AQABA a.k.a. phoenix with a sea

jessey and i went to Aqaba this past weekend, on our own, on a bus. we purchased our tickets at the JETT bus station on friday and left saturday morning on an adventure we won't soon forget. there are some things that jessey doesn't want me to dwell on (namely the not so good experiences: with taxi(s) and the bus driver, and that it was 95 plus degrees outside) that i won't mention here. so, now that that is behind us, here's the trip highights:
1. THE WEIRD
- shower with no tub/no curtain/2 square feet of raised tile = flooded bathroom
- taxi's with no meters who tell you to decide how much you want to pay and then tell you to give them more when your price is too low
- fully-clothed women/teenage girls swimming in the red sea

2. THE RESTAURANTS
- Ali Baba's: standard restaurant with american and arabic food options...most with meat. we ate hummus and batatas (french fries). favorite mis-spelled words: minereal woter, graps fruit, & red pull
- Dantilla: featuring ice cream! we were the only people at the restaurant at 7:00, for some reason, but the food was good and we spoke in arabic the whole time with the waiters. beautiful view of the red sea and nice people. we had potato wedges, tea, water, popcorn, and a strawberry shake. the shake was amazing.

3. THE SCHEME
we wanted to snorkel, because there are amazing coral reefs in the red sea, so we walked around sunday morning trying to find a dive company. we walked into the alcazar hotel where they have a dive group, and they told us where to go and said if we told them we were "staying at the alcazar hotel" (which we weren't) we would get a good price. so, we did. actually, jessey said "we just came from the alcazar hotel" which was the truth. we snorkeled in the red sea for 7JD a piece! it lasted for about 20 minutes, when i got tired of smelling and tasting salt water, combined with a fear of dying in the red sea, combined with losing my snorkel tube. it was worth it, and it was beautiful. we just laid around at this club we didn't belong in the whole day until we left. good times.