Okay, so our buses finally came and because it was so early, none of our touring sites were open yet so we headed to our hotel (Oasis Pyramids Hotel again). However, we weren't supposed to check in until later that afternoon so they didn't have anywhere for us to go. We had planned on having our scarament meeting that night at the hotel, but we were there with nothing to do and the pool house was not in use, so we headed to the pool house for our own little makeshift sacrament meeting. It was cool. I just think it is the most fascinating thing that whether you're in a church building in Livermore CA or in a pool house in Giza Egypt the church is the same and so is the spirit. It was a nice little meeting.
After that we got on the buses and headed for the Ibn Tulun Mosque. Now this was very interesting. To get to the mosque, we had to drive through what is called "The City of the Dead." This is a huge chunk of Cairo that has these ancient familial tombs where families have been buried for centuries and centuries. Their ancient ancestors are buried there and their family memebers are still being buried there as they die, to this day. Now, the interesting thing is that Cairo is really really overpopulated. There simply is not enough room for everyone. So lately, what's been happening, is that people have just started moving into these ancient tombs and living there! Families are living in these burial places. It's crazy! And then when a family who owns a tomb has a death in the famliy, the family living in the tomb will move out for a while while the family does the burial and stuff, and then they'll move back in! It's unbelievable. It was very sobering.
Anyway, we drove through the city of the dead and arrived at the Ibn Tulun Mosque. I believe this is the biggest Mosque in Egypt and it was beautiful. We had to cover our feet to go in, so these little men tied little baggies on our feet and we all waddled around like ducks. I wish I could remember more of the details about this mosque, but I'm starting to lose it all. It was really cool though.
My battery is about to die and I'm worried that I'll lose everything, so I'm going to end this installment...sorry it's so short, I'm going to finisk Egypt later today, as soon as I can charge my battery again. So hang in there because as soon as I finish Egypt I'm going to write about yesterday's excursion...City of David and Hezekiah's Tunnel! It was awesome. And then next week we're going to Jordan! Woo-hoo! Love ya'll.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Are you sick of Egypt yet?
Alrighty, day five. After breakfast they loaded us all onto the buses and we headed off for Valley of the Kings. This valley is in the middle of nowhere and served as the burial grounds for many Egyptian pharaohs. They’re still discovering tombs. Something the Valley is known for is its “natural pyramid” that overlooks the valley. People come from all over to see this natural pyramid. It was cool.
Our ticket that we bought allowed us to go into three tombs. I played “mom” as I handed around my sunscreen to anyone who wanted some. It was really dry, hot and sunny. Our guide, Habibi, talked to us for half an hour or so about the tombs and discoveries, etc.. He told us that back in the day, the workers started work on a pharaoh’s tomb as soon as he took the throne. Talk about being prepared. Anyway, many if not most of the tombs are unfinished because when a king died it took 70 days to do the embalming and mummification. So all work in the tombs stopped and everyone moved to work on the actual burial chamber to make sure that it would be finished by the end of mummification period.
First, I went with a group to King Tut’s tomb. Yessiree, King Tutankhamen. They have his body there. I saw THE King Tut. He looked like a prune. A big one. They also had one of his sarcophaguses…he had a bunch…kind like one of those Russian dolls. The walls of his burial chamber were covered with paintings and carvings of baboons. Baboons were supposed to be the animal and symbol of guards and protection. Not exactly the first thing that pops into my mind when I think “baboon.” Something more like bare butt. Or big butt. Or red butt. Or Rafiki. But I guess they can be pretty mean when they’re mad. It was pretty cool though. Once again, it was much smaller than anyone would imagine after watching “The Mummy,” but still cool.
After King Tut’s tomb we headed over to Thutmosis III’s tomb. We had to climb up a bunch of steps to get there. It was kind of in a crevice in a high cliff. I have no idea how they got his sarcophagus and burial box up there, but they did somehow. Anyway, his was full of all these passages and rooms with elaborate, colorful paintings. The ceilings were all painted dark blue with gold stars. The really cool thing about his was that the walls in his burial chamber were covered with Egyptian stick figures! I bet you didn’t know there were Egyptian stick figures, but there are and they are way cool. I loved them.
Our last tomb that we decided to go to was Ramses IX’s tomb. There were some really neat carvings in the entrance, huge bigger-than-life-sized depictions of Ramses and tons and tons of hieroglyphics. The burial chamber was intensely colorful with pictures covering every bit of wall and ceiling. On the ceiling was the God of the sky and day and night (I can’t remember her name). But I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of her. She’s standing like a table on her hands and feet and every day she swallows the sun and then births it again at the beginning of the next day. There were two huge depictions of her on the ceiling in bright blues and yellows. I wish we had been allowed to take pictures.
After Valley of the Kings we stopped to look from a distance at Hatshepsut’s Temple. Hatshepsut was the woman who became Pharaoh and always depicted herself as a man. Let me tell you, she was a mover and a shaker. After she died her husband/brother destroyed almost everything she had built and scratched out her name on everything and replaced it with his own mainly out of jealous envy. Anyway, a few years ago there was a shooting at Hatshepsut’s Temple and many tourists were killed. Because of that the Temple had been closed for a long time and so when our directors were planning our Egypt trip, the Temple was closed and so they didn’t put it in our itinerary. However, it opened up again recently, but we didn’t get to go. It’s too bad we didn’t get to go because it looked really cool…I got pictures.
After seeing Hatshepsut’s temple we went and looked at the Colossus of Memnon. It’s these two huge statues that once stood at the entrance to a Temple. The Temple isn’t there anymore, but it’s an active archaeological site—they’re still excavating it. It was pretty sweet.
Now, after that we went to my second (close to first) favorite site that we visited in Egypt—The Funerary Temple of Ramses III, also called Medinat Habu. This place was incredible. When you think of the classic Egyptian Temple, this is what you think of. There just aren’t words to describe. It’s a temple praising Ramses’ deeds and lauding his accomplishments and military victories. I wish I could have seen it in it’s prime. It was completely awe-inspiring in its run-down, ruined condition. Every surface was covered in majestic depictions of Ramses III and his battles, etc. There were some very unique carvings there that our guide pointed out to us, such as men wrestling and Semites. Man, this place was too dang cool. I wish I could describe it better. Some areas still had a lot of color. Everything had carvings on it…all the walls, ceilings, pillars, doorways, everything! Man, it was neat.
After Medinat Habu we headed back to the hotel for lunch and then we had the afternoon free. Someone had organized a two-hour camel ride through the working land and villages of Luxor and so I decided to go on that. We took motorboats across the Nile to get to the “less swanky” side of Luxor and my roommate Jenny and I got on our camel, who made us feel really good about ourselves by moaning laboriously and shaking his legs violently when he stood up. The caravan was very fun, but also very sobering. We saw neighborhoods of true poverty. Homes with dirt floors and dried mud-brick walls. Dirty kids playing barefoot on dirt fields. Narrow, dirt roads and alleyways, chipped paint, derelict roofs. It was intense. The fields that these people worked in, however, were well-kept and beautiful. They grow all types of produce there. But man, it was like walking through a village on survival-mode.
