Chasing Dreams

The past few weeks have been a roller coaster. The lowest, most despondent moments of my first year of teaching, exacerbated all the more by my lack of a real social and familial network over here (not to mention a real dearth of Christian fellowship), followed by back-to-back good news: first, another potential avenue to get my novel published when I get home in June, followed by the news that my best friend in Dubai, Martine, who had been home in California due to a family emergency since November (the day after we got back from Jordan), was coming back to Dubai. More ups and downs preceded and followed, but most of my ups since seem to be writing/publishing-related.

On the novel front, I’ve picked up the pen again, rewriting the novel (entitled From the Ashes, for those of you not in the know) into what should be a final draft (to be tweaked between its completion circa the first of May and its hopeful submission for publication in late June). This past week alone, I’ve written over nine-thousand words on it. As most of you who know me well are aware (especially those of you who’ve known me well in these past two years), there are few things in life that I want more than to be a published novelist, able to write for a living and travel the world researching ideas and locations for subsequent stories. And as God is wont to do, when I was the most distraught I’ve been in years, He goes and opens a window, a door, and possibly a whole slew of portholes in the possible attainment of my greatest dream. I have been blessed with at least two individuals who are well-connected in the publishing world who are interested in my work, at least one of which is eager to get my finished novel into the hands of the right people to get it published. Given, neither of them have read the latest version of the novel, but I don’t think it will disappoint. That’s the aforementioned door and window. Here come the portholes.

This weekend, the inaugural Emirates Airlines International Festival of Literature is coming to Dubai. Dubai Festival Center, actually, the mall that is located just a ten-minute walk from my school. Forty-some-odd authors from all over the world are coming to participate, giving presentations and hosting Q&A sessions, as well as availing themselves to fans for book signings, chats, etc. I’ve bought tickets for five sessions with five different bestselling authors (Peter James, Kate Mosse, Frank McCourt, Wilbur Smith, and Philippa Gregory), and I’ll be meeting Julia Glass, NY Times bestselling author and winner of the National Book Award, when she comes to our school on Sunday (the first day of the workweek out here, if you’ve missed that in previous entries). In short, I’ll be meeting six bestselling, well-connected authors in the next week. Hence, my portholes.

In addition, I’m going to be taking along the first twenty-four pages of my revised novel (the prologue and first chapter)… just in case the opportunity might arise for me to show it to one of the authors. Who knows? If they read it, they could offer suggestions (from someone who is familiar with the publishing and editing process), or, if they’re particularly wowed (which, considering the busyness of the festival, I don’t really think they’ll have the energy to be wowed by something some silly festival-goer wrote), perhaps they’ll give my contact information, with the author’s recommendation, to someone within the industry. Probably a pipe dream, but hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? Even if nothing much happens to get the ball rolling on me getting published this weekend (which is the most likely scenario), I’ll still glean some insights on the life of a full-time author and on the craft from professionals in the field. Should be an exciting and enriching weekend, no matter which way things happen.

Also on the writing front, I’ve begun preliminary work on a non-fiction book based on my experiences, observations, and thoughts about life on the ground here in Dubai. Plenty of books have been written on the city, but most of them have been from a business perspective. Dealing with the children from all over the world, from all sorts of religious, economic, racial, national, and cultural backgrounds, as well as watching the interplay between them and the society they call ‘home’ (at least as much as anyone calls Dubai ‘home’, but that’s a different chapter altogether) has provided a unique insight that I haven’t found to be attainable outside my profession. The book will be probably divided into two sections – one on life as a ‘normal person’ in Dubai (rather than as one of the rich and famous for whom the city is designed to be a playground, or as one of the businessmen responsible for designing and constructing said playground) and one on the insights gleaned as a teacher of the various children of the people making up this grand microcosm of the world. There’ll likely be some overlap there, but those are the basic divisions. I’ve also been told that I should write a book of travel writing, and in all likelihood, I will, but that’ll be separate from this project. I haven’t started actually penning the book itself at the moment, as my writing energies are primarily dedicated to the novel (and keeping you folks back home abreast of my adventures… though I’m sorry for the somewhat rambling nature of this entry… I just churned out another thousand words of From the Ashes, and it used up all my good writing), but I’m keeping notes and recording statistics, experiences, and anecdotes so that when I do begin writing it (probably not until after my stint here is complete), I’ll have a wealth of material already at my fingertips.

