So the academic year has finally ended and thank God it did! I got my papers in on time and I feel like I did pretty good on my exams…we’ll see about that! The day after finals ended, as president of the student government, I was in charge of putting together the annual “International Dinner”. It turned out well, but man am I glad its over. It was held at a museum and consisted of a long presentation over a 3-course meal and open bar.

But first I had to attend to a high school friend who got into that morning. If my hands weren’t already full, you can imagine how I felt! I had to leave her and her boyfriend and relatives at my flat as I headed to the museum to make sure everything was cool…and it was. Come 7 o’clock I had to the usual diplomatic greetings and accompany the keynote speaker and other special guests from England…whew, that was tiring considering I was stuck with juice while everyone was able to begin the night drinking.

I started the presentations a little after 8pm and then we had the first meal. I then introduced the keynote speaker and was more than surprised at his talk. He was extremely loud and entertaining to say the least. I couldn’t help but bust out laughing a few times…and you all know how loud my laughter can be. That finally ended and then we had our main course and then had our award presentations from our acting-dean and myself and then proceeded to desert. I finished up the presentations and by this time it was after 11pm and everybody was already completely drunk, including students, faculty, staff, and guests…except for me. I wasted no time and went straight to that open bar and let the flood gates open. The night turned out to be amazing as my hangover from Sunday could prove and all the above pictures. The year was an amazing one and I’m sad its over, but all good things must come to an end. Now I have to turn to my dissertation and get that taken care of so I can graduate! As its been going, I have been constantly changing my topic and it seems like its now on political Islam and how it has taken the role as the lead opposition against secular parties throughout the region thereby giving many different implications to how the development of democracy is playing out and hopefully giving insight on how Western governments can approach the region that has been plagued with conflict. I’m looking forward to it so hopefully I’ll stick with this one!

Also, I was offered a job in Baltimore as Program Director for US-Muslim Relations for an organization that has the sole duty to educate young American minds about the world outside the US, which I will most likely accept. This position directly applies to my interests, area of “expertise” (I put it in quotes since I am far from an expert), and my drive to educate others on the fundamental similarities of other people, especially Muslims and their core values and morals that are no different than Christians and Jews and any other religion, including atheists and agnostics. I think the most hurtful and common misunderstanding between humans is the view that other people have malicious intentions to hurt others when it is really a misunderstanding; my goal in life is to ensure others learn that we are all rational people and therefore moral as an individual. Once we can all understand that, we will all be better off…

My next trip definitely surpasses all other trips due to its completely different lifestyle and extreme interest to me, and not to mention my region of “expertise”. I went to Jordan a couple of weeks ago to attend a conference about democracy in the Middle East, specifically regarding Jordan and the American implications. I stayed a few days after to explore and it confirmed my love for the region I’ve never once visited.

I arrived in the middle of the night on Wednesday, April 18th. Fortunately, I ran into two other Americans on the flight who were attending the conference as well and who were also just as anxious to visit the area too. Thankfully two of the conference’s organizers were awaiting our arrival at the airport and took us to our lodging. To our surprise, it was barricaded and kind of secluded to the main parts of the city but I later learned its location makes it strategically vulnerable (it was next to a military compound). I headed to my room and met my roommates, a guy from Missouri who was studying in Spain, a Syrian guy from Philly who was living in Dubai on a Fulbright grant, and another Fulbrighter from the Philly area living in Damascus. They were all cool guys. By this time it was about 3am and we knew we had a long day ahead of us the next day.

Thursday came rolling in and I was up bright and early. Registration went quickly along and I met people from all over the world, but most from Jordan and the U.S. To my surprise I met another Mexican-American who was a Middle East fanatic and living there in Amman on a Fulbright Grant as well. I previously thought that would never happen. The conference began with Prince Hassan speaking and we were delightfully surprised the attendance of former-United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali. It was amazing. The panels begun and we head our discussion groups which brought up some very insightful ideas. The second panel on Political Islam was particularly interesting to me since I was originally going to discuss it in my dissertation. Also, I might add that we were to be joined by the Secretary-General of the Islamic Action Front but he backed out at the last minute. He instead wanted to send a replacement whom we recognized as an attendee to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s funeral last year. Due to the replacement’s sympathy for the death of one of the masterminds of several terrorist attacks, we refused to be associated with him and continued the panel without him. We eventually ended the evening and headed out to a local tea-bar to socialize and get a taste of the social life in Jordan, well social life for men since women are usually shunned from most “improper” places. I had some amazing tea and phenomenal houmous, my weakness, and then headed back to our room and passed out knowing I had to wake up early again the next morning.

The next day we had more panels and discussions. As leader of my discussion group, I had to end the day in a meeting that lasted for hours! We were preparing the conclusion of the conference for the following day and had to consolidate our policy recommendations for general discussion. Hours later we finished and I had to refrain from going out and instead headed to my room to work on another paper for school. It was a long night.

