The wonders of vitamin D

That's the vitamin you get from being in the sun. Some absurdly high percentage of people living in Scotland suffer from a deficiency.

As a hot weather fiend living in the north, I consider the winter solstice immensely important, and not in an eclectic druid way. Personally, I'm thrilled it's past. For what feels like forever (technically six months), I have watched the daylight around me dwindle to those pathetic few hours it takes for the sun to bob above the horizon and tuck itself away again. The UV-simulating lamp perched on my desk does its best, and if I’m really desperate, I’ll crank up the heat and put on a bikini. Nevertheless it’s impossible to escape the fact that, in winter St Andrews, one lives in the dark like one of those proverbial giant alligators that roams the sewers beneath Manhattan, and that, my friends, is immensely depressing.

But that winteriness is festive! It’s part of the Christmas season! Things just wouldn’t be RIGHT without that icy darkness! everyone insists. To which I say, shut up (and no, I’m not one of those people who hates Christmas to ‘be different’).

Despite the lack of pine garlands or plastic reindeer or creepy fat men dressed in Santa suits, I’m pretty convinced that I’m in one of the more perfect spots on earth right now, for I am typing this from a massive egg-shaped chair with a view of Israel and the Sinai peninsula across the Red Sea. There are of course Christians in Jordan, but the majority is Sunni Muslim, so the manifestations of Christmas cheer that every British or American shop vomits all over you the moment you enter are for the most part absent. The market town of Madaba, our first port of call upon arriving in Amman eight days ago, has enough Christians to put up a tree in the main roundabout, but no one seems determined to asphyxiate you with festiveness. When I explained to a shopkeeper that we were heading to Jerusalem on the 24th for Christmas, he paused for a second and commented, ‘Huh. That’s right, I guess it is Christmas’. Again, I don’t hate the holiday—far from it; I love roast goose and Baileys and the Nutcracker and all the rest of it—but there are few things that ride me more than people forcing me to be cheerful. Here in Jordan, the nonchalant attitude is almost as refreshing as the sun and fresh dry air.

Indeed, the past eight days have reminded me what it is like to feel warmth on my skin and to see the sun overhead in a wide-open blue sky; much to my joy I feel human again. As I made my way into central Aqaba this morning, I was all of a sudden aware that I was smiling in that rather absent way that usually makes an appearance only after a few glasses of wine (and I assure you that my time in Jordan has been far from a boozefest). The iced-over island of Britain seems about a billion miles from the soft warm breezes and bubbling hookahs of Aqaba. To those of you that have been stranded by the snow back home, be it in your houses or in airports, I am so tremendously sorry. The whole thing just seems very unfair, and had I not skipped my last history seminar (oops) I would probably be in the same boat. Or the same terminal at Heathrow, if you will.

Though there is a rather large part of me that is praying for Schipol and/or Edinburgh to be hit by an enormous horrific snowstorm on the 30th, leaving me no choice but to—oh no!—stay in Amsterdam or Tel Aviv for a few days at KLM’s expense. One can dream.

Apart from the stellar weather it enjoys in December, Jordan has been exceedingly pleasurable because almost all of the Jordanians with whom I’ve interacted have been friendly to the point of absurdity. I know that this suggests a sweeping generalisation and that there’s usually been a cash transaction involved, but people are so ridiculously hospitable here that it blows my mind. It seems as though Lonely Planet and Rough Guide wax poetic about ‘the people’ of every single country/city/region guide they produce (‘…however, it is the people of Ghana/Thailand/Tajikistan/the Maghreb/the Moldovan breakaway republic of Transnistria that are its best asset’), but it is hard to exaggerate the kindness and effervescence of Jordanians. I attribute this to good weather, good food, and possibly the relaxing effects of a good hookah session (very scientific, I know). I’ve been served countless cups of free tea and Turkish coffee, gifted about ten pounds’ worth of sticky Arab sweets, and complimented for my extremely limited Arabic language skills, amongst other things. Even the airport employees issuing visas and stamping passports were unfailingly polite and—gasp!—friendly, whereas whenever I go through customs at SFO, I’m booted into the baggage claim with a flat, sarcastic ‘welcome home, I guess’.