So there I am. Hoping, praying to get published in 2009, and pursuing every avenue God opens up to me. And since I’m on it (and I know many of you probably already are), I’d appreciate your prayers on this matter: for the right doors to be opened at the right time. Also, any support you can offer me in this endeavor (whatever that means to you… not donations or anything like that… unless they’re made in cookies!), would be greatly appreciated. And drop me a line if you can sometime (JeremyJBurns@gmail.com). I don’t have much Internet time out here (I only have access at school for the time being), so I might not be able to respond in a timely manner, but any little note from you folks back home would be neat. It gets lonely out here sometimes.

Here’s hoping for magic happening and dreams being fulfilled this weekend and beyond, and as always, thanks for tuning in!

“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”
– Walt Disney

Inspiration in Roma

[Note: I wrote the following entry towards the end of December. In the interest of giving my entries some semblance of chronology, I refrained from posting this entry until I had written and posted the entries from Bangladesh and Jordan. It appears in its original, unadulterated form, so when reading it, please bear in mind that it was written over a month ago, and refer to the next entry where I will post for more up-to-date information on what’s going on in my life at the moment. And as always, thanks for reading!]

Rome. Where do I start? How do I regale what was the most amazing and perhaps important trip I’ve yet undertaken? I guess I’ll take a page from Maria von Trapp’s book (of The Sound of Music fame) and start at the beginning.

As mentioned in a previous entry, my school closed for an additional three days in early December, bringing a previously seven-day holiday to a much nicer twelve days. So I decided I should go somewhere. Most of my friends at the school had already made their travel plans, and I didn’t want to latch onto someone else’s already-made plans. I knew that wherever I would go, I would go alone. I didn’t trust myself on my own in Southeast Asia or other such third-world locales (where many of my colleagues were going, albeit in groups), especially considering the instability and anti-American terrorism that the region has been rife with in the preceding weeks. I had been on two long trips since coming to Dubai in August: one to Bangladesh with three other teacher-friends and one to Jordan with two teacher-friends and twenty-one screaming high-school students. Lots of touristy activities and ventures (or, in the case of the former, as touristy as Bangladesh could be). See various places, experience the country, sharing the whole adventure with friends. Which is how I always thought I loved to travel: making memories with someone to share them with. But this option was not open to me for this break. Or rather, it was, it could have been, but I chose to forgo it. Work, life had become quite stressful for me in the previous weeks, and I felt that I had some introspection to do, some soul-searching if you will, regarding where I am, where I’m going, who I am, who I want to be, how I plan to get there, and other million-dollar questions of that ilk. Travelling alone would be an excellent opportunity for me to probe those questions, do some writing, get back to what makes me feel most fulfilled and alive. Where would be a good place for that? Where had I always wanted to travel? What part of the world so fascinated me with its history, its people, its edifices, its culture? Answer: Europe. The specific destination for this little trip? Rome, Italy.

I don’t exaggerate when I say that I could live in Rome. In fact, my pipe dream involving lucrative book deals and relative financial freedom in the near future also has me living in Rome for a year or so. There are thousands of stories just waiting to be written in that city. Its history, the churches, palaces, catacombs, and ruins, the mystery and majesty, the dark corners and rich artistry, the whole of the city just oozes inspiration. But I’ll come back to that later.

The cheapest flight I could find on Expedia was on Aeroflot, a Russian airline I had never heard of before. It routed me through Moscow (with a ten-hour layover en route, and a six-hour layover on the way back to Dubai), but as this flight was significantly less expensive than all the rest of my options, I went for it. As I would have had to apply for a visa to leave the airport (which requires both time and a sponsor within Russia, neither of which I had available), I spent the whole of my sixteen hours in Moscow in the airport. That first night in the Moscow airport was decidedly arduous. Considering my degree in history, I should have heeded the lessons provided by the errors of Napoleon and Hitler, but I travelled to Russia in winter regardless. Trying to sleep on a row of uncomfortable airport waiting area chairs in a poorly-heated (if at all) terminal manned by unsmiling and non-English speaking workers was an experience, to be sure. I sat next to a friendly Russian guy in his mid-thirties named Ilya on the flight from Dubai to Moscow. He spoke fairly good English, stemming from his experience in a university exchange program in the States in the early nineties. Nice guy. The only one in Moscow, I think. I know my experience with Russia and Russians is limited at best, but good heavens! They just don’t smile. Even to each other. Maybe it’s because they were on the night-shift at the airport in winter. Maybe it’s because I didn’t speak any Russian (I had brought an Italian phrasebook, but I wasn’t planning on spending much time, and thus, talking, in Russia, so I was admittedly ill-prepared in that regard), but they didn’t even smile to one another, so that argument loses credibility pretty easily. I think it’s most likely because Russia is (and has historically been) commonly associated with four things: atrocious weather, tyrannical leadership, depressing literature, and vodka. And those nesting dolls. I guess that’s their little ray of sunshine. But, at least at the airport duty-free shop, they were rather overpriced. As, I suppose demand for levity and joy would outweigh supply in Russia, so that makes sense. But now I’m getting analytical with something intended to be facetious, so we’re going to skip back to the story now. Sorry if you were enjoying my analysis of the cause of Russian antipathy. I don’t really know what the cause is for certain. I just know they should smile more. If they can do it in Bangladesh, they can do it in Russia. C’mon guys! Stalin’s dead. Laugh a little. It won’t get you killed (probably…).

