50 Facts.

In case you don't know anything about Australia, here are some fun facts about the place i'll be calling home beginning in October.

50 Insane Facts About Australia – An infographic by the team at Bondi Beer

American Girl, Australian Adventure.

AHHH I am flipping out right now! The past two months of dreaming, planning, hoping and praying for an insane adventure are actually happening. As of an hour ago my Year-long Working Holiday Visa for Australia got approved!!  Alright, to be fair the likelihood of it NOT getting approved was slim-to-none, but when you're looking forward to something as much as I am looking forward to this coming year, there is always that thought in the back of your mind that it is too amazing to really happen. Well, guess what? IT DID.

For those of you who weren't aware prior to this post, around October of 2013 I am planning on heading to Australia  for a year. What started as a joke has officially become a reality. I decided a while back that I couldn't go straight into the workforce after college, Knowing myself,  I would immediately get wrapped up in whatever job I did. While that's not a terrible, I also know that I would end up regretting not having taken the chance to do something crazy first. So, here we are. Beginning October 2013 I will be working my way around Australia.


Things You Should Know:

1. I cannot work anywhere for more than 6 months
2. I'll hopefully be making Brisbane my home-base
3. While I will be looking primarily for office-work, fruit picking is the number one job of Working Holiday-ers and i'm sure i'll fit a bit of that in
4. I'll absolutely make sure to see Uluru
5. I'll be making a ton of lists as I plan out this adventure! YAY!

So let the planning begin. As of today (after I go watch LES MISERABLES at the National Theater with some incredible friends!) I will be figuring out where I want to go, what I want to do, and what hostels I want to stay in. Planning might be my favorite part of travelling. There is no better way to increase your anticipation for an upcoming trip than to be constantly looking at the possibilities for your adventure. In fact, the only not-completely-planning-related task on my to do list is to make enough money so I can actually fully enjoy this adventure. Prayer Request: That God provides the finances for this. He has already put me in an awesome place where I am currently working two jobs at home and one at school. I just pray that He continues to provide. 

Well, until next time....I hope you all have a WONDERFUL Christmas and an INSANE New Year!

VIDEOS.

Oh my goodness I've been home for 5 months now and STILL haven't uploaded videos from Egypt....UNTIL NOW. I'm going to be going back through and adding the relevant ones to the pages that talk about what's going on in more detail, but until then, here's the link to all the insanity i've kept hidden from you for so long.

EGYPT VIDEOS.

Oh wait, and remember that one time I went to Germany and didn't blog about it because it wasn't cool then? Yeah, here are the videos for that too.

GERMANY VIDEOS

The End.

        Oh what to say, what to say. I haven’t cried today..yet. I cried a bit last night and came close twice today…but so far no tears. I blame this on the innumerable people in airports coupled with my inability to cry in front of people. Regardless, today has been hard. I slept one hour last night, as I simple couldn’t stop thinking about Cairo. This city…this dirty, hectic, loud, crazy city, without my fully realizing it, had become my home. I remember first being brought to Zamalek and wondering how I could ever learn to like this place. I don’t like dirty things, I don’t like being hassled, and I chose Cairo to live in. Bad decision. But, against all odds, this city has won my heart.

        As I walked around yesterday to my favorite eateries and hangouts in Zamalek I thought about my first week there. I remembered how confused and lost I was. Everything looked the same. It took me at least 2.5 weeks to remember where the grocery store was, much less food places. I remember being somewhat nervous going around Zamalek at night without other people and when I had to go get a phone I freaked out because I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to do that with my EXTREMELY limited Arabic. And I couldn’t help thinking how much had changed in these four months. Going to Euro Deli, Alf Leila or Goal was now second nature. Here I was walking around at 9pm, in the dark, on my own, without a second thought. Now, when boys (as I can’t call anyone who does this a man) cat called me I’d glare and yell at them in Arabic to walk away. On the ride back to Zamalek the night before, I had spoken with my taxi driver almost completely in Arabic for 45 minutes. Granted, I used terrible grammar and “baby” sentences, but I did it and we understood one another. When I picked up the taxi to get to the airport this morning and cars almost hit us, or a person walked through the 4 lanes of speeding traffic, I didn’t even think about it. Somehow, this city had become my own.

