AHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Jordan was so stinkin' AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Words can never tell, but I will do my best.
Day 1: We breakfasted early and hit the road in our giant busses that look like large, large caterpillars. I’ve decided I really have to take a picture of our busses to show you all because they seriously look like gigantic caterpillars. It’s pretty dang rad. Sometimes I call our bus “Dim” like the huge bug in “Bug’s Life.” We have a good relationship.
Anyway, we headed for the border and got across in a smooth and timely manner. It’s funny—the Jordanians don’t really have any desire to see us or interact with it so one person just took all of our passports inside the crossing check while we stayed on the bus, they looked at our passports and we went on through. We could have had George flippin’ Bush on our bus and they never would have known. I kinda wished I was an illegal Mexican immigrant or something so it would have been more exciting, but being a big white American sufficed I guess. We crossed the border and our itinerary changed unexpectedly. Originally, we were supposed to go to Bethany Beyond Jordan on our way home from Jordan. But we were there and there was time and we could get a tour right then so we went to the traditional baptismal place of Christ. And boy was that cool. I loved it. The traditional spot is actually not in the actual Jordan River because in John it says that Christ was baptized beyond Jordan. The Jordan River has a bunch of smaller wadis coming off of it and it’s in one of these that they believe Christ was baptized. Anyway, we had this wonderful little devotional on John the Baptist and our teacher talked about his role in Chirst’s time and then his role in the Restoration. It was beautiful and the spirit was really strong there. It was a nice little start to the day.
We kept going and next hit Mt. Nebo. Mount Nebo is where Moses was taken to visualize the Promised Land and where some people believe him to be buried. It was pretty cool. After Mt. Nebo we went to Madaba where there is a very significant tile mosaic of a map of the Holy Land. Historians have used this mosaic map to reconstruct the Byzantine Near East. It’s huge, covering a good portion of the floor of the church it’s in. I touched it. Shhhh, don’t tell.
After Madaba we lunched at this shady little restaurant and then started our drive to Wadi Musa. I think Wadi Musa is about 3 or 4 hours from Amman, the capital. We arrived in Wadi Musa after dark and ate dinner at the Petra Palace Hotel we were staying in. They tell us to only eat fruit we’ve peeled ourselves, but they had these delicious-looking apples there that I really wanted to eat. So I took one, cut it into quarters and looked like a crazed rabbit eating only the flesh and scraping it off the peels with my teeth. I realized halfway through how I looked hunched over my plate, baring my teeth at anyone who looked at me strangely and gave it up. I think it was for the better. Some people went out that night, but I was pretty tired so I cozied down in my hotel room and did some homework. Can you say LOSER? But it was nice to not get behind at least.
The next morning my roomie and I went back to sleep after our wake-up call and so rushed around trying to make it to breakfast on time. You know, it’s funny, for some reason I always end up on the bed closest to the phone and so I usually take the wake-up call. The wake-up calls here in the Middle East aren’t friendly or happy little desk people that kindly tell you it’s your wake-up call—It’s a loud, harsh, and extremely obnoxious beeping. I think they probably just hold up the phone to the world’s most annoying alarm clock. Anyway, I’m usually so tired that I would say I am definitely not in my right mind. So the phone rings, and in the back of my head something knows it’s the wake-up call, yet I always answer in a voice striving to sound like I didn’t just wake up, “Hello?” And then when it just beeps at me I respond, “Okay, thank you.” My roomie likes to make fun of me for that. But you know, how many grateful thank you’s does that hard-working annoying little beep get everyday? Probably not many. I just like to think of myself as similar to the tenth leper.
We assembled in front of the hotel after breakfast and tromped down the street to the entrance of…PETRA! Oh man. There’s really just not much I can say to do it justice. We entered through the gates and walked down a long path until we started coming across caves and carvings in the sandstone. These were homes to the Nabateans who built and inhabited Petra. The first major thing we saw was the tomb with the obelisk façade. It was so cool! Our guide told us that the Nabateans just took a bunch of ideas from other cultures and mixed them into their own, so their culture was kind of a mish-mash of a bunch of other cultures. This particular tomb has tall obelisks on the top, similar to those of Ancient Egypt.