Leaving the coldness of Russia and Russians behind me, I flew to Rome, Italy. Now, I could easily delve into a step-by-step recap of my trip in Rome, but that would not only be unnecessarily time-consuming (both for me as writer and for you, my faithful readers), but it would also be somewhat contrary to the purposes of my trip. For, you see, this was not a sight-seeing trip. Oh, sure, there were plenty of sights seen (and many more I have yet to see), but, as I mentioned earlier, this trip was different. It wasn’t the ‘go, go, go, rush, rush, rush, take pictures of everything I can and move on to the next church, palace, monument or ruin’ attitude that drives the trips of most tourists (myself included, albeit I tend to loiter a bit more, taking more pictures from more angles and such, than most). The girl who checked me into the hostel the first morning was surprised at the length of my stay (nine days, eight nights), as most travelers (especially young ones staying at hostels) tend to spend a few nights in one city before moving on to the next. So much to see, so little time. Go, go, go. But what I most wanted to see, what I most desired to explore and seek out was not a monument, a basilica, or a decrepit edifice from ages past. To be sure, my encounters with those sorts of locales provided an ideal environment for my true goal, but they served simply as a means to an end. What I wanted to see, to explore, to discover, was myself. And that I did.

I won’t share all of my deepest revelations here. For one, they are revelations primarily for me, and thus far more private than should be broadcast on a public medium such as this blog. For another, some of what I discovered I am in still in the process of analyzing: what I learned, what that means, and how it should (and will) be manifested in my life. Indeed, how those revelations manifest in my life, both at present and in the months and years to come, should be more than sufficient evidence as to the nature and importance of said introspective discoveries. I will share some of what I discovered, though; but first, the process.

As I’ve mentioned, this was not intended to be a touristy trip. As such, for much of my trip, I just explored. I wandered the streets, coming to intersections and picking a direction at random (unless I saw a church or particularly impressive-looking building down one of the streets, but even in that, I was often torn, as all-too-often there were multiple churches, etc. down each avenue… that’s Rome, for you, though). I discovered both the Basilica of St. John Lateran and the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore by accident, just stumbling upon them while exploring. In the course of my exploration, I made every endeavor to avoid tourists. Especially while eating. Most every restaurant I ate at was several side alleys away from the main thoroughfares and tourist sites. I spoke, read, and listened to as much Italian as possible. It’s amazing what you can learn of a language just by reading the signs and adverts around town. (Given, my knowledge of Spanish and my love of etymology certainly helped in my learning). In fact, I felt quite international during the trip, as I spoke a combination of English, Italian, Spanish, German, and French, depending on who I was with at the time, while reading a good smattering of both Italian and Latin (again, utilizing my knowledge of those and related languages, and using etymology and conjecture to fill in the gaps). Also on the international aspect, I befriended people from Italy (duh!), Germany, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Greece, Korea, Spain, America, the Netherlands, and Israel. I went to St. Peter’s Basilica with my friend from Israel, and went on a couple of dates with a girl from Germany. After having lived in the Middle East for so long, it was interesting (and somewhat refreshing) to see the other perspective of things (just as getting the Middle-Eastern perspective was interesting after having lived in the States for so long).

I enjoyed the Italian nightlife, including frequenting a few pubs and partying at a nightclub that seemed to be built into the arched basement of a medieval building. Truly an experience. But the real experience, the real meat of the trip, both in the time dedicated to it and in the long-lasting importance from the trip, was my writing.