          While, I am extremely excited to go home and see my friends and family who I have missed dearly, I cannot fully express how much it hurts to leave Cairo behind. God blessed me with such amazing friends here and so many incredible experiences.  This pain is only deepened with the realization that unlike Europe of the UK, the likelihood of me coming back here is slim to none. The friends I made for the most part are American or European, I will be graduating next year, and I’ve seen the sights. I have nothing calling me back to Cairo other than an insatiable desire to relive some of the most amazing 4 months of my life. That’s the problem with travel I guess. You stay somewhere long enough to fully understand the way in which it functions and by the time you move on, it has become home. Egypt is an incredible country that I pray you all get a chance to visit at some point. Haha although, I’m very much of the opinion that you need at least a month in Cairo to fully appreciate its idiosyncrasies. I’m persuaded to believe that if any Westerner attempts to do Cairo in just a few days they will leave never wanting to come back to the dirty, noisy city that it is. But, nonetheless I pray you all get that chance. I feel so blessed to have been given the opportunity to go and experience it the way I did. It is something that I will hold dear to me for the rest of my life. When you go somewhere for that long, I guess a piece of it comes away with you. I have a piece of Bayern already, and now, Cairo, to add to my collection.  Thank you, Lord, for this insane place. Thank you for the friends I have made, the experiences I’ve had, and the overwhelming reminders that you are constantly there and watching out for me.

       I guess that’s another reason for my utter sadness at leaving this place. I learned so much here faith-wise. God blessed me with time each day to spend in the Bible and talking with him about everything going on in my life. He opened doors to talk to people about faith, and blessed me with friends who I could run to when I needed to freak out about something I had learned in my walk with God. I came into this semester desiring to have time each day to spend with God alone. I had come out of a period in our relationship where I was constantly surrounded by other Christians and being built up in my faith and I had prayed that God would do two things for me. First, I prayed that he would use this semester to embolden me in my faith and get the chance to grow on my own, without having the constant support of Christian community. Second, I prayed that he would let me meet at least one other Christian that I could turn to should I need someone to talk to. Well, I got both and more. God blessed me with some amazing friends who, even when I wasn’t hanging out with them, were constant reminders of what it means to walk by faith. They were a constant encouragement when I was struggling, whether they knew it or not. God had blessed me with people that would pray with and for me, and allow me to be open about the things I needed the most. But, he also blessed me with a community of amazing friends, who, though they don’t necessarily believe the same things, were always there to talk to and simply enjoy life with. I cannot begin to say how much the friendships I’ve made in Cairo have meant to me. It will be hard to come back to the United States and not be able to run downstairs and meet up with them for lunch whenever. It will be strange not to go on fun, random weekend trips with these hilarious gents and simply joke around the entire time. But, I am so insanely blessed to have met them and had the opportunity to call them my friends. Life, in my opinion, is nothing if you don’t experience it with others, and God has constantly surrounded me with people with whom I could do just that. I pray that he continues to do so; not only for me, but them as well. So, I guess, this sort of turned into a half prayer, so AMEN. Thank you all for giving me the chance to tell you all about the amazing adventures I’ve gotten to go on since being here. I love you all! God Bless!

Psalm 150

Praise the LORD

Praise God in his sanctuary; Praise him in his mighty heavens

Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness

Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet; praise him with the harp and lyre

Praise him with timbrel and dancing; praise him with strings and pipe,

Praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals

Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.

Praise the LORD.

THE FOOD BLOG.

Alright, I promised this long ago, but FINALLY here is the blog of delicious food we enjoyed in Cairo (and elsewhere in Egypt)

An awesome place in Maadi provided the gents and I with these insane burgers:

ALEX TOP! This was by far my favorite place...and SO cheap. I'm talking 6LE or $1 for a meal.

                                  

Rice Pudding

Chicken Tagen

MORE rice pudding!

This is what a basic meal in Egypt looked like: rice, soup, chicken, bread, beans. OH. And did I mention you get all of this for about $2.50?

         

yeah....that's half a chicken you see on that plate.

JUICE: Egyptians love freshly squeezed juice. no added sugar, completely natural and delicious. They have everything! I've tried watermelon, orange, mango, pineapple, guava, apple and a bunch i've never even heard of before.

double fisting the lemon and watermelon juice

the juice stand!

