Posted by Betsy Beaulieu at 9:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello, everyone!

I figured I’d better try this once in the comfort of my home before I’m blogging for real on the road. I’m going to try to add a picture, too; those of you who are familiar with my limited technical capabilities are entitled to your skepticism. So here goes …

It seems like just yesterday that Champlain College president Dave Finney and I cooked up this scheme to send faculty abroad. We’re trying to build a culture of study abroad at Champlain, and we figured that one way to do that was to make travel contagious. If students experience well-traveled professors in the classroom, they’ll become more globally curious. And the faculty are genuinely excited to have the opportunity to experience another culture in-depth, and to be able to design a course around their own interests and experiences.

And so I’m off tomorrow to Jordan and Egypt. My best friend and traveling companion Lee Burdette Williams will be with me. Champlain has developed a working relationship with the University of Jordan through Gary Scudder and the Global Modules program, and so that felt like a logical place to start. (Other places I considered visiting included Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and the UAE. But it got to be too much, so I’ll save those for another trip.) We’ll spend several days in Amman and then Gary has arranged a daylong excursion to the ancient city of Petra. Then Lee and I are headed to a Dead Sea resort for two days. I’ve been fascinated with the Dead Sea area since I was a kid, and so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go there and float in the sea and plaster myself with the mud. After that, on to Egypt – first Luxor and then Cairo.

I’m pretty much packed – lots of lightweight clothing, since temps may well be in the low 100s. Although we’re going to fairly Westernized countries, the rule of thumb for women is “elbows and knees.” No bare shoulders, no shorts or short skirts – cover, or almost cover, your elbows and knees. So I’ve got a variety of cropped pants and wicking tee shirts – a very baggy look for me! Bare feet, apparently , are not nearly as tempting as bare shoulders; I’ve been told that sandals are perfectly fine. I think this is the first trip I’ve ever taken with only two pairs of shoes – Tevas and a wonderful pair of summer Merrells I found and fell in love with. Oh, and I‘ll have water shoes as well, for my much-anticipated dunk in the Dead Sea.

I’ve taken a picture of the packing I’ve done so far, and I’ll try to upload it here. This is practice, after all.

The other two things I’m taking are snacks (energy bars, peanut butter crackers, M&Ms) because of my notorious picky eating habits (hummus? Yuck!!) and books. Reading for the trip: Three Cups of Tea, Finding Nouf, and A Map of Love. Lee and I will share these books; she’s also bringing Chris Bohjalian’s new book and travel Scrabble. So we should be well-occupied on the 12+ hour flight.

I pulled a muscle in my back this afternoon lifting my suitcase (how many times does one have to be told to lift with one’s arms and legs??), and so I’m fretting a bit about tomorrow’s travel. I’m dosing myself with ibuprofen, liniment, and a heating pad, hoping to be better by morning. Please send good vibes – I’ve been looking forward to this trip for too long to let minor back spasms stand in my way. (Major back spasms, however, could put a serious crimp in the plans.)

I am off tomorrow, inshallah -- as my colleagues Gary and Ken, both of whom have rudimentary Arabic, like to say. The next post will be from the Middle East!

Posted by Betsy Beaulieu at 9:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)