''What? Why on earth would you go to Jordan among all the places in the world??'' -The woman working at the travel agency.

I guess this reaction wasn't surprising since not many groups of 5 girls would decide to go Jordan after graduation.

My best friends and I chose to go the Jordan for a week and took our seats on the plane among hundreds of Arabic businessmen.

We stayed at the Turkish Embassy in Amman as one of my friends is the daughter of the Ambassador.

The fact that it was the middle of the summer was not that big of an inconvenience. Coming from Turkey, I didn't find the temperature difference drastic.

Amman was way more modern that how I thought it would be. Perhaps it was the fact that the part of the city we stayed at was one of the most decent. Then again there were the places of Amman which compelled us, as girls, to dress up in a slightly more conservative way, such as big shirts as opposed to tank tops...

We spent our first few days at the Cafes in Amman, meeting people who attended the American school there. Jordan, as an Arabic country, is renowned for hookah (argilah) and that, of course, was offered in every single cafe.

We went to the Dead Sea, which is famous for its high concentration of salt and other minerals. Its high density made you float even if you didn't want to. It was very difficult to swim and it really wasn't that pleasant to get some Dead Sea water in your eye (I thought I was going blind.) The mud, of course, is almost as famous as the water itself. It is said to be very good for the skin, and that was good enough a reason for us to cover ourselves with it (thus looking African American). We also enjoyed tanning by the swimming pool there at the hotel from which we descended to the Dead Sea. The male to female population was quite strange (not so much for the Middle East).

Then there was the Red Sea and my favorite part of the trip: snorkeling and so seeing the creatures and plants (everything from pink lettuce-like weeds to fat fish with polka dots) which made the undersea screensavers look dull. It was a remarkable experience in terms of, as cliché as it might seem, stepping into (in this case diving into) different worlds.

to be continued…