Euro Deli:  okay i failed to get a picture of Euro Deli food...this would happen. But they served the basics like Shawerma, an American style breakfast and my personal favorite, Tartine chicken with fries.

          

This is food from another place, but it's pretty close to the type of thing you could get at Euro Deli.

ALF LEILA: This was another favorite place of mine. You could pick out different things you wanted (moussaka, shakshouka, salad, baba ganoush and other random things) then grab some bread and dip away! It doesn't look like much...but let me tell you. This sort of thing filled you up. OH and it was less than one dollar.

GOAL: okay, so I didn't eat here all that often. This is mostly a shisha place where we went and drank tea, smoked shisha and played Backgammon. But, it was one of our favorite places to go...so I got a picture anyways.

Alright...well that's what i got for food! Sorry I didn't post about shawerma, falafel, or foul..which are standard. But, honestly, I didn't eat that too much unless I was on campus. So, if you want to know more about those...feel free to comment/ask! love ya!

Indiana Jones (and Jesus) would be Proud

SO. I am officially leaving Israel for my last day in Cairo! ahh SAD SAD SAD!! I'm more than excited to go home, but the closer I get to boarding this plane the more I realize how much i'm dreading having to say goodbye to the city that has become my home. But, enough of that...i'll save my depressing post for the day i leave. For now, i'll give ya a quick overview of my time in Petra and Jerusalem! Alright let's start with my general itinerary:

Day 1 (May 17): Fly into Amman

Alright so I got to Amman at about 9:30 pm their time and had prearranged to be picked up because, well, it's a foreign city, i'm alone and I don't want to chance it. So, I find the guy holding the sign for my hostel...he looks nice..but he's GIANT, and it's just me and him, and he has me sit in the front seat. He offered to carry my bag, which was nice, but of course the entire time i'm thinking, "well, awesome. I'm going to get kidnapped and he already has my bag." Okay, I wasn't thinking that, but I was a BIT nervous. Until I got into the car and started chatting. His name is Ahmed and he's SO nice. We chatted about Amman, and attempted Arabic,he told me where to go get food (none of that information got used unfortunately), and oh we discussed the fact that he's a member of the JORDANIAN NATIONAL TAE KWON DO TEAM.  He actually knows the 2 girls and one guy that they have going into the Olympics this summer. He was out of commission because he'd had his jaw broken and messed up a ligament in his knee. But, he still trained younger athletes and is working on keeping fit so that he can continue to fight one he heals up. It was awesome. Seriously going to be cheering on their team this summer. Awesome.

Day 2: Petra

So, the next morning I woke up at 5am to make a 6:30 bus to Petra. Conveniently there were some other people from the hostel headed that way so I caught a cab with them, and ended up getting the last seat on the bus to Petra! I passed out on the bus, which was good cause it took 3 hours to get there and I didn't get much sleep the night before. But, upon getting there I completely woke up. As I started down the path into Petra I started chatting with this nice guy who became my Petra sight-seeing-buddy. He's Iraqi but followed his parents to Sydney after the start of the war. He told me he'd had two younger brothers and a nephew killed by an accidental airstrike. The worst part is that they are originally from Baghdad and had moved from there to a smaller town in order to stay safe. Anyways, we had a good time chatting and making our way through the magnificence that is Petra. It's breathtaking. The initial passageway in is spectacular with the multicolored rocks, and streams of sun piercing through the top at various segments. Gorgeous. We went to the monastery at the end and made sure to see the Royal tombs as well as the Treasury of course=] We got a donkey ride up to the monastery but then walked back down. We saw at LEAST two mothers carrying children up that mountain though. What are you people thinking?! We could barely do it and we were in shape! Insanity. Anyways, after a good five hours of walking around, we both headed to the exit, downed some water and then waited for the bus to arrive to take us back to Amman.