After the camel ride we went back to the hotel for dinner and then we headed off for the train station to catch our overnight train from Luxor back to Cairo. And boy was this train ride an experience! It was really fun. I’m all about the overnight train thing. It’s great…you just sleep while you travel. My roommate, Clare, and my favorite thing was the announcement on the cupboards in everyone’s room. It was full of spelling errors and kindly informed us that the belly-dancing contest would take place in the club car after dinner. Yes, the belly-dancing contest. Too bad we weren’t allowed in the club car after dinner, or I would have rocked that little contest baby. Haha. We all got a good laugh out of it anyway. Before dinner, however, a few of us went to the club car and quoted lines from “White Christmas” and sang “Snow, snow, snow, snow snow!” Hey, we thought it was funny.
Our dinner would probably best be described as a “mystery meal.” No one was quite sure what we were eating and so many of us avoided the food and ate the cookies and candy bars our guides highly recommended we bring on the train with us. (Yet another reason I would have rocked that belly-dancing contest.) After dinner we had fun exploring the cars and doing handstands in the hallways. Then a group of us decided to start “blitzing” people in their rooms and just piling as many people into one of those tiny rooms as possible. They are seriously hardly big enough to turn around in. We packed 32 people into one of those rooms and we were pretty darn proud of ourselves. We had fun opening the curtains in the room at train stations and watching the faces of the people standing on the platforms outside. Open-mouthed, unabashed gaping. It was rad.
I didn’t sleep the best…I woke up a couple times because there was a group of kids standing right outside our door talking and laughing loudly until the wee hours of the morning. And then, I had to go to the bathroom the whole night, but I was too lazy to get up, put my shoes on and walk to the bathroom at the end of the car. It was like camping when I was a little kid. So instead of going to the bathroom and sleeping peacefully the whole night, I slept fitfully and kept waking up until, around 3:30 am I finally just sat up and literally said, “Fine!” and went to the bathroom. After that I slept well…until 4:30 when they woke us up for breakfast. If you can call it breakfast. It was, like, four different slices of greasy bread and one of those little wrapped cheeses. Haha. I had a snickers bar and some delicious cookies for breakfast. Bad Heather.
We were supposed to start touring as soon as we got off the train, but I think things went smoother than they thought they would and so we were standing out in front of the train station at 5:30 am waiting for our buses and our police escorts. And it is here that I will leave you waiting for the next installment of the last three days of my Egypt experience. Dun-dun-dun. (That was supposed to be suspenseful theme music.)
Our ticket that we bought allowed us to go into three tombs. I played “mom” as I handed around my sunscreen to anyone who wanted some. It was really dry, hot and sunny. Our guide, Habibi, talked to us for half an hour or so about the tombs and discoveries, etc.. He told us that back in the day, the workers started work on a pharaoh’s tomb as soon as he took the throne. Talk about being prepared. Anyway, many if not most of the tombs are unfinished because when a king died it took 70 days to do the embalming and mummification. So all work in the tombs stopped and everyone moved to work on the actual burial chamber to make sure that it would be finished by the end of mummification period.
First, I went with a group to King Tut’s tomb. Yessiree, King Tutankhamen. They have his body there. I saw THE King Tut. He looked like a prune. A big one. They also had one of his sarcophaguses…he had a bunch…kind like one of those Russian dolls. The walls of his burial chamber were covered with paintings and carvings of baboons. Baboons were supposed to be the animal and symbol of guards and protection. Not exactly the first thing that pops into my mind when I think “baboon.” Something more like bare butt. Or big butt. Or red butt. Or Rafiki. But I guess they can be pretty mean when they’re mad. It was pretty cool though. Once again, it was much smaller than anyone would imagine after watching “The Mummy,” but still cool.
After King Tut’s tomb we headed over to Thutmosis III’s tomb. We had to climb up a bunch of steps to get there. It was kind of in a crevice in a high cliff. I have no idea how they got his sarcophagus and burial box up there, but they did somehow. Anyway, his was full of all these passages and rooms with elaborate, colorful paintings. The ceilings were all painted dark blue with gold stars. The really cool thing about his was that the walls in his burial chamber were covered with Egyptian stick figures! I bet you didn’t know there were Egyptian stick figures, but there are and they are way cool. I loved them.
Our last tomb that we decided to go to was Ramses IX’s tomb. There were some really neat carvings in the entrance, huge bigger-than-life-sized depictions of Ramses and tons and tons of hieroglyphics. The burial chamber was intensely colorful with pictures covering every bit of wall and ceiling. On the ceiling was the God of the sky and day and night (I can’t remember her name). But I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of her. She’s standing like a table on her hands and feet and every day she swallows the sun and then births it again at the beginning of the next day. There were two huge depictions of her on the ceiling in bright blues and yellows. I wish we had been allowed to take pictures.
After Valley of the Kings we stopped to look from a distance at Hatshepsut’s Temple. Hatshepsut was the woman who became Pharaoh and always depicted herself as a man. Let me tell you, she was a mover and a shaker. After she died her husband/brother destroyed almost everything she had built and scratched out her name on everything and replaced it with his own mainly out of jealous envy. Anyway, a few years ago there was a shooting at Hatshepsut’s Temple and many tourists were killed. Because of that the Temple had been closed for a long time and so when our directors were planning our Egypt trip, the Temple was closed and so they didn’t put it in our itinerary. However, it opened up again recently, but we didn’t get to go. It’s too bad we didn’t get to go because it looked really cool…I got pictures.
After seeing Hatshepsut’s temple we went and looked at the Colossus of Memnon. It’s these two huge statues that once stood at the entrance to a Temple. The Temple isn’t there anymore, but it’s an active archaeological site—they’re still excavating it. It was pretty sweet.
Now, after that we went to my second (close to first) favorite site that we visited in Egypt—The Funerary Temple of Ramses III, also called Medinat Habu. This place was incredible. When you think of the classic Egyptian Temple, this is what you think of. There just aren’t words to describe. It’s a temple praising Ramses’ deeds and lauding his accomplishments and military victories. I wish I could have seen it in it’s prime. It was completely awe-inspiring in its run-down, ruined condition. Every surface was covered in majestic depictions of Ramses III and his battles, etc. There were some very unique carvings there that our guide pointed out to us, such as men wrestling and Semites. Man, this place was too dang cool. I wish I could describe it better. Some areas still had a lot of color. Everything had carvings on it…all the walls, ceilings, pillars, doorways, everything! Man, it was neat.
After Medinat Habu we headed back to the hotel for lunch and then we had the afternoon free. Someone had organized a two-hour camel ride through the working land and villages of Luxor and so I decided to go on that. We took motorboats across the Nile to get to the “less swanky” side of Luxor and my roommate Jenny and I got on our camel, who made us feel really good about ourselves by moaning laboriously and shaking his legs violently when he stood up. The caravan was very fun, but also very sobering. We saw neighborhoods of true poverty. Homes with dirt floors and dried mud-brick walls. Dirty kids playing barefoot on dirt fields. Narrow, dirt roads and alleyways, chipped paint, derelict roofs. It was intense. The fields that these people worked in, however, were well-kept and beautiful. They grow all types of produce there. But man, it was like walking through a village on survival-mode.