I wrote some on a short story for which I had found inspiration shortly before leaving for the trip. I also wrote a little poetry (including one poem about Rome penned whilst sitting on the Spanish Steps at sunset… how’s that for romantic (no pun intended)?). But the bulk of my writing, inscribed in a notebook I carried around Rome with me everywhere I went, took the form of journal entries. Meditative, introspective, reflective. I analyzed, I probed, I second-guessed, I considered, I reconsidered, I wondered, I pondered, I asked, I answered, I dug, I dreamed. The entries covered a range of topics and emotions. I wrote them in numerous churches and basilicas around Rome. I wrote them while sitting in cafes and ristorantes frequented by locals. I wrote them at the Trevi Fountain, in St. Peter’s Square, on the Spanish Steps, in the shadow of the Colosseum. I reflected on my experiences, on my thoughts, my emotions, my goals, my dreams, my failures, my successes, my hopes, my fears, what I thought I wanted, what I now know I want, who I was before, who I was then, and who I want to become. I probed and pondered my thoughts and beliefs, on life, on love, on God, on humanity, on art, on faith, on ambition, on identifying dreams and making those dreams reality, on the brevity of life, on the importance of seizing every moment, on priorities, on relationships, on nigh everything of true import in this life and the next. I can’t tell you everything I learned, for all of my answers are not yet fully formed, and indeed, it may take years to find the words (if such words exist) to properly understand, and then describe, what I learned in Rome (and have been learning since). And again, some of what I decided may be too personal than would be apropos to publish here. A few things I did discover, or perhaps reaffirm, though:

First, I love writing. Writing, and the inspiration that leads to my writing (often taking the form of exploring new places, reading and researching, and traveling) is the single most fulfilling thing I know how to do. I’ve been told I have a gift for it. I don’t know about all that, but it’s what I love to do, and, increasingly, it’s what I know how to do. If I could write for a living, I might be the happiest man alive. And even now, though my profession is non-writing, whenever I write, I am brimming with satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment. More and more, I feel that writing is my calling. Whatever you take that to mean, it’s where my heart is, where my talents seem to lie, where my personality, interests, and goals all seem to fit. And I feel confident (as do many of my friends and family who unwaveringly support me and my pursuit of this dream) that I will be a published author someday. Perhaps sooner than I think. God’s got a way of surprising me like that, and, generally speaking, when I get an idea into my head, an idea that’s more than just a fleeting thought but is the type one structures ones life around, when I get a solid goal in my mind, I pursue it doggedly (I guess that’s my Taurus coming out). And almost without fail, it comes true. The fact that, against all odds and logic, I’m writing this in Dubai should bear testament to that.

Second: this isn’t so much a nice concise ‘discovery’ that I can pack into a little nugget for you (and me), as it is a feeling, a point of growth that happened on the trip. On the trip, in all of my striking out on my own, my exploring, my meeting people, my engaging in new, unfamiliar experiences, I found myself growing in confidence. There are more aspects to it than that (for, to be sure, I have been striking out on my own, exploring, meeting people, and experiencing new things ever since coming to Dubai), and I won’t get into the specifics of the new level of confidence I’m finding myself having, but it’s definitely a higher place of growth and understanding, both of myself and my place in the world around me.

Third (or third and fourth if you prefer, for at this point, the ideas become fairly enmeshed): the world is rather quite different than I had imagined from my relatively sheltered life in Tallahassee. Given, this is a fact that I have been becoming gradually more aware of since I came to Dubai, but this came out all the more in Rome; whether this is because of the numerous experiences I had and everything I encountered while on my trip, or if it is due primarily to my time of reflection, I cannot say; I simply know that I gained a greater acquaintance and understanding of the bigger world while in Italy. When I say that the world is different, I do not mean to say that it is necessarily better or worse; I simply mean that it is different. Certainly some aspects could be argued, from one moralistic worldview or another, to be better or worse than my initially conceived notions, but, as these notions were based on hypothesis and ideals, and as the world I’ve since encountered is based on fact and experience, to compare the two would be a fallacious enterprise.

Following on the heels of that discovery comes a nugget about my writing (this would be where the ‘fourth’ revelation would begin, if you wish to break them up as such). I began writing my first in July 2006, after drawing inspiration from my first trip to New York City. That year, from the summer of 2006 to the summer of 2007, I just wrote. My source material for my writing came from my own head. And, though perhaps not quite crap, it left much to be desired, both in content and in style. Stage 2 of my writing development began in September 2007: I started to read like crazy. In fact, since September 2007, I’ve read over 200 books, most of them novels. There’s an adage or two about having to read to be able to write, and they are decidedly true. When I picked up the pen again to start working on my novel (after a too-long hiatus from the work, but having read dozens of novels in the interim), I ended up scrapping most of my previous work. The overarching story remained, but most of the scenes I had penned thus far (and almost all of the writing) got the axe. And the work was all the better for it. I could recognize good writing and bad writing much better. I knew what worked and what didn’t, what should be told and what should be shown, all the little nuances of writing and pacing much better than before (but certainly, even now, I have much, much more to learn and grow in). (I apologize for the lengthiness of this ‘nugget’ I’ve claimed to have discovered, but I promise its end is forthcoming.) I thought I was done with stages, that I would continue along the path set forth by stage 2 of reading much and writing even more to grow as an author. But, in moving to Dubai, and in all of my new experiences, in all of the new locations I’ve explored, in all of the encounters with ‘real life’ I’ve had, in all the discoveries about how the world really is, I’ve found inspiration, both for new works and for how to make my current works better, more authentic, more relevant. Enter stage 3: engaging in life, experiencing and understanding how the world really works, instead of writing from an isolated, sheltered perspective which anyone who has actually lived outside a box (which would be most of my readers) could recognize as artificial. And I’ve been blessed with an ideal place for that. A place where travel is easy, where life comes at you fast, where can be found a microcosm of all the world’s joys and ills, of peoples and languages, of experiences both new and timeless: Dubai. Dubai may be a shallow, often artificial place, but there is much here that will provide both insight and inspiration, both as a writer and as a person. After all, this is the Middle East: underneath the shallow sand of the glitz and glamour, there’s bound to be some petroleum reserves of experience, wisdom, and encounters with the real world that I can draw on in my stories and in life. And to find it, I just have to dig.