Day 3: Bus to Jerusalem

So luckily the night before I had gotten the chance to catch up with some people who were also heading to the border the next day, so I ended up getting some much needed info from them and booked a ride to the border through the hostel. So, I got up at around 7am and was in the taxi by 8am to drive to King Hussein Bridge! The Bridge crossing was SO easy. I went in, did my passport stuff and then was heading to the bus when i inadvertently responded to someone by saying "ayowa" which means yes in Arabic. This led to a guy speaking to me for the next 15 minutes about Arabic, and how I liked it and where I was going and whether or not I was married. You know, the basics. He thought it was hysterical that this little white girl could understand him. But, then again, I guess it was. He was really nice and we joked around a bunch until the bus left to take us to the Israeli terminal! There it was fairly simple crossing, minus the guards looking like they wanted to destroy me when I said I wanted a paper instead of my passport stamped.

 "why?! You don't want the stamp?"

"No, I want the stamp, just on a paper." 

"WHY?!" 

"I might be travelling to Lebanon later"

 "Lebanon is friends with us" 

* uncomfortable laughter* "yeah..."

It's fine, they finally gave it to me on the paper. I just stared him down until he figured I would make a scene if he didn't. This was probably a fair assumption. But, after that I grabbed some shekels and hopped on a bus to Jerusalem, where Brendan (a guy from the hostel) and I attempted to find our hostel in Jerusalem. After wandering around forever with no luck we finally grabbed a taxi. Which took us 5 minutes past where we'd stopped looking. Yup. that happened. On the bright side, we'd gotten to Jerusalem so early that I had plenty of time to wander around!
      So, I checked out the old city with a nice Canadian kid i met at the hostel. He had gone on the birthright trip and ended up loving it so much that he moved to Israel and is joining the IDF. It was interesting walking around the old city with him and getting the history of the place from his point of view. Although somewhat awkward when he discovered I disagreed with him about some of it, and i'm pretty sure some of his facts were wrong, it was nice to have a tour guide and someone to walk around with. After a bit we parted ways and I did a little souvenir shopping and headed over to the Mt. of Olives before heading back to the hotel and grabbing dinner with a Brazilian girl named Estella. Successful day.

Zion Gate--filled with bullet holes from the war

Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall

The Western Wall!

Garden of Gethsemane

Pretty mural at the church of Jesus praying in the garden

Largest Jewish graveyard

           

Tomb of Mary

 

Day 4: Bethlehem and Dead Sea

 This day was pretty fantastic for a few reasons. First, it was completely organized for me. I took tours with the hostel for both, which made planning simple. Second, it left time in between the tours to grab lunch and rest up for the next one. Third, I met amazing people on the first tour and lovely ones on the second. Definitely a good day. It started when we headed to Bethlehem. Grabbed the bus where I was the only person my age, and the only one on my own. Automatically thinking "GREAT. What did I get myself into?" But, it ended up being wonderful. There were 3 other couples on the bus. First were a couple in their early 30s that were both from London. I got a chance to talk to them about the Olympics. Definitely mixed feelings about it, but the girl was able to rent out her apartment for it and make some money, so that's a plus! One of the other couples had a daughter who had been studying in Haifa, so there thrilled to find out that I had been studying in Cairo. The final couple consisted of a husband and wife who were both professors at Cornell University. The woman focused on Eastern Europe, Russia and uprisings, while the husband had a concentration in biotechnology with a focus in Southeast Asia. They were an incredibly fascinating couple. The husband had come to give a talk and the wife was along for the ride. They loved that I had been in Cairo studying Arabic especially during the uprisings.=]

Anyways, Bethlehem itself was wonderful. Our guide was so sweet, and tried to teach me some Shamii Arabic. We went to the field where the Shepherds were supposed to have seen the angels and star. Then we went to where people believe that Christ was born. I haven’t checked up on the archaeological evidence for either of those so I can’t say whether or not they were legitimate. However, we WERE in Bethlehem which has always been a small town, so it’s cool to think that this is where Jesus would have been born, regardless of whether people put churches in the right spots. We also went to the milk grotto which is apparently where Mary lactated and a small bit of Breast milk fell on the ground turning what used to be a black cave, white. Interesting idea, though I don’t personally put much stake in it. The church itself was quite beautiful and of a beautiful white circular design. After that short jaunt, we headed back across the Palestinian/Israeli border and back to the hostel.

