More snow!!

Well I arrived in Jerusalem and after two days its started snowing. It snowed for two days on and off. The roads were more or less closed, and are still kind of iffy. My roommate back in Amman sent me an email said they are up to 40 centimeters (that is about 16 inches). I hope it is still there when I come back.



All the snow has prompted me to write a few of the noticeable differences between life in Alaska and life in the Middle East. Enjoy...

You might be an Alaskan in the Middle East if:

- You wear a T-shirt at 45 degrees and are told by anyone you talk to that you are crazy.

- You are accused of being a criminal for carrying a leatherman

- You receive complete disbelief that a knife could ever be a necessary tool

- You are told you are from another planet because hunting and fishing is an essential part of life

- It finally snows and after two minutes everyone quickly realizes that they don't want to have a snow ball fight against you

- You look at sand dunes and wonder why the bedouins haven't tried dog teams to get around.

- When you see girls covered up you instinctively think it has more to do with weather than culture or religion.

- Power outages in the West Bank make you feel more at home than they do worry you.

- You tell people you own 320 durnums (40 acres) and they think you must be a king.

- You tell people your mom hunts, hikes, and builds log houses (after you explain a log house) and…well they just can’t imagine that any woman would ever do that, let alone enjoy it.

- You get looks of amazement and disbelief when you say that you only have 4 hours of light in winter and 20 hours of light in the summer

- You try to relate the absurd idea that in your village the closest store may be 20 miles away.

- What people here call "old fruit" you would still pay five dollars for

- Your village has a smaller population than a single Arab family.

- People refer to places like the Mount of Olives or Mount Amman and you laugh inside

- After a couple months you realize that you can tell people anything about Alaska and they will believe it

- You are told that your have snow all year round despite your insistence to the contrary.

- You explain what the polar bear club is and people start shivering.

- When it snows (on the rare occasion) people ask you to go to the store since "you are used to it". (This one just happened to me)

- People just refer to you as the Alaskan guy or Eskimo…and it makes you happy

- You hear Bedouin Arabic and think it sounds like Inupiaq (which it kinda does)

- You have great difficulty/impossibility of explaining the following:
Northern lights
Forty below
Ice Hockey
Mosquito swarms
Ice Fog
Carhartts
Akutaq
Glaciers
A 400 halibut
Moose, Caribou, Bears, or any wild animals bigger than a dog
Chainsaws
Snowmachines
Road Kill