Big Update!

Okay let's get up to speed with everything that has been going on since the last post.

At night after exploring the three religions of Cairo, we went on our first felucca ride down the Nile. The view was absolutely amazing, and everyone had been feeling a little drained so the relaxing ride really hit the spot. I think that floating down the Nile on the felucca was a completely perfect way to experience Cairo. It was the first time since I've been here that I felt like I could relax entirely, I didn't have to think about anything - where we have to go, what we have to do - nothing, it was so nice.

But the peaceful night took a little turn for the worst as we were escorted back to the hotel by one of our cops/escorts/guys with big guns. We were supposed to just take a walk over the bridge and then catch a taxi back to the Flamenco, but instead we walked for what seemed like forever trying to get back. We shimmied down the side of bridge, stopped traffic, and got honked at more times than I could count. Thankfully, we ended up back in the hotel and then we had a great time at the restaurant Versailles for a couple hours, then back to the hotel where I slept for a very, very long time.

May 4
Happy birthday President Mubarak! haha
Sunday was a lazy day because of the call for protests on the president's birthday.
We spent most of our time hanging around the hotel, until we hopped in the buses and went to Abduh's house for dinner. Hayaam made an amazing array of food for all of us to eat, and it was great to just sit back, eat, and enjoy everyone's company. I hadn't been feeling well before we left, but Hayaam's food definitely hit the spot. After dinner we enjoyed a nice drive with the "wawawa" song playing about 400 times. Then off to bed early for Sakkara in the morning!

May 5

Today was our visit to Sakkara, the first and oldest pyramid in Egypt. I was a little underwhelmed, just because we had visited the Giza pyramids prior, but of course I have a complete appreciation for the beauty and mastery of the pyramid. Then after Sakkara we went to Dahshur, a pyramid that we got to climb inside.

The climb up to the middle of the pyramid, then down to the center was a whole lot of exercise. Inside there wasn't really anything but rocks, but how many people can say they have climbed inside a pyramid?! Well the 30 people that are on the trip can, but other than them! We also saw the “Bent” Pyramid. After getting the feeling back in my legs and bringing my body temperature down to a normal level we headed to the train station for our overnight train to Aswan. The food was AWFUL! (See pictures) But luckily we brought snacks. We watched Aladdin, which seemed extremely appropriate.

May 6
I didn't get much sleep and we got to Aswan about 3 or 4 hours late, but luckily we had the day to lounge by the beautiful pool next to the Nile. Of course I lathered up on sunscreen, since the Aswan sun was a lot hotter than the one in Cairo. After the pool, we took another felucca ride down a different part of the Nile. The view was absolutely beautiful, the sand, the gardens, everything. I especially liked the McDonald's on the Nile.. oh globalization, how do you do it?!

Then we spent the night having a great seafood dinner at Chef Khalil. Although I didn't really enjoy walking through the market, since it was impossible not to hear "Spicy Girl", "How many camels?".. or some variation of those cat calls.

May 7
After the relaxing day, we got up nice and early to visit the Unfinished obelisk, Philae Temple, and Aswan high dam. At first none of us could see the obelisk and were really confused, but once we got up high enough it looked pretty cool. The Philae temple was beautiful, and seemed like an amazing engineering masterpiece, as well as the Dam.

After the long day of site visits, we headed out on a boat ride to a Nubian home. The boat ride was perfect, so relaxing and beautiful. There were beautiful children everywhere at the Nubian village and the cutest little boy in a Neil Young shirt.. haha. I liked spending time there, the people were inviting and the atmosphere was great. We all road back from the village on top of the boat and while most of the group went to a Nubian restaurant, April, Alyssa, Ted, and I went back to the hotel and then to the market. A man offered Ted his grandmother and wanted to marry April. I didn't appreciate some of the cat calls, but a lot of it was in good humor. We really wanted to go swimming but by the time we got back the pool was closed so we sat on the deck and ordered food, then to bed.

May 8
It was an early morning for us since we had to join the caravan of buses to Luxor.

During the ride we made a couple stops at the Kom Ombo and Edfu temples. Then we arrived at the beautiful, five star Luxor hotel where we lounged by the pool that was actually on the Nile! Lunch by the pool, and a lazy night where me and Grace spent most of it in bed.

May 9

Today turned out to be an even early morning - 5:30 AM wake up call. Yuck! We headed out for the Valley of the Kings before the afternoon heat could get to us. First was a walk through the tomb of Ramses VI, with the color of the craftsmanship well preserved and completely gorgeous. Then to King Tut's tomb, where we could see his mummified body and his famous sarcophagus. Then the hike up to and down into the tomb of Tuthmoses III which had multiple rooms and stairs. Then two more tombs, with out Ramses in them.. equally as beautiful. Then to the Queen Hatshepsut's temple, the one and only female king. Temple was carved into the side of a mountain, directly opposite to the Valley of the Kings. This was followed by our visit to Medina Habu Temple, and then finally to the Colossi of Memnon where Asha and I were offered a fertility statue.. with male parts and all.. for a low, low price of one million dollars! Then a break to explore Luxor, where we took the carriage ride from hell, but ended up at the really nice Oasis Cafe. We toured the Luxor Temple at night and then a huge group of 23 of us went to dinner, then back to the hotel.

When we were on our way to dinner, we had some children approach us, asking for money which wasn't too out of the ordinary. I gave a girl a sugar packet that I had, she seemed to enjoy it a lot. But it got me to thinking about how I was raised, and how it's so different over here. Cardinal rule of childhood in America - don't talk to strangers, and yet the kids here try to sell to tourists, complete strangers, most of the day. They also come up to perfect strangers and ask for things. I would never have been able to walk to the streets near the Luxor Temple alone at night when I was that age. It just was definitely a culture difference that struck me weird when it happened on the way to dinner.
It's just different.

May 10
Another early, but not as early, morning so that we could beat the heat and explore the Karnak Temple. Now honestly, at this point I was completely sick of temples! But the Karnak was enormous in scale, and completely beautiful. After Michael's explanations, we got to relax in the maze of columns in one of the courtyards. We talked about how much we would miss our tour guide Michael, curly chest hair and all! haha! Then the day was free, and we lounged, we ate, but mostly lounged.. preparing ourselves mentally and physically for the second overnight train. It was a hard task killing the 8 hours we had in between, but we did it and headed to the Aswan train station around 8:00 PM.

Today
As of right now, I'm sitting at Cinnabon enjoying the free internet and catching up on this blog, massive amounts of e-mails, and picture uploads. The overnight train went a lot smoother last night than last time. Probably because of the dramamine I took that pretty much knocked me out. It's pretty annoying that we can't check into our hotel because we were too early, so we're just kind of floating around places close by until we get in.

Classes start tomorrow!