After the camel ride we went back to the hotel for dinner and then we headed off for the train station to catch our overnight train from Luxor back to Cairo. And boy was this train ride an experience! It was really fun. I’m all about the overnight train thing. It’s great…you just sleep while you travel. My roommate, Clare, and my favorite thing was the announcement on the cupboards in everyone’s room. It was full of spelling errors and kindly informed us that the belly-dancing contest would take place in the club car after dinner. Yes, the belly-dancing contest. Too bad we weren’t allowed in the club car after dinner, or I would have rocked that little contest baby. Haha. We all got a good laugh out of it anyway. Before dinner, however, a few of us went to the club car and quoted lines from “White Christmas” and sang “Snow, snow, snow, snow snow!” Hey, we thought it was funny.
Our dinner would probably best be described as a “mystery meal.” No one was quite sure what we were eating and so many of us avoided the food and ate the cookies and candy bars our guides highly recommended we bring on the train with us. (Yet another reason I would have rocked that belly-dancing contest.) After dinner we had fun exploring the cars and doing handstands in the hallways. Then a group of us decided to start “blitzing” people in their rooms and just piling as many people into one of those tiny rooms as possible. They are seriously hardly big enough to turn around in. We packed 32 people into one of those rooms and we were pretty darn proud of ourselves. We had fun opening the curtains in the room at train stations and watching the faces of the people standing on the platforms outside. Open-mouthed, unabashed gaping. It was rad.
I didn’t sleep the best…I woke up a couple times because there was a group of kids standing right outside our door talking and laughing loudly until the wee hours of the morning. And then, I had to go to the bathroom the whole night, but I was too lazy to get up, put my shoes on and walk to the bathroom at the end of the car. It was like camping when I was a little kid. So instead of going to the bathroom and sleeping peacefully the whole night, I slept fitfully and kept waking up until, around 3:30 am I finally just sat up and literally said, “Fine!” and went to the bathroom. After that I slept well…until 4:30 when they woke us up for breakfast. If you can call it breakfast. It was, like, four different slices of greasy bread and one of those little wrapped cheeses. Haha. I had a snickers bar and some delicious cookies for breakfast. Bad Heather.
We were supposed to start touring as soon as we got off the train, but I think things went smoother than they thought they would and so we were standing out in front of the train station at 5:30 am waiting for our buses and our police escorts. And it is here that I will leave you waiting for the next installment of the last three days of my Egypt experience. Dun-dun-dun. (That was supposed to be suspenseful theme music.)
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Karnak made my cry
Okay folks I’m buckling down and getting Egypt over with so that I can start writing about my everyday adventures again. However, before I start I’ll just tell you about the feeding the babies thing I mentioned before. There’s a hospital right down the road from the Center called the Red Crescent Hospital. The church actually helped a lot in getting it started a while back. It’s a hospital for women specifically and the service couple women go over once a week to help feed the babies. The service committee decided that we’d like to open it up for anyone who wanted to help out. So we had sign-ups and I got to go help feed them a couple days ago. It was such a sweet experience. I had this premie little baby that had just been born that day. He was so tiny…his body filled my palm and a couple inches down my wrist and that was it, smaller than many dolls. He was so sweet. He just stared up at me and kept drifting off to sleep. Oh boy though, for a baby his size he sure could belch! After he was done, I got this beautiful chonkers girl in a pink sleeper. She was huge and I just wanted to take her home with me. All the babies had such dark, thick, hair. I just kept laughing to myself thinking of Lyddie and her wisps of, well, nothing really. Anyway, it was a really, really nice experience. I loved it.
Alrighty, Egypt. First to answer Julie’s question: no, there was not a mummy in the pyramid we went inside. They’ve removed all mummies and everything else that once was inside the tomb to museums and such. But we did see the sarcophagus. It was just really cool. I’ve been inside a pyramid. Dang girl.
Just a cool little fact about the pyramids—the biggest pyramid, Cheops, was built by a pharaoh in the fourth dynasty (I can’t remember his name). But anyway, the second biggest one, Khafre, was built by his son and that’s the one we went into. But, even though it’s smaller than Cheops (said KEE-OPS) it was intentionally built on higher ground so that it looks like it’s the biggest. Those funny competitive Egyptians. Another cool fact that I wasn’t aware of before was that the pyramids used to covered in beautiful white limestone, with a 10-ft gold cap on the top. Get this: Cheops is 481 feet high and had 2,300,000 limestone blocks, EACH WEIGHING 5,000 LBS!!! It’s completely unfathomable. Over the years the people and tomb raiders quarried the limestone and stole the gold to use for building and trading. Sad, huh? Those pyramids must have been pretty been dang majestic in their heyday. I mean, they’re majestic now, so I can’t imagine what they must have been like then.
After going through the pyramid and then making our own human pyramid and taking lots of pictures, we headed over to the Bedouin camel men. They plopped us on camels (two people per camel) and we got a ten minute camel ride, down a slope and back. It was so fun! It’s scary because when a camel stands up, he first stands up on his hind legs and then stands up on his front legs, I really almost fell off. Everyone got a kick out of my high-pitched squeals and giggles. It was an experience to be remembered.
After our camel ride we headed down to the Sphinx. Oh man, I can’t believe I saw the Sphinx. It’s 240 feet long and 66 feet high. His head is that of Khafre, the pharaoh whose tomb we went in and the cool thing is that it is carved out of a single mass of rock. Yeah. Incredible. We had some fun getting pictures of us “kissing the sphinx.” Sweet. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you…I kissed the pyramid when I was inside! I’ve kissed the pyramids! (I’m starting to get a reputation here…first the camel, then the pyramid, and now the sphinx.) Haha.
Okay, so after the sphinx we piled back on the buses and headed out for Saqarra and Ptah-Hotep. Ptah-Hotep was one of my favorite places in Egypt. Probably number three. It’s the tomb of Ptah-Hotep and is known for it’s intricate, complex, colored, detailed, beautiful carvings and hieroglyphics. It was awesome. Not too big, but absolutely stunning. We weren’t allowed to take pictures so sorry about lack of visuals. There’s really no way to describe, it was just wonderful. Right next to Ptah-Hotep is Saqqara. Saqarra was neat. It is the step pyramid that is the first and oldest pyramid in the world. It was the main cemetery for Egypt’s ancient capital Memphis. It contains tombs of at least 14 1st dynasty pharaohs. Cool. When we got there a sandstorm was starting up. It was cool and very unlike what I thought a typical sandstorm would be like. It wasn’t especially windy with sand flying hard and fast everywhere. It was very quiet, almost like when it’s snowing. The sand particles were just gently drifting around in the air, slowly, but our guide, Habibi, said that in one hour you would be up to your neck in sand. Just while we were standing outside talking for a few minutes a pretty thick layer of sand came over all of us. Scary to get lost in, but cool to experience once. After Saqqara we headed to Memphis.
Memphis was the ancient capital of Egypt. There isn’t much there now, a lot of it is still being excavated. But we saw some cool statues of Ramses II (now he was one ambitious fellow) and a smaller sphinx. It was pretty cool.
