Nowadays I enjoy being introverted with a day job and a lot of gadgets and gizmos.

But travel is still a thing I highly recommend if you have the money and time for it.

The planet’s full of interesting places too. After a while you start seeing patterns and they start to blend together. Overly reductively, but everywhere I’ve been that isn’t in Freedomland reminds me of either Europe or India.

So I’m gonna talk about the Middle East without bringing up politics.

It was around Christmas in 2016. We were in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

We started in the colorful and noisy streets of Amman. North to Jerash to explore old Roman ruins. Down to the cell in Machaerus. Took a trip up to Mt. Nebo. Got to float on the Dead Sea. Then saw both the more and less touristy parts of Petra and the buildings carved into the rocks. Bedouin tea isn’t chai but it’s pretty solid. Got to climb some sand dunes. Camels are much more fun to ride than horses.

Wadi Rum. That’s what stood out most.

We took a buggy out to the middle of the desert.

Ate meals around the fire with the hosting tribesmen. They talked about their culture, and us ours.

We slept in tents with a lot blankets. It gets surprisingly cold at night for a place everyone thinks is hot.

Climbed the big stone monolith to watch the sunrise and sunset.

But that night sky, it’s amazing how many stars you can see when there aren’t big lights everywhere.

Same night sky my ancestors looked up at and for some reason decided Jupiter looked like a Brihaspati.