time to pick up the history book...) we arrived in Petra where the brothers that run our hotel offered us some of their "break-fast" meal (they all think that twist in meal naming during Ramadan is funny). Well, there is only one thing for us to do when a huge family-size portion plus two deserts are brought out for us. Gorge.

But now I don't feel so well...

I think we've also seen an end to good internet for quite some time. There are rumors of DSL here and there, but we're living the dial up life for now. I want to scream it's so slow. I don't know how you live like this, dad!