Just like I did in Rome.

Jordan (November 19-24, 2008)

[FINALLY finished and posted!]

The Levant. The Holy Land. Though technically part of the Middle East, Jordan is drastically different from the Arabian Peninsula in environment, history, and culture. The landscape is gray and rocky, with trees, shrubbery, and grass making regular appearances; the hilly contours of the land provide for some amazing vistas; and the weather… well, it’s cooler and it rains more. The region is also rich in history and archaeology, including biblical sites such as the Dead Sea and the River Jordan, ruins from the heyday of the Roman Empire like the cities of Jerash and Umm Qais (as well as theatres, the remnants of temples, and other vestiges of the city’s ancient origins in Amman itself), castles from medieval times, like the Crusader fortress of Karak and the Saracen stronghold of Ajlun, and world wonders like the ‘lost city’ of Petra. And for a history lover such as myself, where the oldest monuments I had yet encountered were from the Age of Discovery, a country steeped in history and monuments from the ancient and medieval periods alike, this was an unprecedented event.

Martine, Sunali and I are the faculty advisors for our school’s Model United Nations team. For those of you unfamiliar with what Model United Nations is, it’s basically just what it sounds like: an organization that models itself on the real United Nations. We assign country delegations to the students, give them issues to research, have them draw up proposals and resolutions, and defend and debate those positions in ‘sessions’. The Amman MUN conference was our school's first conference this year (and incidentally, the first conference ever for Sunali and myself, as well as for fifteen of our twenty-one students; Martine had never taken students to a conference before, but she had some exposure with how conferences were run due to her school having hosted one when she was at university).

We stayed in the Radisson SAS Amman, the site of a car bomb explosion during a wedding in the hotel in 2006. Every time we entered the hotel we had to go through a metal detector and submit to a pat-down. This actually ended up being the norm in most buildings we entered, including at the host school of the conference and at a group dinner with all of the faculty advisors and children that took place in a tourist dinner venue housed in a trader compound built in the 19th century. And yet, as with the poverty and disease that were so blatantly prevalent in Bangladesh, the history of terrorist attacks and instability in the region didn’t stop the residents from smiling and being friendly. Thus far, with every country I’ve visited (excepting Oman (because I was only there for about two hours), and Russia (because… well, it’s Russia)) the people do seem to be quite friendly and welcoming towards visitors (ostensibly because they want their country to get a good reputation from foreigners, but also likely owing to a sense of civic pride in one’s culture and heritage…something we see far too little of in the artificial, shallow, transient world of Dubai).

The first day in Jordan was spent traveling, getting settled in, and exploring a little bit of Amman. More than any place I’ve been thus far in my international travels, Amman reminded me of home. I don’t know if it was the mild weather (like the cool, crisp Autumns in Tallahassee), the rolling hills, or the city planning itself (its road systems, buildings, and whole feel reminded me much more of Tallahassee (or even Jacksonville, the other Florida city I’ve been frequenting over the past few years) than did the spread-out, mall-, hotel-, and highway-philic city of Dubai, the dirty, decrepit and overpopulated city of Dhaka, or the historic bustling city of Rome (getting ahead of myself…)). It was probably a combination of the three. And the fact that the city had a soul. A soul I could relate to (as opposed to the soulless artifice of a city that is Dubai, or the impoverished city of Dhaka which undoubtedly has a soul, but our stay there was too brief, and its ‘soul’ too foreign to be quickly related to). Walking the streets (not like that!), especially some of the quieter, more residential streets in the cool of the afternoon, the gray skies overhead portending rain that wouldn’t come, shading us from the heat and glare of the sun… that was a fun experience. And we (in this instance, being Martine, Sunali, myself, and about half-a-dozen of our students) were all but alone on our little walking journey. Very few other pedestrians were in the area, and even fewer cars. Moreover, despite being in the largest city in Jordan, there was very little ambient noise – automotive or otherwise – intruding into our peaceful escapade. But enough about that.

