The Pictorium
Sharing bits of my life over the past few months with you.
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| From Snow in York |
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| From Whitby & Scarborough |
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| From Leeds |
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| From Durham |
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| From Brighton |
Archived entries for Explorator
Londoning
I spent the day in London today, walking around and asking random strangers to take pictures of me striking the same pose over and over again next to different monuments and attractions. I was never good at asking strangers to take pictures of me, but today I devised a strategy not unlike that of your common criminal: target individuals, not groups, and preferably a female of your size or smaller. It worked!
Between my fetishistic fixation on the iconic red phone booths and the little street cafes, the things I was grateful for today are as follows, in no particular order:
1-Google maps: even though I still imagine the distances to be more than what they really are on Google maps, I managed to get everywhere I needed to go.
2- Free printing at the Centre for Women’s Studies: because otherwise I would have had to pay to print out my Google maps.
3- Student discounts: this goes for the train ticket, taxi ride, and the Whopper I had for dinner.
4- Other tourists: because they are always helpful and a couple were creative when they took my picture today. The police were also very friendly and I even had my picture taken with two officers in front of Buckingham Palace, with the third officer taking the picture.
5- My feet and super duper Airwalk sneakers: I swear by my sneakers, which are unfortunately starting to come apart after two years of almost daily use.
6-Luck: I was literally the last person to get on the train from London to York tonight, due to my usual gambling with time (did I really have to stop to buy a piece of cake a minute before the train took off?). There was also another very lucky coincidence today: I got to watch the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace! Since they only do this on odd days in the Autumn, I was delighted that I attended it!
7- Luck (again): I reached Westminster Cathedral just in time for mass and attended it. I love attending mass, it feels right out of a Medieval story. The dim lights of candles inside the cathedral and the various chapels make it a wonderful place to watch people at prayer.
8- The weather: it was such a beautiful day today, even though only a few days ago the BBC forecast rain in London today. Then they changed their minds and said it will be sunny, and it was! It’s much warmer in London than it is in York.
9- Mobile internet: I spent the train journeys listening to internet radio on my phone, because my iPod doesn’t work at the moment.
10- Quiet at Hyde Park: although I am not much of a park person, it was wonderful to sit on a bench and have a quiet lunch, or semi-quiet. Pigeons sprung up out of nowhere and wanted to bully me into giving them my sandwich, which I had made at 4:30 AM. No, I said, NEVER!
I am now in love with London. I haven’t been able to move around a lot because I didn’t have much time, but from what I have seen around the Victoria area, it is a city bustling with energy and diversity. It makes you want to do things, it makes you want to be things, because you see all that history and beauty combined in one place and being enjoyed by people from all cultures. It is truly magnificient. I love it more than NYC, if that’s even possible.
Check out some of the pictures that I took today. There are a couple of videos of the guards change and other randomosity in there as well:
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| London |
New York, New York
People,
A whole lot has happened since I wrote properly in this space. In fact, so much has happened that I don’t think I’m the same person anymore. Fortunately for you though, I don’t feel the need to share the minutiae of my drama-drenched life. One day all that will go in a book, and if you buy it, you will be privy to the details of the struggle and whatever follows it.
To make a long story short, I am now in New York. I got here just a couple of days before election day and will be staying until mid January. So, to the three readers I have, if you happen to be in New York and want to meet up, drop me a line so we can arrange something.
Exploring the Citadel
A friend of mine took me to the hill of the Citadel this morning to see the various gods on display over there. I haven’t been to the Citadel in forever, really, as I can’t even remember when I last went there except for the detail that it was at night and that I could see the lights of Amman from the hill. So, it was a refreshing and a thoroughly amusing trip this morning…not to mention that I discovered that I have a statue fetish.
One of my, and my friend’s, favorite items in the museum at the Citadel were jars where ancient peoples in Tlilat Al Ghasoul (a place in Jordan) buried their dead. This is a picture of a child’s skeleton in one of the jars, and after that there is a picture of bigger, adult jars. Two to three corpses were placed in a single jar.
And I also liked these Roman “tear glasses:”
And, oh, the head sculptures. There were many heads and other sculptures, as well as bits of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The broad historical spectrum represented through the items was very informative. You can click here and see a collection of pictures I took today, and hopefully go to the Citadel yourself and explore a bit.
Pictures and Videos from Mount Nebo
I’ve uploaded the bulk of the pictures I took during the visit to my Picasa, check out my Mount Nebo album for intriguing visuals.