The next day we all gathered to discuss and choose the final recommendations that were to be presented to the American Embassy and the Jordanian government. We went way beyond our time limit and spent at least six hours amending and choosing the necessary and appropriate recommendations. When it finally ended a local, who was in attendance a the conference, took me and two other friends to the Dead Sea where we floated for a short while…the Dead Sea is so salty it is virtually impossible to sink therefore you can simply walk in the water, fall back, and lay on your back for hours without any effort or getting the feeling you will ever sink (as you can see from my picture above). Not only that, but its sand and water is famous for the wonders it does to your joints and skin. I walked out of that sea softer than a baby’s bottom…kind of weird for a guy. It was an impressive view to be on the Jordanian side of the water and see Israel on the other side. When we headed back to Amman we went for an AMAZING meal! We went to a grand, traditional restaurant where we had an extremely long table seating about 30 people full of food…I am not exaggerating when I say it was like sitting at a buffet. The food kept flowing out to the middle of the table and we could choose whatever we felt looked good and boy did I! Being surrounded by Arabs all in their traditional clothing was really cool too. They had a traditional band playing throughout the place and we inevitably got up to join in the dancing. It was a blast.

The next day I went with the other leaders to meet with Prince Hassan to present our recommendations and it generally went well (picture above). The meeting was abruptly ended when we said something that wasn't to his council's liking...so it goes with all opposition in Jordan, apparently. Afterwards, I went with a group of friends to the south of Jordan to a desert called Wadi Rum. We drove out into the middle of the desert and had a guide make us a traditional badouin (another word for Nomadic Arabs) dinner in the sand. We ate, drank tea, and then just laid back and stared at the stars until we fell asleep. Since we didn’t get to see the desert when we first arrived (we got there when it was dark) we were pleasantly surprised the next morning. We could see miles of sand and mountains all around us. We checked out some ancient caves and ruins and couldn’t stay too long since me and my friend, John, who is studying Arabic in Cairo, had to hurry over to Petra. If you have seen Indiana Jones then you know what Petra is…it is that castle-looking thing built into the mountain that is pictured above…that is what we had to see. We finally arrived and walked the long path to it in between naturally made caves and ancient ruins until we came up to it. It was simply amazing. Of course I had to ride the camel and take a picture in front of it. It was just breathtaking. We then went further and had to climb the hour-long steps to atop a mountain and see mountain ranges that surround the area. I can’t describe everything in detail since I wont be able to give it justice so I’ll just let the pictures above explain it.

Afterwards, I had to hurry back to Amman which was a few hours away so John could catch his flight while I worked on my paper and get ready for my flight early the next morning. I didn’t want to leave Jordan, but I knew I had to get back to Brussels to work on my finals…egh!

After another long break of writing I thought I’d update my blog finally. One big trip I took was to the Vatican/Rome for Easter and it was phenomenal! I took off on Good Friday and got there around noon. I’ve been to Rome before so I skipped all the sight-seeing traps and did strictly the Easter stuff. So, as soon as I got there on Friday I met up with my friend, Peter, who apparently ends up going on all the same trips as I do. He doesn’t stop following me…HAHA (he’ll get a kick out of this). The weather was amazing so after I was settled we headed to the Coliseum where we thought the procession for the Stations of the Cross were to be held. We stumbled across a small crowd in front of the Coliseum and figured that was the best place to stand since people were already camping out there waiting for things to start. After a few “dot-games”, nuns singing, getting stepped on, and about three hours later everything started to get going.

Down at the bottom of the Coliseum the Pope came out and started the procession. To our surprise, we were directly in front of the 8th Station and the final platform/alter!!! We couldn’t have had better seats! I got great pictures and at one point felt like I could stretch my arm out and touch him. It was surreal. We figured it couldn’t get any better than that. Boy, were we wrong.

The next day, Holy Saturday, we walked around for most of the day and I caught up with a friend, Catherine, who has been working in Rome since graduation. We went to Greece together in 2003 and had a blast so we were able to catch up; we also had her show us to the best gelato and cappuccino places in the city and boy were they delicious. Afterwards, we headed to St. Peter’s to try and get a seat inside the church for the Pope-led mass. To our dismay, we needed to have gotten tickets way in advance and all the time we were waiting in line for (a few hours that stretched all around the Vatican-we were relatively close to the front) was useless. BUT fortunately Peter saw a guy with extra tickets and gave us two! We got really excited to go in except for when the gates opened. When people were allowed to go in, I am not exaggerating one bit when I say that they all turned into ruthless animals! Everyone ran to the front, jumped fences, pushed each other to the side, just to get a seat inside the church! No decency or courtesy…I was seriously appalled and disgusted. Something like that ruthlessness should not be occurring in a kind of religious setting let alone the Vatican during Easter! I can’t believe the way these people were acting. Anyway, we got in and got great seats near the center aisle and, again, basically had the Pope brush right beside us. I have amazing pictures to prove that too. The mass was expectedly long, but awing. It was amazing to be INSIDE St. Peter’s for the occasion. We thought nothing could top that. Boy, were we wrong again.

Waking up around 5am to get to the Vatican early enough to get a seat on Easter Sunday was quite a daunting task considering the potential amount of crowds we were expecting to face. We also were aware that we needed tickets to get a seat inside the square but we accepted that we would just have to stand in the back with most people to watch the mass on the big screens. BUT fortunately my friend Peter again found someone with two extra tickets and we were let in and got seats in the front section below the altar! We couldn’t believe our luck and how things were working out. We knew we had to take a lot of pictures because we wouldn’t even believe ourselves at where we were and how things worked out so well.

I flew out later that evening with a slight tan and an album of memories incomparable to most. Best Easter yet!