Favorite Mideast memories, stream-of-consciousness (aka, How I spent my stimulus check and tax refund)

• The warm, gooey perfect falafel we bought just outside the Western Wall
• Making a human pyramid at the pyramids
• Referring to any food we didn't recognize as "wikipedia"
• Singing hymns in the matchless acoustics of Saint Anne's church
• Laughing, talking, sipping lemon tea and eating wikipedia crackers and white pomegranate at the hostel in Petra, afternoon sunlight streaming in through the perfect window
• Matt's spirited rendition of the Lion King in the Petra monastery
• Floating down the Nile talking with dear friends and watching a slow sunset
• Wandering through the tunneled streets of Acco at night
• Dumping piles of dust out of my shoes after a day in Petra
• Falling asleep on a horse and buggy ride around Luxor from sheer exhaustion
• Sinking in up to my knees in mud at the Dead Sea
• Paging Andrea over the airport intercom in Amman
• Praying in the church on the Mount of Beatitudes
• Getting lost driving in the West Bank … I'm not sure where we are but there’s a sign to Ramallah … yikes ...
• Rusty and Dave pelting each other with olives all along the Jerusalem city wall
• Jewish men and boys singing and dancing their way to the Western Wall at sunset
• Wading through knee-deep water in Hezekiah’s tunnel
• Camels everywhere! I heart camels
• Getting proposed to by my camel driver (he offered 1 million camels for me!)
• Being told by my donkey driver that my donkey was slower because I was too fat
• All the homos – I mean hummus – I could eat. I heart hummus
• Being nearly accosted by Egyptians for money
• Melt-in-your-mouth Egyptian pizza
• Randomly meeting someone from the Cairo ministry of culture who got us reserved seating at the whirling dervish show
• Matt reading us select verses at Biblical sites in and around Jerusalem
• Walking smack into a wall in the Masada museum
• Shekels!
• Dinars!
• Hearing the call to prayer virtually everywhere
• Sprinting through the old city with a djembe and a backpack full of dishes and scarves
• Losing half my body weight in sweat at the Valley of the Kings
• Gaining it all back eating pita bread and every kind of salad imaginable