After Memphis we went to the Papyrus factory. Although factory probably isn’t a correct title for this place. You see, in Cairo there are about 6,329,578,985….etc, etc places that call themselves “The First Papyrus Factory” or “The Original Papyrus Museum.” There are seriously ten on every block…it’s a little out of control. But anyway, we went to the one that our tour guide had a contract with of course and they showed us the process of making papyrus. It was actually really neat. It sure is a labor-intensive process. Anyway, a bunch of people bought papyrus with really cool Egyptian art. I really wanted to get this one of these geese…it’s a copy of the first and oldest painting in the world with color. It was a representation of the uniting of upper and lower Egypt and it was really, really pretty. I actually kind of regret not getting it. But I did get a beautiful Tree of Life Papyrus. It’s really nice. I’ve decided that Papyrus is really nice. I like it. The place we went to was the only papyrus place that sold the Abraham facsimiles. Lots of kids got those.
We headed for lunch at the Saqqara Restaurant. It was this fun outdoor tent-type thing with men playing instruments and women making hot, fresh, flatbread that was delicious. They served us rice and kabob. Mmmm. Way good.
Our last stop of the day was to this silver jewelry bazaar that was really expensive and pretty mac. But lots of the kids went nuts and bought all this expensive, mac Egyptian jewelry. Whatever. All I could think about was a snickers bar. I can’t remember if I told you already, but Egypt had a very strange effect on me. I started craving chocolate…ALL THE TIME!!!! I don’t know what happened, but as soon as I got there, all I could think about was chocolate. So I kinda sorta got into the habit of eating a lot of snickers bars. Yeah. Bad Heather. It continued after we got back and I just barely broke the addiction...I finally finished off the box that I bought and kept under my bed here in the Center. Yes, yes, I know. Pathetic isn’t it? But man, the withdrawals were awful. Now I know what a smoker must go through. I could only think about snickers all the time and I almost believed that my body was in pain from not eating them. Oh boy.
Okay, after that side tangent, we headed to the airport after the bazaar for our flight to Luxor. Our flight was almost two hours late, but it was only a 50 minute flight, so it wasn’t too bad. We got in to our hotel at about 10:30 and they had dinner waiting for us. Sweet. More food. Just what I needed. Haha. Anyhow, we stayed at the Mercure-Etap Hotel in Luxor, literally across the street from the Nile. Every room had a balcony that overlooked the Nile. It was beautiful.
The next day, after breakfast, we took carriages to Karnak Temple. Yes, carriages. It was so rad! Four people per carriage…our driver told me to come sit up by him, so I did. He just smiled at me the whole time and we tried to communicate in broken English. You know, that makes me think of something that I noticed in Egypt that really made me laugh so hard. Most of the people there speak very broken English, but enough to get by. I don’t know why, but because these merchants speak broken English, all the guys in our group felt that they would be better understood if they too used broken English, along with a Middle Eastern accent and huge hand movements. They looked and sounded so ridiculous. Most of them didn’t even realize they were speaking with an accent or hand movements or in completely fragmented English. It was so funny! I bet the merchants could speak better, but that they just wanted to see the Americans make fools of themselves. Haha. It made me snicker. Mmmm…snickers. No! Bad Heather.
Anyway, we got to Karnak and we had to wait outside for a bit while our group congregated and our guide, Habibi, gave us some background. Oh my gosh, guys. I had no idea. I had never heard of Karnak before…I don’t know how I hadn’t because it was one of the coolest places I have ever been in my life. I stood there in the hypostyle hall just silently weeping. I was so overcome with awe that I seriously could not keep myself from crying. I’ve never had that experience before. It was completely non-spiritual (I think)…it really was just being completely overwhelmed. It was incredible. You guys can’t imagine this place. You simply cannot imagine the size, the grandeur, the hieroglyphics, the colors, the complexity of architecture…everything! Construction of Karnak began during the Middle Kingdom between 2040-1700 BC. I can’t remember exactly, but I think it took around 400 years to build and it never was completely finished. It’s construction went through many pharaohs, all who kept building and contributing. Oh man, it was absolutely stunning. Just breath-taking. Unbelievable.
Alright, so after Karnak we got back in our carriages and went to Luxor temple…it was about a 7 minute carriage ride…they’re very close. Luxor was incredible, too. However I wish we had been able to do them on different days because I was already tired and overwhelmed from Karnak and so I probably didn’t get as much out of Luxor as I could have. But it was still really, really cool. It was mainly built by Amenophis III and Ramses II. I just can’t believe I was there. There was a really cool statue of King Tut and his wife in there, along with some cool carvings showing some of the cool traditions of ancient Egypt.
We went back to the hotel for lunch after Luxor and then we were supposed to take an afternoon felucca ride on the Nile, but it was so windy that they canceled the Feluccas and had us go in motorboats instead. It was still really fun. That’s when I took that picture of me touching the Nile. We watched the sun go down on the Nile and just had a ball being crazy college kids. After the boat ride I went with some people to an outdoor bazaar and we looked around. My excellent bargaining skills made themselves evident there. A girl I was with haggled with this man forever to get a scarf for 5 dollars. I wanted one, but I didn’t want to pay 5 dollars for it. I haggled with him forever and he would not go below 4…I wanted to pay 3. So I walked away a couple times and then he would call me back and we’d haggle some more. Finally I really was walking away and got pretty far when I heard him yell, “Okay! Okay! Come back!” When I got there he said he’d sell it to me for 3, but that if my friend who got it for 5 asked me how much I paid for it, I would tell her I paid 5 too! Haha. Funny. But I got a really cute scarf for 3 bucks baby! I definitely have Grandma Jacobs’ genes, although I bet she would have gotten it for 1 dollar. J
After dinner a group of us went over to Brother Draper’s apartment again to learn about the 3rd facsimile in Abraham. It was really neat to learn about it. I wrote down a lot of notes about it in my triple so I’ll have to tell ya’ll what I know when I get back. Cool stuff.
Okay, I am officially half-way through Egypt. I have four more days to go, but this is a good start. Once again, I’m sorry it’s so long. This is acting as my journal so I’m being as thorough as possible. Feel free to skim! Thanks again for caring enough to read about my adventures and put up with my horrible English. Like I said, it’s much more fun to have an audience to write to…it keeps me motivated. Hope everything’s well with all of you! Love ya’ll…
Alrighty, Egypt. First to answer Julie’s question: no, there was not a mummy in the pyramid we went inside. They’ve removed all mummies and everything else that once was inside the tomb to museums and such. But we did see the sarcophagus. It was just really cool. I’ve been inside a pyramid. Dang girl.
Just a cool little fact about the pyramids—the biggest pyramid, Cheops, was built by a pharaoh in the fourth dynasty (I can’t remember his name). But anyway, the second biggest one, Khafre, was built by his son and that’s the one we went into. But, even though it’s smaller than Cheops (said KEE-OPS) it was intentionally built on higher ground so that it looks like it’s the biggest. Those funny competitive Egyptians. Another cool fact that I wasn’t aware of before was that the pyramids used to covered in beautiful white limestone, with a 10-ft gold cap on the top. Get this: Cheops is 481 feet high and had 2,300,000 limestone blocks, EACH WEIGHING 5,000 LBS!!! It’s completely unfathomable. Over the years the people and tomb raiders quarried the limestone and stole the gold to use for building and trading. Sad, huh? Those pyramids must have been pretty been dang majestic in their heyday. I mean, they’re majestic now, so I can’t imagine what they must have been like then.