We kept walking until we entered the ravine. It’s this huge long and winding natural ravine that leads through the mountains to the center of Petra. The Nabateans were smart, carving waterways, gutters and cisterns and constructing dams and such to avoid flash-floods. The sandstone is beautiful in all its various shades of orange, red, and tan. It’s very similar to national parks in Utah. Anyway, at one point our guide had us look up high at a cliff face and told us there were some significant carvings up there and that we had to look very carefully to see them. So we were all looking really hard in this one direction and then he was like, “Oh, wait, I guess it is actually behind you.” So we turned around, and there, shining through the ravine in the morning sun was the treasury of Petra. Holy stinkin’ COW. It was incredible. The treasury is probably the most famous of the carvings at Petra and for good reason. It’s so detailed and awesome. It wasn’t really a treasury for the Nabateans. It got its name because back in the day people used to think the Pharaohs of Egypt used it as a treasury and had buried all their wealth within, which was completely wrong. Archaeologists nowadays think it was a temple/place of worship/possible burial tomb. We spent a while at the treasury with people bursting into random spurts of Indiana Jones Theme Music. It was funny. When we finally left the treasury, we walked to where many of the homes of the Nabateans were. The Nabateans lived there in the 4th century BC, by-the-way. We also saw the Roman cardo and theater from when they took over Petra. While by the Roman Theater we took a bathroom break and while I was standing in line, I lifted up my leg to try to stretch out my pants a little more and I TOTALLY RIPPED MY PANTS! All the way across my leg…you could see it from the front and the back. Thank goodness I had a little zip up sweater on that I could pathetically tie around my waist. I waddled around for the rest of the day a little awkwardly. Anyway, this whole time I had been planning on taking a donkey up the mountain to the monastery. When I ripped my pants I decided I probably wouldn’t take one up because I thought it would probably rip my pants more. But when we got to the bottom of the ravine my friends were all hopping on these donkeys and I could not resist. And boy I am glad I took a donkey…for multiple reasons. First, my donkey’s name was Jack. I kept talking to him in an encouraging voice saying things like, “That a boy Jack. Easy does it Jack. You’re a good donkey Jack. STAY AWAY FROM THAT EDGE JACK!” But oh man, that donkey ride was so stinkin’ fun! I got on and he just jumped right into action. The boys riding donkeys around me thought it was funny to try and get my donkey going really fast by coming up next to my donkey and making the little clicking noise that made him go faster. And then they’d laugh as he’d jump into a run and I would be screaming my head off intertwined with spurts of laughter and shouts of, “This is so cool!” It was really fun. The donkey ride up to the monastery really made the experience that much cooler, I highly recommend it to anyone ever going to Petra. Except one of my friends was riding on a donkey behind me who had gas problems the whole way up the mountain. No joke. Almost every step up he’d rip one off and I would turn around and look at my friend Bethany and say, “Bethany! My goodness!” And she could not stop laughing. I guess I’m not completely positive that it was the donkey, but that’s what Bethany kept saying so I gave her the benefit of the doubt. J
Okay, so finally our donkey’s made it to the top and we had about a five minute hike to the monastery which was absolutely awe-inspiring. It’s way up high in the mountains so you can see breathtaking vistas of the surrounding sandstone mountains, colored with patches of trees and greenery. It was GORGEOUS. We went inside the monastery and sang some hymns and then explored around for a while. It was so, so cool. But my camera died after getting a few shots of the monastery. So I was camera-less for a few days.
When we were done at the monastery we walked back down the mountain and lunched in the basin of the ravine at this restaurant they have down there. They had some delicious bread pudding…I’m all about the desserts. We had to start walking back to the entrance after lunch. But we were able to meander along and stop in all the little tent shops and such along the way. It was a perfectly beautiful day and I highly enjoyed it. When we got to the busses I changed out of my ripped pants and we started the 4 hour drive up to Amman, the capital of Jordan.