The priest in a brown habit lighting some candles…
The center stained glass window…
During the service..
Short video clips from the service. These are surreal:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XdWcf4Lg8M&rel=1]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoSvyKxM1k4&rel=1]
A Visit to Mount Nebo
Yesterday was one of those particular days that live on to become excellent stories. I was home alone and dulled by my very long Eid vacation, and I was especially bummed because I couldn’t organize a trip somewhere during that vacation.
Eventually not being able to imagine how wasted I would feel if I didn’t do something, I decided to go on a solo road trip. When I thought about it initially, I wanted to go to the Dead Sea and get tanned. The Dead Sea was an ideal choice because it is close and equipped with touristy places and I could have driven back home in no time if my parents decided to abort their awayness. Then I figured that bikini-ing alone would probably not be so much fun, and reading a book in the grilling sun as random people pitied me for being alone would be even less fun.
After some quick thinking, I decided to go to Madaba if I could find it. I thought if I did Madaba and had some extra time I will go down to the Dead Sea and drive up to Amman just for the heck of it. That was the plan unless I thought of something else along the way.
I’ve been to Mount Nebo some years back and it seemed closer then. I guess because I was going there on my own this time, and hesitating in trusting the touristic signs leading me there, that it seemed so distant. Nonetheless, once I got to it, the place was as majestic and divine as it ever was.
To my utter delight, I was welcomed with a free pass at the foot of the mountain. I walked up towards the famous Brazen Serpent and then entered the church. The vast majority of the visitors were foreign, there were French, Italians, Spanish, and Japanese. I saw only one or two Jordanian groups of little numbers.
Once inside, I renewed my fascination with the typically gorgeous stained glass artistry that is usually iconic in Christian places of worship. Not much of it was present in Mount Nebo but since I do not get to see much of it in my daily life anyway, what little was there was spectacular. I wish they would add to the four stained glass windows already present.
I spent close to two hours inside the church, sitting on the first bench closest to the ancient rotund altar and looking out through the image of the Father and into myself. Then a clergyman appeared from out of nowhere, wearing a long brown habit, eyeglasses, and a watch, and started getting peculiar items from a small corner closet that I had not even noticed until he touched it. He got a red Bible with two bookmarks dangling from it and placed it on a center table in the altar. Then he got little bottles and mixed some of their ingredients and placed them on the table as well. All of this was fascinating to me and I sat there watching him with the utmost attention.
I have always wanted to attend a prayer, or a sermon, or a mass in a church. I have had this desire for the longest time and I was never able to realize it. So when I saw preparations taking place for something quite unfamiliar to me, then I had no doubt I must stick around unless otherwise instructed. I thought I would stay and watch until someone kicked me out.
Minutes later, a group of Italian tourists joined the clergyman in the alter ring. They sat on the sides and the bench where I was sitting no longer had its viewing advantage. I decided to join the believers in the altar ring and I did. Luckily for me I could understand their language and I understood the instructions of a black clergyman telling them what to say at certain intervals. It was something to the effect of “Praise the Lord” — but in Italian.
The black man was putting on a pure white habit and he was joined by two other religious leaders. Now the total of the holymen present was four and I was excited beyond description; nobody told me to get out and nobody objected to my being in the altar ring. I think they thought I was Christian too.
The prayer started and the whole church went extremely quiet. Tourists coming in to look at us, the worshippers, were practically mute and the tallest clergyman gave a sermon about Moses and Mount Nebo. Then the Italian crowd recited “Lodate il Signore – Praise the Lord” and a couple men read from the red Bible. The best part to me, and the most familiar, was when everyone started singing Hallelujah at Biblical reading intervals. This event was raw and spiritual and I loved it. The weirdest part was when everyone crossed themselves and I didn’t.
Since I am not a Christian thinker, I did not know what will follow. I thought maybe after some time the believers will take the offering of the Holy Bread and I imagined it would not be appropriate for me to join in that activity. Of course, there was no way for me to be sure what they did next because I slipped quietly out of the altar and out of the church, filled with content and acceptance. I had not attended any prayer in just any church, but an Italian service in a Biblical site nonetheless.
