In exactly 24 hours from now, the “DRed Shaheen” team will be pulling away from the Wadi Mujib bridge at 3:30 in the morning. I’m up awfully late right now, but I had a lot of paperwork to take care of for class that I wanted to get done before spending a weekend relaxing in Aqaba. My friend Christine is coming to visit me from Madison next week, and I want to make sure I have things prepared for her arrival, such as taking a little bit of time off from teaching to take her to some well known parts of Jordan.

After Sa’ad and the rest of the Cycling Jordan shop caught wind of the “unluckiest bike ride in Jordan” they worked fast to try to make things right. Sa’ad called us up, brought us to the shop for a meeting, and promised a free ride to make up for things, the best bikes for the Advanced Group (new ones, too, maybe!) and took us out for drinks, where a few curious BB’s (Business Bedouins) engaged me in conversation, always curious about an American in their country. You don’t see BB’s very much, but they’re justifiably proud of their background as the TRUE Jordanians, and stand out from their fellows in suits and ties instead of thobes. Silas introduced me to his friend Tareq a few months ago, the first BB I met as a flight coordinator at Queen Alia airport.

I definitely need to get to bed. Tomorrow (today) is going to be an extremely busy one, what with class, work at the Christian school, and then getting back to my house in order to prepare for the team’s arrival with a pasta supper – gotta have that carbohydrate loading! My dad is sending me his world famous spaghetti recipe for me to work with; a meal so splendid it’s said to be “the pasta that lunched a thousand forks.”

Wow, when my puns start getting THAT bad, I know it’s time for bed. You’ll hear from me after everything’s over – which me luck!