We arrived at the Ambassador Hotel in Amman and ate dinner. Then most of us headed over to the Mecca Mall by way of taxis. Dude, this mall was out of control. It was by far the biggest mall I have ever been in. We explored around and I got a blended crème at Starbucks, which was delicious. Then we called it a night and headed back to the hotel.
And there I will leave you for now…I only have two days left to go! Woot woot!
Monday, March 10, 2008
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Suspenseful Situation on Sinai
After the Ibn Tulun Mosque we headed to the Egyptian Museum which was so cool! We got to see the King Tut exhibit. It was all the stuff they found in his tomb (which I went to!). His golden sarcophaguses were incredible. There were thrones and jewelry and statues and all kinds of everything! It was intense. After that we had free reign of the museum. There was so much cool stuff there. I saw the Merneptah Stele. It’s a slab of stone with a victory declaration inscribed on it from a victory in Canaan by Pharaoh Merneptah. It’s significant because it’s the oldest extant mention of “Israel” and so scholars use it to date the Exodus and Israelite conquest. It’s really famous in Bible archaeology…we’d been learning about it and I got to see it! They also had the royal mummies exhibit. Now that was cool. It was the mummies of many of the famous pharaohs of Egypt, including Ramses II, Ramses III, Seti I, Thutmose III, Merneptah, Ahkenaten, and many many more. It was really neat! A lot of them still had hair and teeth. I thought Seti I looked like a really nice guy. I bet he was a sweetheart.
After the Museum we headed to the Cairo Hard Rock Café. They served us delicious-looking salad that we couldn’t eat. (Some girls did and they got Ramses Revenge BAD.) We ate large juicy hamburgers and French fries and ice cream. And then they turned on the music. They blasted Macarena, YMCA, and a few others and we ROCKED OUT. It was awesome. We got a lot of the teachers up and dancing with us. By the end a bunch of random people were up dancing with us. It was a blast. I got a Cairo Hard Rock Café T-shirt that I like a lot. It’s pretty sweet.
After that we headed to the Khan al-Khalili Bazaar. Now this is the place that we were highly cautioned about because it’s where, every year, some girl got groped. So all us girls were pretty apprehensive about it. But it ended up being really fun. It’s crazy! It’s a huge network of all these tiny roads and alleyways that wind and twist and are lined with shop upon shop full of junk! It felt like an eternal garage sale! Haha. But our entire group ended up making it through grope-free! Yay! That’s a first I think. I got some awesome gold shoes that are pointy at the end! Yeah, I know. I’m stoked.
That night we had free time, but I was totally zonked and a lot of girls were sick by then, so we stayed in and had a girls’ night watching “The Mask” in my room.
The next day we got up and headed to the Citadel, which is also the Muhammed Ali Mosque. The citadel was so cool! It looked like it should be on the planet Naboo from Star Wars. I kept thinking, “Bri would love this!” I swear George Lucas got some ideas for Naboo from the citadel. Anyway, Muhammed Ali usurped control over Palestine from the Ottoman Sultan in 1830. While in control, Ali built a new royal palace and a mosque to house his tomb, hence the Citadel connected with the mosque. The mosque was beautiful. There was this huge chandelier and tons of hanging white lamps over a beautiful rug that covered the entire floor (which was very big). It was neat.
When we were done at the mosque we headed out for Sinai. It was a long bus ride, but we finally got to the Morgan Land Hotel where they had dinner waiting for us. We ate and slept for a few hours and then got up at 2:30 am to head out for Mt. Sinai. They gave some hot chocolate and a little sack-breakfast and we were on our way. It was funny, because it was so cold everyone was wearing a billion layers so we looked like a fat camp heading to Mt. Sinai to try to lose a few pounds! We arrived at the base of the mount and now begins my adventure story.