(the first picture is the cave they think the shepherds lived in, the second is the field in which they were to have seen the angels)

                    

 

original floor of the church

Church of the Nativity

Graffiti on the border walls

Since I had about two and a half hours until my next tour, I wandered over to the nearby market and had lunch. While, after having lived in Cairo for four months, markets aren’t a huge deal, this one was lovely. It wasn’t too huge, but big enough to get a little lost in and looking at all the different sweets, nuts, olives, dates, spices and general goods being sold was extremely enjoyable. I ended up going to a random local place and getting something called Kubra, which is a wheat (although it can be other things) based patty filled with meat in a greenish soup with onions, lemon and mint. A bit odd, but the Kubra itself was quite tasty. Then, after wandering around a bit, I headed back to the hostel to get ready for part two of my adventuring that day.

Our driver arrived right on time to take me, 2 German girls and 4 Italians to the Dead Sea for the afternoon. It was wonderful. The only obnoxious part was that I was alone. I attempted to start conversations with the Germans, but they wouldn’t continue anything, and the Italians were actually very nice and chatted with me, but they were older couples and kind of did their own thing. But, whenever they ran into me around the city the following few days they would say hi which was nice=] So, I do wish I had been able to go with someone as opposed to having to do it on my own, but the dead sea was really cool, the mud was fun (my skin did actually feel better after), and I generally enjoyed being there.

                         

DAY 5: The Old City

The night before, Geoff and Amelia, two friends from Cairo both arrived and so we planned to meet up the next day and do all the big things in the Old city. So, 7:30am we headed out to stand in line for the Temple Mount. It was really insanely beautiful.  It was crazy to be at a place that so many people have regarded as being such a holy site for so long. But, it was unfortunate that we couldn’t go inside as according to pictures it’s even more stunning in the interior. But, nonetheless it was cool. After that, the three of us headed over to the Church of the Holy sepulcher, which was beautiful and fascinating. Right when you walk in there’s the slab that Christ supposedly was laid on when he died, and SO MANY people had cloths and were rubbing it to get a bit of Christ’s healing powers. I’m Christian obviously, but I don’t buy into things like this, or see it all that often, so it was extremely interesting to see a completely different way of enacting my own faith.  After that we grabbed some REAL bagels and then headed to the Israel Museum. The Israel Museum was really cool. I got the chance to see some of the original Dead Sea Scrolls which are the oldest written portions of the Bible. I also got a little bit more of the History and whatnot behind them, which I love, so that was super interesting. Then we finished the day by going to the Tower of David Museum and finding out more of the history of Jerusalem. It was a great little museum and realizing that the places we were standing and been there since the time of Herod? So cool. It was awesome just to go to a city where I could recognize the names of so many of the historical figures and realize this is where things that I’ve read about would’ve taken place. AMAZINNGGG. That night Geoff and I hung out with these two Australian guys we met. We attempted to find a bar, but upon being completely unsuccessful and extremely tired, we all just grabbed a beer, chatted for like an hour or so and then headed off to bed. All in all, it was an extremely successful day.

People attempting to wipe off some of Christ's power from the slab he was laid upon.

BAGELS!

Replica of the Temple

Jerusalem!

Day 6: Leaving Israel

Today has been…an adventure. I woke up around 8:30am grabbed breakfast and headed to the Old City to take it in one more time. After that I headed back up Jaffa St. towards the hostel, and grabbed some banana-date gelato on the way. Oh, I’ve fallen in love with dates by the way. Well, maybe not love. But I DO like them way more than I used to. Anyways, I chilled out, grabbed the taxi to the airport and then the adventure began. So I got there a bit earlier than planned because I had read the time wrong for my departure. But, better early than late, so I waited it out and then about 15 minutes before the check-in opened up I went and stood in the security line. THANK GOD I DID. 

I knew it was going to be a bit of a hassle because of my Egyptian and Jordanian passport stamps. No big deal. They asked me a few questions about that: where was I going, why was I in Egypt, what was I studying there, why was I studying Arabic, blah blah blah. Then the first lady brought ANOTHER guy over who asked the exact same questions in another way. At first I was amused, but by this point I thought it was a bit ridiculous. I’m an American citizen. I will be in Cairo for one day and then I’m heading home. Get over yourselves. Anyways, after that they let me continue on to throw my bags in the x-ray scanner thing. Which was fine, except that I had electronics ( my laptop and chargers) on me. If you have ANY electronics on you they want to have them checked out. So I headed on to another desk where they tried to find my camera charger. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize this would be a problem, so I had just tossed it in my backpacking bag with the rest of my clothes. And, since they couldn’t find it, they took my bag apart completely. I mean, thank goodness I put my dirty underwear and bras in a separate bag because the entirety of my bag was all over this counter. Presents, clothes, breakable objects, shoes, EVERYTHING was taken out and patted down and scanned. And the lady keeps asking me where my charger is, to which I consistently responded I have NO IDEA. I threw it in the bag. But it was like they were blaming me for keeping it from them. I kept saying “I want to find it too! I need it as much as you do!” Absurd. 

