Martyr's Shrine

http://flic.kr/p/Dw2JWz

open gate

http://flic.kr/p/DtTdjG

snowy ascent

http://flic.kr/p/Dw2vNR

Home Sweet Home

I forgot to ask my family to bring a Tim Horton's coffee with them when they come to pick me up from the airport, but it doesn't matter. Twenty-one hours after I woke up in Amman, I am back in Canada!

Purgatory

This theological concept arose in the mediaeval wester‎n church, being neither heaven nor hell, but a place where the souls of the deceased stay until they have suffered in recompense for their sins, at which point they are released to their heavenly reward. (I've probably misrepresented the doctrine, but oh well.)

My loathing of airports increases whenever I am forced to spend time in one. ‎Well  actually, the Queen Alia International Airport in Amman was "not bad," but as a transit hub, Heathrow Airport in the UK has nothing but gross commercialism to "recommend" it. The good news is that I will be able to breathe fresh air again in another ten hours, but between now and then I will be simply trying to refrain from screaming. I have not been confined indoors for this length of time in... well, I don't know. Years? Decades?

If I ever leave North America again, I owe it to myself to investigate the option of shipping out on a "tramp steamer" -- if those still exist. Or, I suppose, pay triple or quadruple the price for a direct flight.

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