So there are 2 options for hiking Sinai: you can hike up the whole way, or you can ride a camel up 2/3 of the way and then hike the last third. So normally I’d be all about hiking up the whole way, gung-ho, right? But I had been talking before I came with a guy who had been here Spring semester and he had highly recommended taking the camel. He said that when you took the camel you could just relax and really absorb the experience and look at the stars, which were absolutely GORGEOUS up there. So I decided to do the camel thing. PLUS you can hike up any mountain any time, but how often can you RIDE A FLIPPIN’ CAMEL up a mountain??? So us camel-riders bunched together and went to the Bedouin guides, who starting grabbing us and taking us to their camel. Now you have to understand that at our Egypt orientation we had been talked to extensively about being cautious. They told us that people would try to get us on our own or lead us out into the desert and then who knows what. So anyway, this Bedouin man comes up and grabs my arm very firmly and starts leading me off the trail. So I’m stumbling along, feeling a little apprehensive, but I could still see and hear the rest of the kids so I wasn’t too worried. He stopped by a camel and then said, “You wait” and then he headed toward a little shack about 100 feet away. I stood there for a while watching until the whole group had passed by on the trail and I was standing there alone in the dark. The Bedouin man came back finally with some blankets and such and tied them onto the camel and then I got on and we headed off. I was feeling a little worried since we were by ourselves, but eventually we caught up with the walkers, but the other camel riders were long gone and far ahead. But once we were with the walkers I felt better. So we’re going along and then we come to this fork in the road. Everyone is going to the right, but when we get there, my Bedouin man turns to the left and starts leading me down this dark path all by ourselves. I freaked out. We were rapidly getting further and further away from the rest of the group and there was no one up ahead in front of us. So I started yelling, “HELP! HELP!” I kept saying to my guide, “I want to go that way! I want to go with the rest of the group! HELP ME! SOMEONE HELP ME!! GUYS! HELP!” Finally people heard and started shining their flashlights at me and I heard mumbling, “It’s Heather! Look! She’s being led off the path!” And I just kept yelling. Finally, I hear a voice in the distance behind me. It said, “Heather! Don’t worry. This is Eran. I am behind you.” Eran Hiatt is the program director here in Jerusalem and he is awesome. I looked behind me and he was walking behind us with his walking stick, slowly closing the gap. Finally he reached us and told the guide that we wanted to go with the rest of the group. The Bedouin man finally got it across to us that this was the path that the camels took because the other path had stairs and it was bad for the camels. So we kept going. And finally we caught up with some of the other camel-riders and I stayed with them for the rest of the ride. But it gave me quite the scare, I’ll tell you. Anyway, it was a big story for a while—Heather getting led off into the desert by some mysterious Bedouin man and having to be rescued by Eran! Haha. What an adventure.
Sinai was incredible though. We got to the top about 5 minutes before the sun started to come up. And then it started to creep over the horizon. Guys, I can’t tell you how gorgeous it was. Simply breathtaking. We all watched the sunrise and sang some hymns and then we had a really nice devotional. It was such a beautiful experience. Man, it’s no wonder that high mountain tops served as temples back in the day. It was like being in another world. After basking in the sunshine for a while we headed back down. At the base of Mt. Sinai is St. Catherine’s Monastery. Because it was Sunday we couldn’t go in, but it was really nice to look at. It’s a church built by Helena when she named Jabal Musa as the biblical Mt. Sinai. The church was replaced by a basilica church by Justinian to protect the monks who were living there. It was really cool. We had a class devotional at the bottom and then headed back to Morgan Land Hotel for brunch.
Finally, we packed onto the bus and headed for home. Our border crossing went very smoothly and after we had crossed over we headed down to the shore and skipped rocks on the Gulf of Aqaba. It was beautiful. On the bus ride home I sat next to Miss Anne Kelly, my kindred spirit. We laughed our heads off playing “Would you rather…?” because we were so tired and drained so everything seemed that much funnier. I think my favorite of hers was, “Would you rather have a tiny little sparrow permanently attached by a chain to your nose and it was always trying to fly away and so tugging at your nose, or be chased eternally uphill by a lion?” I chose the sparrow.
It was nice to get back to the JC. It felt like coming home. It was so good to be able to eat salad and drink water not from a bottle.