After going through the pyramid and then making our own human pyramid and taking lots of pictures, we headed over to the Bedouin camel men. They plopped us on camels (two people per camel) and we got a ten minute camel ride, down a slope and back. It was so fun! It’s scary because when a camel stands up, he first stands up on his hind legs and then stands up on his front legs, I really almost fell off. Everyone got a kick out of my high-pitched squeals and giggles. It was an experience to be remembered.
After our camel ride we headed down to the Sphinx. Oh man, I can’t believe I saw the Sphinx. It’s 240 feet long and 66 feet high. His head is that of Khafre, the pharaoh whose tomb we went in and the cool thing is that it is carved out of a single mass of rock. Yeah. Incredible. We had some fun getting pictures of us “kissing the sphinx.” Sweet. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you…I kissed the pyramid when I was inside! I’ve kissed the pyramids! (I’m starting to get a reputation here…first the camel, then the pyramid, and now the sphinx.) Haha.
Okay, so after the sphinx we piled back on the buses and headed out for Saqarra and Ptah-Hotep. Ptah-Hotep was one of my favorite places in Egypt. Probably number three. It’s the tomb of Ptah-Hotep and is known for it’s intricate, complex, colored, detailed, beautiful carvings and hieroglyphics. It was awesome. Not too big, but absolutely stunning. We weren’t allowed to take pictures so sorry about lack of visuals. There’s really no way to describe, it was just wonderful. Right next to Ptah-Hotep is Saqqara. Saqarra was neat. It is the step pyramid that is the first and oldest pyramid in the world. It was the main cemetery for Egypt’s ancient capital Memphis. It contains tombs of at least 14 1st dynasty pharaohs. Cool. When we got there a sandstorm was starting up. It was cool and very unlike what I thought a typical sandstorm would be like. It wasn’t especially windy with sand flying hard and fast everywhere. It was very quiet, almost like when it’s snowing. The sand particles were just gently drifting around in the air, slowly, but our guide, Habibi, said that in one hour you would be up to your neck in sand. Just while we were standing outside talking for a few minutes a pretty thick layer of sand came over all of us. Scary to get lost in, but cool to experience once. After Saqqara we headed to Memphis.
Memphis was the ancient capital of Egypt. There isn’t much there now, a lot of it is still being excavated. But we saw some cool statues of Ramses II (now he was one ambitious fellow) and a smaller sphinx. It was pretty cool.
After Memphis we went to the Papyrus factory. Although factory probably isn’t a correct title for this place. You see, in Cairo there are about 6,329,578,985….etc, etc places that call themselves “The First Papyrus Factory” or “The Original Papyrus Museum.” There are seriously ten on every block…it’s a little out of control. But anyway, we went to the one that our tour guide had a contract with of course and they showed us the process of making papyrus. It was actually really neat. It sure is a labor-intensive process. Anyway, a bunch of people bought papyrus with really cool Egyptian art. I really wanted to get this one of these geese…it’s a copy of the first and oldest painting in the world with color. It was a representation of the uniting of upper and lower Egypt and it was really, really pretty. I actually kind of regret not getting it. But I did get a beautiful Tree of Life Papyrus. It’s really nice. I’ve decided that Papyrus is really nice. I like it. The place we went to was the only papyrus place that sold the Abraham facsimiles. Lots of kids got those.
We headed for lunch at the Saqqara Restaurant. It was this fun outdoor tent-type thing with men playing instruments and women making hot, fresh, flatbread that was delicious. They served us rice and kabob. Mmmm. Way good.
Our last stop of the day was to this silver jewelry bazaar that was really expensive and pretty mac. But lots of the kids went nuts and bought all this expensive, mac Egyptian jewelry. Whatever. All I could think about was a snickers bar. I can’t remember if I told you already, but Egypt had a very strange effect on me. I started craving chocolate…ALL THE TIME!!!! I don’t know what happened, but as soon as I got there, all I could think about was chocolate. So I kinda sorta got into the habit of eating a lot of snickers bars. Yeah. Bad Heather. It continued after we got back and I just barely broke the addiction...I finally finished off the box that I bought and kept under my bed here in the Center. Yes, yes, I know. Pathetic isn’t it? But man, the withdrawals were awful. Now I know what a smoker must go through. I could only think about snickers all the time and I almost believed that my body was in pain from not eating them. Oh boy.
Okay, after that side tangent, we headed to the airport after the bazaar for our flight to Luxor. Our flight was almost two hours late, but it was only a 50 minute flight, so it wasn’t too bad. We got in to our hotel at about 10:30 and they had dinner waiting for us. Sweet. More food. Just what I needed. Haha. Anyhow, we stayed at the Mercure-Etap Hotel in Luxor, literally across the street from the Nile. Every room had a balcony that overlooked the Nile. It was beautiful.
The next day, after breakfast, we took carriages to Karnak Temple. Yes, carriages. It was so rad! Four people per carriage…our driver told me to come sit up by him, so I did. He just smiled at me the whole time and we tried to communicate in broken English. You know, that makes me think of something that I noticed in Egypt that really made me laugh so hard. Most of the people there speak very broken English, but enough to get by. I don’t know why, but because these merchants speak broken English, all the guys in our group felt that they would be better understood if they too used broken English, along with a Middle Eastern accent and huge hand movements. They looked and sounded so ridiculous. Most of them didn’t even realize they were speaking with an accent or hand movements or in completely fragmented English. It was so funny! I bet the merchants could speak better, but that they just wanted to see the Americans make fools of themselves. Haha. It made me snicker. Mmmm…snickers. No! Bad Heather.
Anyway, we got to Karnak and we had to wait outside for a bit while our group congregated and our guide, Habibi, gave us some background. Oh my gosh, guys. I had no idea. I had never heard of Karnak before…I don’t know how I hadn’t because it was one of the coolest places I have ever been in my life. I stood there in the hypostyle hall just silently weeping. I was so overcome with awe that I seriously could not keep myself from crying. I’ve never had that experience before. It was completely non-spiritual (I think)…it really was just being completely overwhelmed. It was incredible. You guys can’t imagine this place. You simply cannot imagine the size, the grandeur, the hieroglyphics, the colors, the complexity of architecture…everything! Construction of Karnak began during the Middle Kingdom between 2040-1700 BC. I can’t remember exactly, but I think it took around 400 years to build and it never was completely finished. It’s construction went through many pharaohs, all who kept building and contributing. Oh man, it was absolutely stunning. Just breath-taking. Unbelievable.
Alright, so after Karnak we got back in our carriages and went to Luxor temple…it was about a 7 minute carriage ride…they’re very close. Luxor was incredible, too. However I wish we had been able to do them on different days because I was already tired and overwhelmed from Karnak and so I probably didn’t get as much out of Luxor as I could have. But it was still really, really cool. It was mainly built by Amenophis III and Ramses II. I just can’t believe I was there. There was a really cool statue of King Tut and his wife in there, along with some cool carvings showing some of the cool traditions of ancient Egypt.