On my way out, I looked at the Brazen Serpent and mused a little, and walked on. Right there in the middle of the small walk beside the church I saw a long snake wiggling off-road and I watched it slide and hide in the plants nearby. There was no reason to panic, I felt nothing watching the snake since I caught one like it in the past, and I felt no danger on the people moving about because the snake went away. Besides, Mount Nebo is a divine site in the wild and these creatures have been there before religion. I even saw a lizard in the church, high up next to the right stained glass window.
I got to my car and it wouldn’t start. Naturally, to add to the adventures of the day, I asked the tourist police to help me out and they did. I drove off down towards the Dead Sea. Now the road from Mount Nebo to the Dead Sea, in case you do not know this, is pretty dangerous. I didn’t know that. The road is technically a gallery of half-circles going down steep, cruel mountains in the scorching sun.
Eventually though, the road relaxed into a sane straight line hugged by dry salty lands and shantytowns and tired half-grown crops. To add more to the excitement, I was stopped twice by the police. Once at a regular check point where the officer noticed I looked nothing at all like the person in my ID, but chose to let me pass, and the other time when I was doing 120 when the speed limit was 50. Also then the officer chose to let me go, possibly because it was really hot and my car was filthy.
So there I was. Driving around the Dead Sea area, unsure what to do and feeling spiritual and tourist-like at the same time, when my parents decided to inform me they were 45 minutes away from home. That brought my wanderings to an absolute end and I gladly stepped on it to beat my parents home. They would have killed me if they knew I went wandering around Jordan alone, unprotected and all. What blasphemy!
Reader, I was so tense driving back home I have no idea how I made it in one piece. Fortunately, I did make it ahead of my parents and I even managed to wash the then-stinking dishes forgotten in the sink. No harm done and I lived to tell this story today.
A Forbidden Anticlimax
- Zero Or Prologue -
The following is not a poem or a play, it’s not a song or a prayer. It is my thoughts organized in short lines atop of each other, and grouped in knots of four.
- I -
Take off the judge robes, or keep them on
I am not excited that I’m going home
Perhaps it’s work, or school, maybe
Or a society that keeps a close eye on me
- III -
I am a traitor
Or too cocky and crooked
For not missing a place
And finding comfort elsewhere
- III -
Luckily, I don’t see things that way
Where I lay my head is home
What is left of Jordan,
Anyway?
For a Few Dollars More
Money equals status, it equals independence, it equals evil, and it equals lots and lots of shopping. I have just returned from a 90-minute shopping trip during which I entered two stores and emerged armed with two peep toe pumps, black stilettos, sneakers, a short Victorian jacket and one yellow trench coat.
I went through the last dollars I had on me. Technically speaking, I can now beg for money and be absolutely honest about it. I cannot say “God bless you” by the end of the affair though, so I will have to come up with something of equal spiritual value to reward the generous. How about “I will send you positive vibes”?
In the stores today, I felt as if someone had taken off some invisible leash that had me bound to the couch during the past two days. I was, and still am, physically sapped after the trips to Toronto and Washington DC. During these trips I did not get any time to rest and I was living out of a bag, which is not nearly as romantic as it sounds. Consequently, I was drained to such a degree that I alternated between the couch and the bed for my birthday party yesterday.
To sum it all up, I am exhausted, bankrupt, and going home in three days. I am unsure what I should be feeling but thankfully, the forbidden fruits I just bought are my consolation.
Walking DC
You know how people always say that they “can’t feel their legs” when they’re really tired? That is total inaccurate rubbish because the only time you can feel your legs is when you’re very tired. Today I got to feel a lot, knee down, and my legs have disowned me so now my ears and my legs have a different last name.
I spent the day walking and I never knew I could walk this much. I never knew I liked documenting my life this much. You see, I go places to take pictures to document that I was in these places. I don’t even pay attention to where I am or look and admire the places I go to; I just take pictures. I go home and look at the pictures and go Ahh, SWEET! and Look! Two people making out! . I am miserable this way because I don’t understand time and so I don’t believe what’s going on around me until it has passed already. You probably have more issues than I do though, because you’re reading about mine and enjoying it.
Got a screw in my head,
Diddy diddy diddy
– dead.
The weather today was very hot. It was also very humid because of all the sweat and other bodily liquids trapped in the air. I went to the National Museum of Air & Space and to the National Museum of Natural History. Those are the two museums I wanted to go to and had the time to visit. Although I did want to go to some woman-related museums in the area, but there was no time for that.