Well, friends, that concludes the Egypt experience, although my words did not do it justice. Plus I got lazy by the end and just wanted to be done with it, so it’s not as detailed as it could be. But oh well, at least I finished, right? Now I need to catch up on all the fieldtrips we’ve gone on since then: Jericho, Judges, City of David and Hezekiah’s Tunnel. AND I need to tell you about our Ramadan Extravaganza! And I need to do it all before I leave for Jordan day after tomorrow, which I am so incredibly excited about!!! By-the-way, Petra was just named one of the modern top 7 wonders of the world. And I’m going there. Holy flippin’ cow.
Conclusion: I haven’t done a conclusion for a long time. Maybe because I haven’t finished an entry for a long time. Well, as much as I loved Egypt and as much as I love Israel, America will always be my home. But Egypt did have one leg up on us as far as the whole “cool and fascinating history” goes. I am so grateful that I got to go to Egypt. It was absolutely unforgettable in every way.
After the Museum we headed to the Cairo Hard Rock Café. They served us delicious-looking salad that we couldn’t eat. (Some girls did and they got Ramses Revenge BAD.) We ate large juicy hamburgers and French fries and ice cream. And then they turned on the music. They blasted Macarena, YMCA, and a few others and we ROCKED OUT. It was awesome. We got a lot of the teachers up and dancing with us. By the end a bunch of random people were up dancing with us. It was a blast. I got a Cairo Hard Rock Café T-shirt that I like a lot. It’s pretty sweet.
After that we headed to the Khan al-Khalili Bazaar. Now this is the place that we were highly cautioned about because it’s where, every year, some girl got groped. So all us girls were pretty apprehensive about it. But it ended up being really fun. It’s crazy! It’s a huge network of all these tiny roads and alleyways that wind and twist and are lined with shop upon shop full of junk! It felt like an eternal garage sale! Haha. But our entire group ended up making it through grope-free! Yay! That’s a first I think. I got some awesome gold shoes that are pointy at the end! Yeah, I know. I’m stoked.
That night we had free time, but I was totally zonked and a lot of girls were sick by then, so we stayed in and had a girls’ night watching “The Mask” in my room.
The next day we got up and headed to the Citadel, which is also the Muhammed Ali Mosque. The citadel was so cool! It looked like it should be on the planet Naboo from Star Wars. I kept thinking, “Bri would love this!” I swear George Lucas got some ideas for Naboo from the citadel. Anyway, Muhammed Ali usurped control over Palestine from the Ottoman Sultan in 1830. While in control, Ali built a new royal palace and a mosque to house his tomb, hence the Citadel connected with the mosque. The mosque was beautiful. There was this huge chandelier and tons of hanging white lamps over a beautiful rug that covered the entire floor (which was very big). It was neat.
When we were done at the mosque we headed out for Sinai. It was a long bus ride, but we finally got to the Morgan Land Hotel where they had dinner waiting for us. We ate and slept for a few hours and then got up at 2:30 am to head out for Mt. Sinai. They gave some hot chocolate and a little sack-breakfast and we were on our way. It was funny, because it was so cold everyone was wearing a billion layers so we looked like a fat camp heading to Mt. Sinai to try to lose a few pounds! We arrived at the base of the mount and now begins my adventure story.