In the interest of expeditiousness, I’m going to cut most of the MUN part of the trip from this entry (e.g. the sessions, the interactions with the kids, et al), and just focus on the four historical excursions that the three of us undertook. And I’ll be doing well just to keep those rich experiences from turning into a novel-length entry. Here goes.

Despite the wealth of historic monuments in Jordan, one is undoubtedly the most famous. Rediscovered by the Western world in the nineteenth century, popularized by travel journals and pictorials, and immortalized by Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the ‘lost city’ of Petra is by far Jordan’s most famous archaeological site, making an appearance on most ‘new’ Seven Wonders of the Ancient World lists (as six of the ‘original’ seven have been lost to antiquity). I admit that, prior to going on this trip, I was unaware of the myriad ‘non-Petra’ castles and ruins that Jordan can claim.

Our trip to Petra was one of the three excursions offered by the conference for students and faculty advisors alike. The others, to Jerash and to the traditional baptism site of Jesus at the Jordan River, were interesting to be sure, but my desire to see those sites paled in comparison to that of seeing Petra. Martine, Sunali and I, along with five of our students (the other sixteen went on other excursions with other advisers from other schools) boarded a tour bus from our hotel and started on our three-hour journey south. And on my head, of course, I wore my Indiana Jones ‘lucky adventuring hat’. It just wouldn’t be right any other way.

From the main entrance, the first hour or so of the journey travels down the Siq, the high-walled canyon that meanders through the rocky region. The path was dotted with idols and miniature shrines, the details of which had long since been blasted away by the sands of time. The cobbled stones of the old Roman road, built when the Nabataeans (the ancient near-east civilization who inhabited these hills and built the edifices that we had come to see) finally relinquished control of their lands to the all-powerful Roman Empire. The well-preserved remains of the Roman dams, now long dry on both sides. The meticulously calculated trenches cut into the side of the Siq, taking advantage of the natural downward gradient of the channel (its ancient riverbed origins being the cause of the canyon’s existence in the first place) and mirroring the preciseness of the gradual slope that the Romans would later use in perhaps their greatest architectural and scientific achievement: the aqueducts. The Nabataeans were a nomadic people originally from Arabia, not unlike the Bedouins, who forsook their wandering ways and took up a permanent residence in the environs of Petra, using the natural surroundings (such as the single narrow entrance (and thus, easily defended) and the natural slope (for irrigation purposes) of the Siq to their advantage in the relatively inhospitable region. But Petra isn’t a world-renowned site, a marvel of antiquity, because of the resourcefulness of its settlers. It is famous because of its tombs, the myriad sepulchers and facades built into the very walls of the cliffs themselves. And the most famous of these tombs, the most elaborate and well-preserved of these facades, belongs to the site that Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford helped to make world-famous as the mythical resting place of the Holy Grail: the monument known (seemingly fallaciously) as the Treasury.

I’ve seen dozens of pictures of the Treasury; I’ve seen it in movies; I’ve studied its history and design. I was obviously excited to see it, and I knew that it would be a monumental (no pun intended) experience for me, a lover of all things historical and all sites archaeological. And yet, nothing could have prepared me for the sight that greeted me as I rounded that last turn in the Siq before the façade of the Treasury, shining dust red in the daylight at the end of that sun-starved alley of twisted stone we had been traversing for the past hour. You must understand, too, that we had no idea exactly around which turn (for there were many in our long, winding journey) that imposing sight would greet our eyes. Even if we had known exactly how many steps lay between us and that fateful sight, though, I have little doubt that my reaction would have been much the same. My reaction? It quite literally took my breath away. I was quite excited when I caught my first glimpse of the easily recognizable monument, but when I finally stepped from the maw of the Siq and into the open canyon floor in front of the Treasury, my breath caught in my throat and I very nearly staggered in wonder. I don’t know if it was the sheer magnitude of it (it was even higher than I had anticipated), the fact that this towering monument dated back before the time of Christ (it is believed that the Treasury was built in the First Century B.C.), or the fact that I was finally beholding one of the great historic, archeological, and, at least in the popular mythos, mystery-filled sights in the world. I was living out a dream of mine, seeing one of the sights that I had always dreamed of beholding. Petra. The Grail Temple (actually, I checked inside, and it’s much more boring than in the movie (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, if you haven’t been following along). Either Spielberg staged the whole thing on a set, or the drab stone walls and ceiling with the rectangular, unadorned doorways are what’s left of the temple after Ilsa tried to bring the Grail across the seal and the whole place came crashing down around their ears). Okay, so enough of my adventure-nerd humor. Back to the story.