My tour inside the two museums was very exciting and informative. I’ve always wanted to go to the Museum of Natural History, ever since I was a nerdy kid reading encyclopedias for fun, so it was a great dream come true to be there for real. A Night at The Museum was a bad movie though and anyone who thinks otherwise has an infertile imagination crossed with no sense of humor. I only watched it because the alternative was a contemporary Egyptian “comedy” which is polite for “nonsense.”
After the museums, I went to the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Reflecting Pool, WW I Memorial, WW II Memorial, Korean War Veterans Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, and the Smithsonian Castle. I passed by the Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery, and also by many federal buildings while moving within or around the National Mall. As usual, you can see pictures of everything I saw today in my Picasa – Washington DC album.
I walked to and from all these places, if you can imagine that. It was exhausting to walk that much in the heat. And to make things worse, my ankle-length sock slipped down my shoe and my shoe cut my foot and my foot hurt really bad throughout the final part of the day. I kept walking funny like I needed to go to the restroom. Do you know how embarrassing it is to cross the street looking like you want to take a leak by the nearest tree, doggy-style, when you really are in so much pain you don’t even care how embarrassed you are?
Pretty embarrassing. And painful.
This is the third time one of my feet gets cut on the back of the ankle during my stay in the states, do you think it’s a sign? If so, what is it a sign of? What are my feet, socks, or shoes trying to tell me?
Any of a number of things:
1- Go footnude forever.
2- Buy new socks.
3- Go back to Jordan.
4- Blank (readers’ input).
What do you think it is?
DC Stream of Consciousness
Why do people always say that Washington DC is crazy expensive? It’s not! From what I’ve noticed, NYC is a lot more expensive (add to that the non-smiling, detached people and you get a really bitter package,) and by comparison, DC people are a really pleasant lot.
Sure I’m not here to shop because what am I going to buy from DC anyway?, but souvenirs for instance are so much cheaper than in NYC. Discovering that made me very happy. Also, all sightseeing is basically for free unless I want to go to some fancy shmancy places, which I don’t. And even if I wanted to, Bush will pay for it. Now you guess which Bush will.
Sorry — had to say that.
DC means a lot to me because I passed my American Politics class with great difficulty. Not because I am dumb or anything, mind you, but because the class was taught by a microbe, or a bunch of microbes taking the shape of a person. And speaking of metaphors, I am a camel of sorts. I hold grudges, yes I’m imperfect like that, and I use sarcasm on my enemies. Off-topic now, am I not?
Where was I?
Ah, Washington, DC. It’s a clean, neat, peaceful little place that a lot of homeless people and politicians call home. What do homeless people and politicians have in common, you ask. They’re both people, obviously, and they both represent deeply-rooted socially glorified dysfunctions like alcoholicism and lies. God bless you, that’s what they both say when you give them money, then they turn around and grab the next pocket and you feel all happy inside because you supported some cause of some sort: elimination of poverty, public education, the terrorist war on terrorism…
DC is full of African-American people. It’s also full of people who like to run around that stinking water body with loads of ducks in front of the Grant Memorial. Today I saw a herd of 30 guys and girls running around half naked and going in circles around that pool. Their bodies looked perfect to me. I just think they were high on duck fart.
What a strange post this is! This is like my stream of consciousness, this is how I like to write. The reason for the “particular nature” of this post is that I am currently reading Craig Ferguson’s novel and I am profoundly impressed by how similar his thoughts are to mine. His style of writing is also pretty similar to mine, if I didn’t fear for my reputation and wrote anonymously, as I am not really anonymous writing under the name Tololy. But I have done a lot of thinking and concluded that not many kids read this blog anyway so I should go right ahead and write like I truly want to write.
Read only if you’re 18+, otherwise don’t tell your parents you’re here.
I understand the risks involved but I have decided to liberate my writing of all the properness and the fearing for people’s feelings if I used words like I use everyday like slutty and sod off and, sorry Arabic readers but I use the word teez a lot in real life and I don’t think it’s 3aib, and the like. It’s no good being machine-like, it doesn’t mesh with being alive.
Realize though that it will be considerably difficult for me to stick to this decision simply because I have been writing proper for publication in this blog for a longish time. I will always be true to what I think, only more bluntly than before, and I sincerely apologize if this change of style offends you or anyone you know. It’s more personal than political, honestly.
One day I will read my posts and watch my birth.
Maybe I can make a short movie about it.
Oh woman I think my stats will die.
What do you think?
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| From Washington, DC |