Actually, here in Aqaba, a guy named Zalif seems to have taken it upon himself to make my stay as relaxing as possible (he works for the hotel; he’s not just some random). It began yesterday, when we arrived a few hours before check-in so that Ted could fit in a dive. We had all left Wadi Musa at half six in the morning, which meant that my mom and I were practically gagging for caffeine. Although we technically shouldn’t have gotten any breakfast, I asked Zalif, who was surveying the buffet, if we might possibly get some coffee, preferably the Turkish variety that Jordan does so well. My mom, brother and I were immediately seated with a view of the Red Sea and given our own pot of coffee, as well as hot milk, sugar and some sweet cakey bread. Later that afternoon, as I walked out to the beach for a much-needed bit of tanning, Zalif appeared out of nowhere with a cushion and turned my chaise so that I could enjoy the sun without being bothered by the sea breeze. ‘That was nice,’ I thought to myself, and had closed my eyes for all of about two minutes when he turned up with a plate of sliced oranges and a query as to whether or not I desired any lunch (already stuffed with fresh pita, hummus and cucumber, I declined). Since then, he has plied me with enough Turkish coffee to give me heart palpitations, which is great and everything, don’t get me wrong, but he’s also asked for a few pictures of the two of us waltzing together. That strikes me as weird, so I’ve foregone the free coffee for this afternoon.

There has of course also been Petra and the Roman city of Jerash and the crusader castles and the Dead Sea and all of that (I figure I’m obliged to mention these things in a post about Jordan). Photos hardly do these things justice; nonetheless they do a much, much better job describing them than my blog can. Or maybe I’m just in the mood for a puff on the hookah right now.

Rah, rah Doh-ha ha

Applying for my business visa at the San Francisco consulate, not realising that the 'long way' to Shanghai was going to be THIS long












Update: waited until half six in the evening but got up the courage to face the heat and go outside; at this point it was a mere 45 degrees (111F), which was down from 49 (120F). Decked out in clothing completely unsuited to the climate, I made my way along Musheireb for a few blocks and then turned around, a journey that took all of half an hour but left me glistening and begging the front desk for a bottle of water.

Doha is funny—it’s much like other Islamic cities in its architectural motifs, the wares sold in it shops, and its bright, gaudy signs, but without that charming sense of timelessness and organic decay. It’s weirdly clean, with paved streets and well-maintained roundabouts, and instead of that tawny golden colour, the buildings are best described as off-white (or kind of the colour of a white oxford shirt that needs to be thrown in the wash because it’s been worn in hot weather a few too many times). The mosques, with their clean lines, are clearly quite new—and look almost sterile in their spotlessness. They actually look a bit like play-mosques, as though they were made out of Play-Doh (plasticine) for a child.

One thing you won’t see on the streets of Doha? Women. I saw exactly three on my foray—two that looked to be friends on a shopping trip, decked out in elaborately decorated burqas, and one, holding her husband’s hand, covered in black from head to toe save for her eyes. Even though it had killed me to do it, I had put on my blazer over my shirtsleeves and was immensely glad I did; I don’t care to imagine the commotion a blonde-haired, blue-eyed and bare-armed foreign girl would have caused. I also wore my sunglasses despite it being dusky outside, as it made it much easier to avoid making eye contact with Doha’s male population—which is interpreted as sexual forwardness. Finally, I forced myself to sort of grimace the whole time, as a smile also happens to be interpreted as sexual forwardness (much like in Eastern Europe, where I hear that it’s also seen to be a sign of psychosis…only the Slavs would be of the mindset that, if you appear happy, you must be going crazy). Needless to say, I didn’t approach any strangers and ask them to take a picture of grinning and waving in front of a minaret.

I arrived back covered in a thin film of sweat and feeling as though I had been slow-cooked, and so as not to stink up the plane tonight, jumped into the shower. Now, in most of the world, hot running water is considered a luxury, and you only get a certain amount before it runs out. Here, in order to get some cold water on your hair or skin, you have to catch it right as soon as you turn on the shower or tap, because after about seven seconds, everything that comes out could cook a chicken. The water temperature available to you now ranges from hot to scalding. When you envision water tanks sitting out in the 49 degree sun, it makes sense…kind of.

When I got back I also tried to take a look at qatarsucks.com (just for kicks and giggles), on which someone has posted a list called ‘Ten Things I Hate About Qatar’. It seems that the government has blocked access to qatarsucks.com, which I found out thanks to this hilarious/frightening notice. I don’t enjoy my internet shenanigans being censored and I don’t think that there’s anything particularly dangerous on qatarsucks.com, but I can understand why the government *ahem* resents the site, considering as it’s devoted to hating the nation. It’s also nothing compared to the Great Firewall of China, which should be fun to contend with for the next few months. Hopefully the flat uses proxies or VPN or onion routing (I use these words like I know what they mean, but in reality all I know is that they let you access facebook).






Is this meant to be geared towards children or something???










Oh, and it’s ‘not recommended’ to drink out of the tap. Although I think Qatar is so unsuitable to life forms as to be inhospitable to even parasites, I’m not taking any chances.