We went back to the hotel for lunch after Luxor and then we were supposed to take an afternoon felucca ride on the Nile, but it was so windy that they canceled the Feluccas and had us go in motorboats instead. It was still really fun. That’s when I took that picture of me touching the Nile. We watched the sun go down on the Nile and just had a ball being crazy college kids. After the boat ride I went with some people to an outdoor bazaar and we looked around. My excellent bargaining skills made themselves evident there. A girl I was with haggled with this man forever to get a scarf for 5 dollars. I wanted one, but I didn’t want to pay 5 dollars for it. I haggled with him forever and he would not go below 4…I wanted to pay 3. So I walked away a couple times and then he would call me back and we’d haggle some more. Finally I really was walking away and got pretty far when I heard him yell, “Okay! Okay! Come back!” When I got there he said he’d sell it to me for 3, but that if my friend who got it for 5 asked me how much I paid for it, I would tell her I paid 5 too! Haha. Funny. But I got a really cute scarf for 3 bucks baby! I definitely have Grandma Jacobs’ genes, although I bet she would have gotten it for 1 dollar. J
After dinner a group of us went over to Brother Draper’s apartment again to learn about the 3rd facsimile in Abraham. It was really neat to learn about it. I wrote down a lot of notes about it in my triple so I’ll have to tell ya’ll what I know when I get back. Cool stuff.
Okay, I am officially half-way through Egypt. I have four more days to go, but this is a good start. Once again, I’m sorry it’s so long. This is acting as my journal so I’m being as thorough as possible. Feel free to skim! Thanks again for caring enough to read about my adventures and put up with my horrible English. Like I said, it’s much more fun to have an audience to write to…it keeps me motivated. Hope everything’s well with all of you! Love ya’ll…
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Alrigthy, time for the next installment of my adventures in Egypt! Okay, so we stayed the night in the Oasis Pyramids Hotel and we had to be all packed and moved out the next morning by like 7. So we ate breakfast, once again staying away from all the beautiful and delicious-looking fruits and such. It was so hard. Anyway, the weather was not so hot...it was windy and raining by the time we got onto the buses. Our guide was named Emad, but he told us to call him "Habibi" which means "my precious." Haha. He traveled all through Egypt with us. Anyway, he told us that it's only rainy once or twice a year in Egypt. And we were lucky enough to be there on that one day. So we headed out for the pyramids of Giza with the wind and rain howling outside.
When we got to the pyramids, the rain had stopped thankfully, but it was really windy. But holy cow. I could not believe how incredible these pyramids were. They're huge! We got to go inside the second biggest pyramid called Chephren. It was so cool!! The Egyptians were so smart. You wouldn't believe how complex these pyramids are and how much structure and planning must have gone into them. It was funny though to see just how much influence movies and Hollywood has on my thinking. The inside of the pyramid was nothing like what one would imagine after watching "The Mummy" or something. No cavernous rooms with huge elegant stairways. There was simply a shaft, so small you couldn't stand up straight, that you walked down. It was hot like a sauna inside and finally the shaft ended in a small, rectangular room that wasn't that big. But it was still so cool! I went inside a friggin' PYRAMID!!! We got lots of pictures. Oh, I get to go feed babies at a hospital right now, but this story will continue. I will finish Egypt if it's the last thing to do! Love ya'll...
When we got to the pyramids, the rain had stopped thankfully, but it was really windy. But holy cow. I could not believe how incredible these pyramids were. They're huge! We got to go inside the second biggest pyramid called Chephren. It was so cool!! The Egyptians were so smart. You wouldn't believe how complex these pyramids are and how much structure and planning must have gone into them. It was funny though to see just how much influence movies and Hollywood has on my thinking. The inside of the pyramid was nothing like what one would imagine after watching "The Mummy" or something. No cavernous rooms with huge elegant stairways. There was simply a shaft, so small you couldn't stand up straight, that you walked down. It was hot like a sauna inside and finally the shaft ended in a small, rectangular room that wasn't that big. But it was still so cool! I went inside a friggin' PYRAMID!!! We got lots of pictures. Oh, I get to go feed babies at a hospital right now, but this story will continue. I will finish Egypt if it's the last thing to do! Love ya'll...
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Walk like an Egyptian
Okay, I've decided I just need to do a bit of Egypt each day for, like, the next week. So I'm just going to take a deep breath and dive in. Alright, day 1.
So we woke up for breakfast at 5:30 am...it's pretty much unnatural to eat breakfast at that hour of the day. We left the center around 6:30 and started on our adventure. Let me tell you, I was excited. People were a bit frightened by my enthusiasm so early...they either thought I was on something, or didn't get enough sleep. Oh well. Anyway, our trip to Egypt wasn't simply driving to Egypt. We stopped at significant places all along the way and boy was it cool.
Our first stop was Tel Ber Sheva, known in the Bible as Beersheba. It's heyday was around 1000 B.C. and it was the area of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! So cool! Everyone had to wear hard hats (don't ask me why). There's a well there that is over 1000 years old! It was really neat, we got to see the remains of the city and the coolest thing was their huge underground cistern! It was man-made and was absolutely incredible. I wish I could remember details on how big it was, but everything mushes together now. Anyway, we walked down tons of stairs into these huge caves that were full of water back in the day. Sweet.
Next, we went to an outlook of the Wilderness of Zin or Sin where the Israelites lived for 40 years. It was beautifully ugly. I never thought I would find myself thinking the desert was pretty, but it really was. The reason it was ugly was because it was the desert. It was rocky and barren and just the thought of living there for 40 years made me shutter. The Israelites must have really ticked God off for Him to exile them there. Whew. The overlook was also the grave site/memorial for Ben Gurion. He was a Jewish Zionist in the early 1900's who fought for a Jewish homeland and eventually became the first Prime Minister of the Jewish settlement/state. Cool.
Our last visit of the day was to Kibbutz Yotvata. A kibbutz is a huge communal Jewish farm. Everyone works together to run the farm and everyone gets the same amount of pay...kind of like the law of consecration. So anyway, we took a tour of this enormous kibbutz and it was so cool! They grow onions, dates, pomegranates, (plus a bunch of other stuff) and raise horses and cows. This particular kibbutz invented the drip system for irrigating their crops. Cool. (I thought of you, dad). Okay, so after the tour they served us dinner at the little restaurant they run and let me tell you, it was a feast! I ate like a fat kid on Christmas! Most of the stuff was homegrown/harvested. Their chocolate milk was fantastic. Oh, and, let me just tell you, they had ice cream!!! I haven't had real ice cream since I've been here and I just about lost control. I think people were scared. I was basically panting and frothing at the mouth waiting in line to get mine (okay, maybe not quite that bad). But they had Ferrero Rocher ice cream. Yes, I am dead serious. I have to stop...I'm starting to drool. So the cool thing was, this was not just dinner...they definitely provided entertainment. And let me tell you, it got wild. Pretty soon all 80 of us were up and dancing in circles and clapping and singing and shouting and shaking it for all we were worth! It was such a blast. Sadly, I had left my camera on the bus and so do not have evidence of me doing the Russian man dance and pulling a muscle in my quad. It hurt. But it was worth it. Ah, it was such a good night. And I'd say this was our first true, big bonding moment when all the walls came down. We saw sides of people we did not ever suspect of exisiting. So fun.
