I Have Stooped

It's official, I have gone down to the depths of lowness that I never thought I would end up at. I am a tourist through and through. For some reason I have always had an intense aversion to becoming one of the tennis shoe wearing, camera carrying, loud voiced, awkward, out of place tourist types. This is the first time in my life that I have traveled for no other reason than to travel. I AM a big advocate of being in a place, learning the culture, language, knowing the people, knowing simple things such as where to get the best tacos, shwaerma or chai tea and how much to pay for it, how to get around town and where things are. I don't like to be a spectator, I want to be involved in my surroundings. Well today Matt informed me that I sound incredibly American. Apparently there have been a few times where Ryan said something to a local in a fairly clear and concise way only to have me back it up with a shouting voice accompanied by a southern drawl. 'Does this guy speak English?' How did this ever happen to me? I am absolutely mortified. So this week I am going to try and concentrate on becoming a little more Canadian again. I've noticed that no one here believes me when I say I am Canadian. Why is that? Just because I don't have a flag on my bag dosn't disqualify me.
In other news, we had a beautiful time in Petra the other day. I was blown away by the history, and craftsmanship of the place. If you have never heard of it look it up and read a bit. Here are a couple pictures from the day, the boys being goofy and suprise suprise, a camel kissing his boy. Despite my extreme aversion to camels I can't stop taking pictures of them. It's sickening! OK, sighing off for now. Felicia