Anyways, they started checking my other two bags, which were fine…and then they found the charger. How it got in there or what they saw in my other bag that they thought was the charger I have no idea. Whatever the case, it was enough to have me dragged off to another room where I was then strip searched. Okay, let me be honest here, and say that the amount of strength it took to keep my composure and not start flipping out at these people was BEYOND ridiculous. I was SO angry. I came to your freaking country to enjoy myself, see places that I find important, and then go back home, to the United States, which happens to be one of the ONLY places that freaking supports you. And I’m getting strip searched in case of what? That I’m taking a bomb to Cairo? Stealing holy artifacts? I don’t even know. Whatever the case may be, I was pissed. Unfortunately, I also know that the people doing this, have a job to do and it’s not their fault their government is a bit crazy with this. So, after praying for a little peace, I ended up chatting with the woman who was my overseer for all this and we had a lovely conversation. She was fairly young and an extremely nice person. Oh what a little prayer can do. Having said all that, I finally got to my gate, made it to Jordan and am currently, as I write this, on the plane back to Cairo. So, I made it.

Overall feelings and takeaways from this trip:

1. I LOVE travelling on my own. I met so many amazing people during the few days I was here, and when I wasn’t chatting or sight-seeing I had a chance to just sit and reflect on my own. I really, really liked it.
2.  I enjoy spending time in places. I like to stay long enough in a place for it to begin to feel like home, and then move on. I wish I had had longer to enjoy Israel and Jordan.
3. I absolutely adore trying new food. Whenever I got the chance I ordered things that I didn’t recognize. Definitely worth it.
4. I love helping people experience new things. I met a few people on my trip who were headed to Cairo, and it was so much fun to talk to them and give them an idea of what they’d be running into. They’re going to my home!! Yay!
5. Amman is rather boring. Petra was amazing, but I’m glad I didn’t stay that much longer in Amman. Although I wish I had time to enjoy mensef and Kenafa (two recommended foods from friends), the city itself was rather dull.
6.  Israel is crazy. I mean that both positively and negatively. Politics aside, Israel is made up of insanely beautiful landscapes, matched up with a sometimes hostile environment. That is to say, that Israel itself was GORGEOUS. I mean the weather was perfect, streets were clean, traffic wasn’t bad, and the countryside was a dream. But, while the people themselves were nice, the atmosphere could come off as hostile. Yes, people of three major religions live there and see each other day to day, but in terms of interaction….you don’t see it often. And, some neighborhoods are actually somewhat dangerous for people to walk through (German girls getting rocks thrown at them in orthodox neighborhoods). Then of course there’s the IDF walking around everywhere. This is strange enough to get used to when they’re in uniform, but even worse when they’re in plainclothes and holding giant machine guns. Creepy. And they hold them so casually, I swear I thought I was gonna get shot accidentally. Anyways. It was odd. But, like I said, the people themselves tended to be quite nice.
7.  I miss Cairo already.---more on this tomorrow or Thursday.
8. GOD IS SO GOOD. I realize I say that in a lot of  my blogs but that just got proved over and over during my trip. I wish I could explain it all on here, but suffice to say that God answered SO many prayers while I was travelling. Down to the smallest details. I've been keeping a prayer journal, and it was so insanely cool to look at that the next night and realize how much of it had been answered. Crazy. 

     Psalm 139: 1-6

1 You have searched me, Lord,

    and you know me.

2 You know when I sit and when I rise; 

    you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down;

    you are familiar with all my ways. 

4 Before a word is on my tongue

    you, Lord, know it completely. 

5 You hem me in behind and before,

    and you lay your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, 

    too lofty for me to attain.