So there are 2 options for hiking Sinai: you can hike up the whole way, or you can ride a camel up 2/3 of the way and then hike the last third. So normally I’d be all about hiking up the whole way, gung-ho, right? But I had been talking before I came with a guy who had been here Spring semester and he had highly recommended taking the camel. He said that when you took the camel you could just relax and really absorb the experience and look at the stars, which were absolutely GORGEOUS up there. So I decided to do the camel thing. PLUS you can hike up any mountain any time, but how often can you RIDE A FLIPPIN’ CAMEL up a mountain??? So us camel-riders bunched together and went to the Bedouin guides, who starting grabbing us and taking us to their camel. Now you have to understand that at our Egypt orientation we had been talked to extensively about being cautious. They told us that people would try to get us on our own or lead us out into the desert and then who knows what. So anyway, this Bedouin man comes up and grabs my arm very firmly and starts leading me off the trail. So I’m stumbling along, feeling a little apprehensive, but I could still see and hear the rest of the kids so I wasn’t too worried. He stopped by a camel and then said, “You wait” and then he headed toward a little shack about 100 feet away. I stood there for a while watching until the whole group had passed by on the trail and I was standing there alone in the dark. The Bedouin man came back finally with some blankets and such and tied them onto the camel and then I got on and we headed off. I was feeling a little worried since we were by ourselves, but eventually we caught up with the walkers, but the other camel riders were long gone and far ahead. But once we were with the walkers I felt better. So we’re going along and then we come to this fork in the road. Everyone is going to the right, but when we get there, my Bedouin man turns to the left and starts leading me down this dark path all by ourselves. I freaked out. We were rapidly getting further and further away from the rest of the group and there was no one up ahead in front of us. So I started yelling, “HELP! HELP!” I kept saying to my guide, “I want to go that way! I want to go with the rest of the group! HELP ME! SOMEONE HELP ME!! GUYS! HELP!” Finally people heard and started shining their flashlights at me and I heard mumbling, “It’s Heather! Look! She’s being led off the path!” And I just kept yelling. Finally, I hear a voice in the distance behind me. It said, “Heather! Don’t worry. This is Eran. I am behind you.” Eran Hiatt is the program director here in Jerusalem and he is awesome. I looked behind me and he was walking behind us with his walking stick, slowly closing the gap. Finally he reached us and told the guide that we wanted to go with the rest of the group. The Bedouin man finally got it across to us that this was the path that the camels took because the other path had stairs and it was bad for the camels. So we kept going. And finally we caught up with some of the other camel-riders and I stayed with them for the rest of the ride. But it gave me quite the scare, I’ll tell you. Anyway, it was a big story for a while—Heather getting led off into the desert by some mysterious Bedouin man and having to be rescued by Eran! Haha. What an adventure.
Sinai was incredible though. We got to the top about 5 minutes before the sun started to come up. And then it started to creep over the horizon. Guys, I can’t tell you how gorgeous it was. Simply breathtaking. We all watched the sunrise and sang some hymns and then we had a really nice devotional. It was such a beautiful experience. Man, it’s no wonder that high mountain tops served as temples back in the day. It was like being in another world. After basking in the sunshine for a while we headed back down. At the base of Mt. Sinai is St. Catherine’s Monastery. Because it was Sunday we couldn’t go in, but it was really nice to look at. It’s a church built by Helena when she named Jabal Musa as the biblical Mt. Sinai. The church was replaced by a basilica church by Justinian to protect the monks who were living there. It was really cool. We had a class devotional at the bottom and then headed back to Morgan Land Hotel for brunch.
Finally, we packed onto the bus and headed for home. Our border crossing went very smoothly and after we had crossed over we headed down to the shore and skipped rocks on the Gulf of Aqaba. It was beautiful. On the bus ride home I sat next to Miss Anne Kelly, my kindred spirit. We laughed our heads off playing “Would you rather…?” because we were so tired and drained so everything seemed that much funnier. I think my favorite of hers was, “Would you rather have a tiny little sparrow permanently attached by a chain to your nose and it was always trying to fly away and so tugging at your nose, or be chased eternally uphill by a lion?” I chose the sparrow.
It was nice to get back to the JC. It felt like coming home. It was so good to be able to eat salad and drink water not from a bottle.
Well, friends, that concludes the Egypt experience, although my words did not do it justice. Plus I got lazy by the end and just wanted to be done with it, so it’s not as detailed as it could be. But oh well, at least I finished, right? Now I need to catch up on all the fieldtrips we’ve gone on since then: Jericho, Judges, City of David and Hezekiah’s Tunnel. AND I need to tell you about our Ramadan Extravaganza! And I need to do it all before I leave for Jordan day after tomorrow, which I am so incredibly excited about!!! By-the-way, Petra was just named one of the modern top 7 wonders of the world. And I’m going there. Holy flippin’ cow.
Conclusion: I haven’t done a conclusion for a long time. Maybe because I haven’t finished an entry for a long time. Well, as much as I loved Egypt and as much as I love Israel, America will always be my home. But Egypt did have one leg up on us as far as the whole “cool and fascinating history” goes. I am so grateful that I got to go to Egypt. It was absolutely unforgettable in every way.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Still going...
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.
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.
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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