Students Of The Globe - A Family Travels The World: Talabay Resort

We planned our time in Jordan to coincide with our friends' spring break who live in Amman. They had been to a nice resort on the Red Sea and recommended we spend the week there. This complex was just a few KMs from the Saudi Arabia border and when we looked across the Red Sea we saw Egypt as well as Israel, which was pretty crazy! We each had our own apartment and there were several pools to chose from as well as the Red Sea. It was a great set up and we were able to relax a bit and enjoy some down time and catching up. The kids had such a great time with one another and it was a treat for them all to have their buddies to get to hang out with. There was hardly anyone there so it felt like we had the place to ourselves. The temperature was in the low 70's and the water was cool, so we tried to take advantage of some of the neighboring resort's pools who tended to be have warmer water temps than ours or the Sea.

Chillin' by the Red Sea

Check out the purple jellyfish - so cool!

Monday happened to be Arabian Mother's Day, so mom and Katie made the most of that by spending the afternoon at the spa getting a massage and enjoying the facilities. The following day we were thrilled to find a place that could cut guy's hair into a style and not just buzz it. All of the guys took advantage of this as did Mom once she saw how talented this man was. For Dad, this flushed11 months worth of hard work down on the floor, but it was time. It was interesting to learn our cutters story as he was born in Iraq and hoped to study overseas for university like his older siblings. However, Saddam Hussein came to power and he was not allowed to leave the country. He was able to escape to Jordan and hoped to be in the army but was not allowed because of fear that he might turn his allegiance, so he's been cutting hair for years now and is basically trapped. He told about his family, who all live in the States now, coming to visit during the first elections that President Obama won. His nephew commented that he looks like Obama and that if a Muslim can be President of the United States, then there is a chance that he could someday be president and his dad told him to aim for this goal. Our haircutter friend explained how amazing this was for this young boy to be able to dream about the possibility of attaining this lofty goal as here in Jordan, this would never be an option for his child. It was easy to sense the underlying despair as this kind man relayed parts of his life story.

Shaggy!

Who's under that hair!?!

Just a trim for this one

Had to happen

Our friends had brought some rollerblades and a ripstick that our boys just loved cruising around on. Thankfully there was only one concerning fall where G got scuffed up a bit. They also brought along some snorkeling gear and our last day we went down the road and snorkeled around a reef. We had fun making family breakfasts and the kids would clean up after one another which was a treat. Unfortunately, we likely spread our colds to our friends as some of them started coming down with head congestion as well. This gave us all an excuse to lay around and do little, which was just fine in our view. We spent our evenings watching a basketball game with wings (unfortunately it was the Iowa ~~game,~~ er, blowout), having a couple of date nights, a family dance/talent night, movie nights, poker games, Dutch Blitz matches, and eating along the inlet on the Red Sea. Little school was done as 100% of our time was devoted to hanging out with our friends we hadn't seen in over a year and a half. However, our apartment didn't have Internet as it claimed to have, so Dad complained and they ended up installing a router so that we could be connected. While this wasn't how we hoped to spend our time, the reality was that we haven't had decent Internet in over a month and at this point of our travels, we only had 2 of the next 3 weeks planned and felt a bit behind our game with scheduling, so tried to make good use of the opportunity to get a few things booked in April. We still have a lot of holes but got a few things booked and at least a blue print in the works.