a Geographer's Place

As I’ve noted elsewhere, I believe ardently that a tourist sees what they came to see, but a Traveler sees what they see . Though I work hard to be a Traveler instead of a tourist when visiting places, tourism—and tourists themselves—play an important economic role for many countries. Indeed, some countries depend heavily on tourists for their livelihood. What tourists see and explore when they visit a place depends on any number of factors. For example, one tourist might visit a place for its cuisine and wine. Another for the location’s outstanding geology. Still others may visit for historical or religious reasons. Wherever a tourist goes, however, there remain specific sites that most everyone sees when visiting a specific locale. Staying in Paris for a bit? The Eiffel Tower is on your list. Going to New York, then make sure to stop at Times Square in Manhattan. Fancy wine and designer clothes in Italy? Well, the Colosseum is just around the corner. Exploring the Inca trail in...

Last week a Fulbright colleague called and asked if we wanted to go to Petra. We have a project we wanted to do there anyway so…no brainer. The following day we headed south. He had made arrangements for us to stay at a Bedouin camp for the night. These can be kitschy, but we had the entire camp to ourselves. It is off season, after all.  After arriving, we wandered through Little Petra just outside the village of Bayda. We also took a little walk to a supposed Neolithic site. While not as grand as their neighbor, they were still interesting. One cave still had 2,000+ year-old partial frescoes in it! Entrance to Little Petra. The small wadi (canyon) contains a small cluster of Nabataean tombs. Just  before sunset, we drove up to a viewpoint. The view over  Wadi Araba as Earth was finishing its rotational period was gorgeous. As the sun crept lower in the sky I realized the Green Flash would probably be visible. It was. Except it wasn’t just a “spark” like I’ve s...

The last several days we have been exploring potential research sites in Amman itself in case we aren’t able to get to our intended research sites. And Amman has plenty to explore! Just look at the view from The Citadel: Looking southeast over Amman from Jabal al Qal'a , as it's called in Arabic The Citadel has a temple dedicated to Heracles (Hercules to Westerners), a Byzantine church, and an Umayyad palace. If you want more, the Wikipedia entry is good, although their first picture of “Amman Citadel Ruins” is NOT from the Citadel, but rather the city of Jerash (this is why ground-truthing is so important!) The large pillars represent what is thought to be the entrance into the Temple of Hercules. Apparently there was also a very large statue of him - they have the hand and elbow on display, just sitting out in the elements. The small-ish box-like structures in the foreground are (empty) sarcophogi. Notice the sprawl of Amman in the background. In a nut shel...

As promised, here are pictures of our apartment (keep reading!) We chose the Um-Uthaina neighborhood. Language side note: If you’re looking for our neighborhood on a map of Amman, you might not find Um-Uthaina . Depending on how the name gets transliterated, it could also be spelled Um-Ozaina , Umm Udhayna , or even some other way. This happens because there are several sounds in Arabic not present in the English language, or there are certain letters in English that make different sounds depending on which word they’re used in, like the “th” in  bath and there . In Arabic those different sounds are actually different letters. So when a word with this characteristic gets transliterated into English, there may be different pairings—one of which is the dh/th/z—to distinguish between those different Arabic sounds. That means finding a place name on a map is sometimes tricky. And although Kaelin can tell the difference when these are spoken, I am still trying to get m...

January and February in Amman are usually cold and rainy. “Yucky”, as my Director described it. Once in a while, they even get snow. Our airport driver said the forecast predicted snow for the weekend. Guess they were right, as this is what we woke up to today and walked in yesterday: A dusting of snow, as seen from my hotel window this morning. Look close at the orange-colored roofs and the white field next to the tree in the foreground. Okay. I agree it doesn't look like much. But, when snow falls here , it's wet, and quickly melts. So it's more about how it moves down the slopes. The roads become shallow rivers and everywhere is super slippery. A little precipitation goes a long way here! It started snowing on New Year’s Eve. At first, the flakes were small and intermittent. As the afternoon turned to evening, however, the flakes became heavy and wet—almost slushy-like. Not so much snow as we think of in the Western US, but a light sleet, and very slippery. Sti...