After our dinner show, we left to Kibbutz Eilot where we spent the night. My roommate Emily and I went running. I wrote that because that's big for me. It actually felt really good, although my clever peers started finding it really funny to hide in bushes until we ran by and then jump out and scare us. Each time I graciously provided a blood-curdling scream for their satisfaction. (You'd scream too if you had people popping out at you in the middle of the night in a strange land, especially when you'd been talked to so much about being safe and not getting groped!) Finally it became so expected that I didn't scream anymore and they gave it up. It's amazing how much entertainment people derive from me here.
Side note: This has nothing to do with Egypt, but I had to tell you before I forgot. Yesterday, two charming and quite genius young men decided to assign "perfect professions" for every person in our group. They posted the list with everyone's name and profession on the door of the dining hall so that everyone going in to dinner could see it. Many-a-person approached me that day telling me that mine was their favorite and that it was perfect for me. What was it you ask? Quote: New Age, Hippie Preschool Teacher End quote. In talking to one of the authors, he told me that the movie line that had inspired this perfect career was "Okay kids, today we're going to be fingerpainting and the paint is organic so you can eat it!" He said they immediately thought of me. Ha ha. It was actually really funny.
Okay, back to Egypt. So, we sleep at Kibbutz Eilot and the next morning is when we heard about President Hinckley. It was only a whispered rumor and nobody knew for sure if it was true, but later that day it was verified. It came as a shock to me. I hadn't really been thinking about it, much less expecting it. We had a devotional on our bus that morning. I loved that little old man so stinkin' much. I can't wait to meet him someday.
Alright, so we arrive at the Israel/Egypt border and we're basically the first ones there. That was our goal because at the border, anyone held up for any reason holds up everyone else behind them. When we got there, we found that our travel agent who had our visas was not there. And he didn't come for an hour. So we sat on the border for an hour breathing second-hand smoke (everyone smokes everywhere there...it made me really grateful for California smoking laws) and playing SPONGE. SPONGE is this game that me and this boy named Matt Funk invented in the bus the previous day. It caught on and lots of people started playing it. I'm kinda too lazy to explain it right now. Sorry. Anyway, finally our man came and we all got through smoothly (which, apparently, is very rare). Our bus picked us up on the other side and we started our drive through Sinai. Now, regarding Sinai, our teacher announced on the microphone to try to wake up every 20 minutes or so to see what it's like and know what the Israelites were traveling through. Okay, it never changed once. It was like watching a 2 second clip of the desert over and over and over again. Completely dry, rocky, and deserted. I actually think it was worse than the Wilderness of Zin because it wasn't even pretty in any way. (Although we did see some wild camels...that was cool). Also, in Egypt, packs of wild dogs roam the wilderness and the cities. They don't ever really approach people, but the cats do, and at lunch one guy in the group had to kick a cat away three times before it decided that it wouldn't approach him again. Stupid animals. We stopped for lunch at this little I-don't-even-know-what-to-call-it place. It was in the middle of nowhere. And I had my first experience with the hole-in-the-ground system of going to the bathroom. Crazy. I'm not the biggest fan, although I guess anything's better than going in my pants.
We had two other rest stops along the way, one of which provided me with a funny and somewhat scary experience. So before we left we were talked to almost constantly about being careful around the men in Egypt. They told us to avoid eye contact, bodily contact of any kind, etc. So anyway, we were standing in line waiting for the restrooms and in Egypt you have to give a tip to the bathroom person who will then give you a square of toilet paper. Seriously, a square. They told us to bring our own toilet paper because sometimes you don't even get a square. Anyway, so this tip man was standing there watching us ladies joke around and laugh etc. And I saw a friend standing a little ways away talking to someone else and so I decided to make a face at her until she saw me. So I put on this huge fake and creepy grin with my eyes really wide. I looked at her for a long time and she didn't look at me. Finally I looked right past her shoulder and saw that the tip man was looking at me with a very happy and eager grin on HIS face. I then realized that the angle of my friend to me could very easily have provided the man with the impression that I was grinning madly at him. Well, I'll tell you that wiped that stupid grin off my face pretty darn quickly. I kinda jumped a little and almost let out a tiny squeak. Nothing happened, but man, I did not grin like that at ANYONE again while in Egypt. Haha.
Well, we got through Sinai and right about dusk we pulled into Cairo. I guess I didn't realize that Egypt is a third world country, because I was not expecting what I saw. That place is poverty-stricken, man. It doesn't help that none of the buildings are finished. Building contractors just simply don't finish their buildings for three reasons: 1) It never rains (although I beg to differ due to our experience), 2) they have to pay less in taxes if the buildings are unfinished, and 3) if in 10 years they need more money or something they just add on more levels. Yeah. So it's crazy with just all these unfinished buildings that are so run-down. Garbage fills every nook and cranny. Almost every city has a large canal running through it and they are all completely filled with garbage. We saw a dead horse in the canal a couple times. It was sick. But our first view of the pyramids took our mind off of the filth for a while. We were just driving through Cairo, the sun was setting and all of a sudden they were just there, looming high above every other building, silhouetted against the sky. It was incredible. Anyway, we crossed the Nile into Giza and ended at the Oasis Pyramids Hotel. It was about 6:30 pm and they had dinner waiting for us. Some people went out to do things that night. My religion teacher was giving a presentation, however, on the first Facsimile in Moses and some background and history of it and Egyptian hieroglyphics. So I went to that I was really glad I did. It gave me some basics that I could then recognize while in Egypt and feel all cool an smart because I knew what stuff meant. But I'll have to tell and show you guys some cool stuff about Egyptian art and writing when I get back. What a fascinating, fascinating culture.
After that I hit the sack because I was tired. But it was so exciting to be there. This is so long...I am so sorry. But I've got two days done and now I only have six to go. So stay tuned.
So we woke up for breakfast at 5:30 am...it's pretty much unnatural to eat breakfast at that hour of the day. We left the center around 6:30 and started on our adventure. Let me tell you, I was excited. People were a bit frightened by my enthusiasm so early...they either thought I was on something, or didn't get enough sleep. Oh well. Anyway, our trip to Egypt wasn't simply driving to Egypt. We stopped at significant places all along the way and boy was it cool.
Our first stop was Tel Ber Sheva, known in the Bible as Beersheba. It's heyday was around 1000 B.C. and it was the area of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! So cool! Everyone had to wear hard hats (don't ask me why). There's a well there that is over 1000 years old! It was really neat, we got to see the remains of the city and the coolest thing was their huge underground cistern! It was man-made and was absolutely incredible. I wish I could remember details on how big it was, but everything mushes together now. Anyway, we walked down tons of stairs into these huge caves that were full of water back in the day. Sweet.
Next, we went to an outlook of the Wilderness of Zin or Sin where the Israelites lived for 40 years. It was beautifully ugly. I never thought I would find myself thinking the desert was pretty, but it really was. The reason it was ugly was because it was the desert. It was rocky and barren and just the thought of living there for 40 years made me shutter. The Israelites must have really ticked God off for Him to exile them there. Whew. The overlook was also the grave site/memorial for Ben Gurion. He was a Jewish Zionist in the early 1900's who fought for a Jewish homeland and eventually became the first Prime Minister of the Jewish settlement/state. Cool.