The rest of Petra was also amazing, though that moment, that encounter with the mythical monument at the Treasury, was undoubtedly the pinnacle of our excursion. From the treasury, we followed the main path deeper into the city. After a bit, the path opened up from the relatively narrow canyon floor we had been walking on to a more open area. The hawkers, who had made their first appearance at the plaza in front of the Treasury, were out in spades, selling everything from souvenir magnets and books to handmade crafts and ‘authentic’ coins from ancient Rome to rides on camels, donkeys, or in horse-drawn carriages. The sandblasted facades of once-ornate tombs dotted the cliffsides. One large tomb, seemingly hundreds of meters from the canyon floor, showcased a trail of tourists and explorers traversing the narrow precipice that led to its entrance, like ants to an unguarded picnic basket. An ancient Roman theatre, still in good repair after countless generations of its builders’ absence, was the greatest monument in the scene of the city’s Latin conquerors, the theatre-goers of yore watched in turn by the tombs and temples that surrounded the pavilion, a theatre of even greater magnitude and whose shows continue millennia later, the endless parade of tourists from worlds the Romans knew nothing of, still watched by the eyeless sentinels of ages past. Centuries of wind and sandstorms had sculpted the hills into a variety of shapes; in some places they were the rough edges of a broken lump of clay, untouched by the potter and left to dry and crack in the sun; in others, they were smooth and twisted, like the work of a glassblower, pulled and wrapped in beautiful, amorphous forms like taffy. And everywhere, the vestiges of its ancient denizens, Nabataean and Roman alike, caught the eye and screamed the resilience of their stonecraft, still standing, if a little worse for the wear, fifteen centuries after both peoples had ceased to inhabit these haunting hills. As we sat on a wooden bench facing this scene of ancient wonder, munching on a noontime snack of a Twix bar and a bottle of water, but one word flashed through my mind: wow.

Due to time constraints, we were unable to explore most of the city (although what we did get to experience was more than worth the trip), but I definitely plan to return sometime soon, probably camping in the hills and experiencing Petra as it was meant to be experienced. And yet, in great irony, my staying in Petra would have the opposite effect as to that of the first Nabataeans who called this city home: it would be much quieter, less-crowded, and more primitive than that of my normal city-dwellings, while the permanent city that Petra was to the once-nomadic Nabataeans would have provided the reverse experience. And beyond the adventure, the wonder, the excitement of exploring those hills explored by millions of other feet, thousands of years apart, is my other motivation: Petra will definitely figure into one of my novels, probably prominently. I’ve known that Petra would inevitably find its way into one, but my trip there more than confirmed it. If you ever get the opportunity to go, go.

Martine, Sunali and I also got to go visit the old Roman theatre in Amman, a colossal structure set against a hillside. I climbed the treacherously narrow stairs, crumbled in parts by the feet of countless patrons and visitors, the decay and wear of time, to the very top. Although the theatre was in a valley, the view was amazing. For those who are curious, the city we now call Amman is the important site known as Rabbah of the Ammonites in the Old Testament and was called Philadelphia in Hellenistic times, which explains the wealth of ruins of ancient grandeur that can still be found throughout the city today. The few remaining pillars of the Temple of Apollo, near the ancient Citadel and set atop the tallest hill in the city, could be seen from nearly anywhere in the older part of the city, as could a smattering of old palaces and mosques from the Byzantine and Islamic eras, a visual timeline of the long history of the city.