Our last visit of the day was to Kibbutz Yotvata. A kibbutz is a huge communal Jewish farm. Everyone works together to run the farm and everyone gets the same amount of pay...kind of like the law of consecration. So anyway, we took a tour of this enormous kibbutz and it was so cool! They grow onions, dates, pomegranates, (plus a bunch of other stuff) and raise horses and cows. This particular kibbutz invented the drip system for irrigating their crops. Cool. (I thought of you, dad). Okay, so after the tour they served us dinner at the little restaurant they run and let me tell you, it was a feast! I ate like a fat kid on Christmas! Most of the stuff was homegrown/harvested. Their chocolate milk was fantastic. Oh, and, let me just tell you, they had ice cream!!! I haven't had real ice cream since I've been here and I just about lost control. I think people were scared. I was basically panting and frothing at the mouth waiting in line to get mine (okay, maybe not quite that bad). But they had Ferrero Rocher ice cream. Yes, I am dead serious. I have to stop...I'm starting to drool. So the cool thing was, this was not just dinner...they definitely provided entertainment. And let me tell you, it got wild. Pretty soon all 80 of us were up and dancing in circles and clapping and singing and shouting and shaking it for all we were worth! It was such a blast. Sadly, I had left my camera on the bus and so do not have evidence of me doing the Russian man dance and pulling a muscle in my quad. It hurt. But it was worth it. Ah, it was such a good night. And I'd say this was our first true, big bonding moment when all the walls came down. We saw sides of people we did not ever suspect of exisiting. So fun.
After our dinner show, we left to Kibbutz Eilot where we spent the night. My roommate Emily and I went running. I wrote that because that's big for me. It actually felt really good, although my clever peers started finding it really funny to hide in bushes until we ran by and then jump out and scare us. Each time I graciously provided a blood-curdling scream for their satisfaction. (You'd scream too if you had people popping out at you in the middle of the night in a strange land, especially when you'd been talked to so much about being safe and not getting groped!) Finally it became so expected that I didn't scream anymore and they gave it up. It's amazing how much entertainment people derive from me here.
Side note: This has nothing to do with Egypt, but I had to tell you before I forgot. Yesterday, two charming and quite genius young men decided to assign "perfect professions" for every person in our group. They posted the list with everyone's name and profession on the door of the dining hall so that everyone going in to dinner could see it. Many-a-person approached me that day telling me that mine was their favorite and that it was perfect for me. What was it you ask? Quote: New Age, Hippie Preschool Teacher End quote. In talking to one of the authors, he told me that the movie line that had inspired this perfect career was "Okay kids, today we're going to be fingerpainting and the paint is organic so you can eat it!" He said they immediately thought of me. Ha ha. It was actually really funny.
Okay, back to Egypt. So, we sleep at Kibbutz Eilot and the next morning is when we heard about President Hinckley. It was only a whispered rumor and nobody knew for sure if it was true, but later that day it was verified. It came as a shock to me. I hadn't really been thinking about it, much less expecting it. We had a devotional on our bus that morning. I loved that little old man so stinkin' much. I can't wait to meet him someday.
Alright, so we arrive at the Israel/Egypt border and we're basically the first ones there. That was our goal because at the border, anyone held up for any reason holds up everyone else behind them. When we got there, we found that our travel agent who had our visas was not there. And he didn't come for an hour. So we sat on the border for an hour breathing second-hand smoke (everyone smokes everywhere there...it made me really grateful for California smoking laws) and playing SPONGE. SPONGE is this game that me and this boy named Matt Funk invented in the bus the previous day. It caught on and lots of people started playing it. I'm kinda too lazy to explain it right now. Sorry. Anyway, finally our man came and we all got through smoothly (which, apparently, is very rare). Our bus picked us up on the other side and we started our drive through Sinai. Now, regarding Sinai, our teacher announced on the microphone to try to wake up every 20 minutes or so to see what it's like and know what the Israelites were traveling through. Okay, it never changed once. It was like watching a 2 second clip of the desert over and over and over again. Completely dry, rocky, and deserted. I actually think it was worse than the Wilderness of Zin because it wasn't even pretty in any way. (Although we did see some wild camels...that was cool). Also, in Egypt, packs of wild dogs roam the wilderness and the cities. They don't ever really approach people, but the cats do, and at lunch one guy in the group had to kick a cat away three times before it decided that it wouldn't approach him again. Stupid animals. We stopped for lunch at this little I-don't-even-know-what-to-call-it place. It was in the middle of nowhere. And I had my first experience with the hole-in-the-ground system of going to the bathroom. Crazy. I'm not the biggest fan, although I guess anything's better than going in my pants.
We had two other rest stops along the way, one of which provided me with a funny and somewhat scary experience. So before we left we were talked to almost constantly about being careful around the men in Egypt. They told us to avoid eye contact, bodily contact of any kind, etc. So anyway, we were standing in line waiting for the restrooms and in Egypt you have to give a tip to the bathroom person who will then give you a square of toilet paper. Seriously, a square. They told us to bring our own toilet paper because sometimes you don't even get a square. Anyway, so this tip man was standing there watching us ladies joke around and laugh etc. And I saw a friend standing a little ways away talking to someone else and so I decided to make a face at her until she saw me. So I put on this huge fake and creepy grin with my eyes really wide. I looked at her for a long time and she didn't look at me. Finally I looked right past her shoulder and saw that the tip man was looking at me with a very happy and eager grin on HIS face. I then realized that the angle of my friend to me could very easily have provided the man with the impression that I was grinning madly at him. Well, I'll tell you that wiped that stupid grin off my face pretty darn quickly. I kinda jumped a little and almost let out a tiny squeak. Nothing happened, but man, I did not grin like that at ANYONE again while in Egypt. Haha.
Well, we got through Sinai and right about dusk we pulled into Cairo. I guess I didn't realize that Egypt is a third world country, because I was not expecting what I saw. That place is poverty-stricken, man. It doesn't help that none of the buildings are finished. Building contractors just simply don't finish their buildings for three reasons: 1) It never rains (although I beg to differ due to our experience), 2) they have to pay less in taxes if the buildings are unfinished, and 3) if in 10 years they need more money or something they just add on more levels. Yeah. So it's crazy with just all these unfinished buildings that are so run-down. Garbage fills every nook and cranny. Almost every city has a large canal running through it and they are all completely filled with garbage. We saw a dead horse in the canal a couple times. It was sick. But our first view of the pyramids took our mind off of the filth for a while. We were just driving through Cairo, the sun was setting and all of a sudden they were just there, looming high above every other building, silhouetted against the sky. It was incredible. Anyway, we crossed the Nile into Giza and ended at the Oasis Pyramids Hotel. It was about 6:30 pm and they had dinner waiting for us. Some people went out to do things that night. My religion teacher was giving a presentation, however, on the first Facsimile in Moses and some background and history of it and Egyptian hieroglyphics. So I went to that I was really glad I did. It gave me some basics that I could then recognize while in Egypt and feel all cool an smart because I knew what stuff meant. But I'll have to tell and show you guys some cool stuff about Egyptian art and writing when I get back. What a fascinating, fascinating culture.
After that I hit the sack because I was tired. But it was so exciting to be there. This is so long...I am so sorry. But I've got two days done and now I only have six to go. So stay tuned.
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