At the northmost tip of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan sits the ruins of the Roman city of Umm Qais (known to the Romans as Gadara). The three of us traveled northward from Amman to this historic site. And what a sight it was! The city was situated at the top of a tremendous hill, from which you could see Syria to the north and, just west of the sparkling Jordan River, Israel was visible. It felt like the ‘see seven states’ motto of Lookout Mountain, Georgia. Only Georgia is somewhat lacking in the Roman ruins department. When the three of us were exploring the theatre and the tunnels beneath, we saw something none of us had seen since we had arrived in Dubai: rain. It wasn’t a downpour; more like a hard, persistent drizzle, but we relished it. The cool autumn air, the crisp smell of unadulterated nature, miles from the nearest urban area, the refreshing moisture from the heavens, a heavens we were already a good thousand feet closer to than was the highest adjacent valley, a moisture we hadn’t had the pleasure of dancing in for months. We laughed and craned our necks skyward, extending our arms in an expression of surrender to the blessing of the heavens, closing our eyes and drinking in the moment. When it was occupied, Umm Qais would have been quite a bustling place. A theatre, several temples, houses and outbuildings galore, and what may have once been a palace (the governor’s house, perhaps?). A long stretch of Roman road, glistening black with the recent rain, extended northward, lined by the ruins of tombs and baths. About a kilometer down the road, I encountered an active archaeological dig (though, strangely, using backhoes and other heavy equipment that didn’t seem quite appropriate for the meticulous, detailed, one-shot-only work of archaeological excavation, but then, what do I know?). A ranger station (or whatever they call them in Jordan) was also just off the road, perched at the edge of the cliff to maintain a proper vigil on the valleys below. When exploring the city, I noticed something that I had never encountered before: there were no guardrails, no blockades, no areas that were posted as being prohibited for visitors. So I just went nuts. I climbed, ran, hopped from structure to structure. The whole city was my playground; my two-thousand-year-old playground. I entered old houses, poked my head in cisterns, crawled through tunnels and passageways, climbed and jumped and wandered my way around the city. I had the most glorious time getting lost and then getting more lost, just wandering and exploring and discovering and satisfying my insatiable curiosity. I doubt that there was ever a Roman who lived in that city who had as much fun as I did just exploring. Good times.

The final historical site we visited dated not from antiquity but from the medieval era: Ajlun, the Saracen fortress built and manned by a nephew of Salah al-Din (known to the western world as Saladin, the great Saracen strategist during the crusades, revered in the Arab and Western worlds alike and generally regarded, alongside Richard the Lionheart, to be the greatest general of the era). When we arrived, the sun was beginning its long autumn descent into dusk, the waning light, breaking through the thick clouds at intervals, silhouetting the stronghold on the solitary hilltop, the modern town of Ajlun filling the valley at its foot like children gathered at the skirt of their mother, seeking protection and refuge from an enemy long-since vanquished. The view of the castle (my first medieval castle, mind you) was captivating. I think my first glimpse of it, its features shrouded by distance and poor lighting, its stalwart parapets jutting into the sky, the enigmatic sentinel standing alone atop its verdant lookout, filled me with even more wonder and awe than when I actually began exploring it, half-an-hour later. Which is not to belittle the experience of exploring a medieval castle, one that withstood every crusader attack launched upon it. On the contrary, exploring the fortress of Ajlun, its myriad halls, tunnels, chambers and passageways was yet another moment of magic and mystery that I will hold dear for the rest of my life. Peering out through the arrow slits in one of the outer walls, I found myself wondering: Who stood here eight-hundred years ago? What did they see in the valley below? Crusaders? Mongols? What went through their minds as they defended this fortress? It was the same rectangular hole in the stone, the same slit in the wall that provided an eye to the valley below, but though the window was the same, the situation of the man who looked through the window and the view itself had changed drastically. Some of the walls were ruined, some looked much as they would have in the twelfth century. Upon climbing to the top (again taking advantage of the lack of guard rails and other such safety measures/barriers-to-exploration that are a staple in American historical sites and tourist attractions), a magnificent view greeted my eyes. The valley that surrounded my vantage point was green with trees, gray with homes and offices. And it extended for miles. No red-and-white banners of the approaching Crusaders to be seen, no blood-curdling war cries of the feared Mongol hordes; just the idyllic sight of the verdant valley, the setting sun stretching shadows across the landscape, the whisper of the wind tickling my eardrums the only sound. Awed as I was by the view, I knew our time there grew short, as closing time was rapidly approaching, so, just as I had in Umm Qais (albeit with more of an element of danger, considering the sheer height of the edifice and its topographical position), I explored my heart out, clambering over wall and through tunnel, up precarious staircases, seemingly not intended for visitors, and down five-foot drops to levels below. At one point, while exploring an area of the roof, I encountered a shallow slope of pebbles and crumbling rock that ended at a thirty- or forty-foot sheer drop (which I actually got on video… yeah, I was running around doing this stuff with a camera in hand… crazy, eh?). ‘Intrepid world explorer’, indeed. All in all, a very interesting place that I want to go back to again and spend more time exploring.

So, in short, this trip, though we had to do teacher supervisor stuff much of the time, was my most enjoyable vacation to date. Great people, refreshing weather, beautiful vistas, and the ability to explore world wonders, ancient cities, and medieval castles mostly unhindered by barriers combined to make this trip one never to be forgotten, and in all likelihood, one to be repeated sometime in the near future.