I'm Off to See the World! The Wonderful, Wonderful World!

 Well, in about 30 minutes, 5 friends and I are headed to Cairo airport to start our spring break adventure!! We'll be flying to Cyprus and then after a few days of exploring the small, island country we're ferrying over to Turkey and then going to travel up the coast until we hit Istanbul! So,  for 12 days, my facebook, twitter and blog will be ridiculously silent. For this I apologize. BUT, as my favorite book would say, Fear NOT! I will be taking detailed notes on all my lovely adventures and excursions each day so that I can fill you all in when I return=] 

Also, since mi Madre requested my itinerary and I failed to give it to her, you can all enjoy it now!

April

5th: Flight to Larnaca, Cyprus. Staying there for the evening.

6th: Exploring the Capital of Nicosia then heading across the border to Turkish Cyprus (Turkey is the only one that officially recognizes them as a country). Heading to Girne for the evening

7th: MAYBE  ferry to Turkey, MAYBE  stay an extra day in Cyprus. We're undecided.

8th: Antalya, Turkey

9th: Antalya--leave for Olympos, (a beach spot about 2 hours away) that evening.

10th: Olympos

11th: Olympos

12th: Olympos--Leave for Kas, another small beach area

13th: Kas--leave for Ephesus that evening on an overnight bus

14th: Ephesus (SUPER excited for this one...Ephesians is one of my favorite books in the Bible)--leave on an overnight bus to Istanbul.

15th: Istanbul

16th: Istanbul

17th: Istanbul-- leave for home!

If you'd like to see a not-super-well-done map of this adventure...HERE YA GO!

This pretty much describes my motto for this trip. It's gonna be great!=]

Joyful in Hope

Alright ya'll so this is a bit random, but I HAVE to put it down. I read a Psalm this morning about fear and it's been on my mind all day. I'm thinking God wants me to get something through my head considering that's what we talked about in class today as well=] gahh such a good day. But before I start, I just want to point out that if you go through Psalms, Isaiah, Matthew (or any of the gospels), check out how many times it says "do not worry", or "do not be anxious" or "do not fear". Worrying isn't something I do often, but when I do...I worry like it's my job. Unfortunately, that's probably not the best thing for me. So it's nice to know that God is constantly trying to remind us not to freak out over every small thing.

Hah, okay that was the first lesson I learned today. The second is a bit longer....so have fun!=]

Over and over again as I read through the Psalms two things have jumped out at me. David either feels alone and writes about his need of God or he's joyous in hope. Wait. Scratch that. He's always joyous in hope. THAT'S what's I've been loving about this so much. Whether David feels as if he's on top of the world, or is freaking out because he's got people after him, he always ends with a desire to praise God.

People have been asking me forever why I seem happy all the time. Well, first off....i'm not. Let's be honest, I obviously can't be happy all the time. That would be ridiculous and honestly...don't we need some bad to enjoy the good all the more? Anyways, secondly I'm happy because I know the same God as David. I see the same joy he did in everything. Reading through the Psalms has (and continues to be) like reading my own thoughts written down. I just went through Psalm 43 and ya'll it ended marvelously. The last verse of it is by far my favorite.

"Why, my soul are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God." Psalm 43:8

ahhh I love it. I know this feeling so well. Some days just generally suck. I struggle, i'm late to class, I fail, and nothing seems to go my way. Sometimes it's not me. Some days, terrible things happen and you just feel alone. Days when nothing helps and everything hurts. Those days it's insanely easy for me to imagine God has completely abandoned me to the cynicism and anger of this world. For David, that happens numerous times throughout the Psalms. I can't tell you how many times I've read "rescue me", "remember me", or "where are you". But, in all of that he constantly returns to the realization that God hasn't abandoned him. Yes, times are hard. Yes, people will hate you. Yes, sometimes life is terrible. But, God uses that. God doesn't want you to be in pain. He doesn't want to see you hurt or suffer. But, when life throws that at you...God will use that for your good (Romans 8:28). God has plans for people and whatever happens, the end will be for something greater than I ever planned. I know that even when I'm the cause of my own problems, God sees that. He knows that and helps me regardless.

Knowing that, gives me more joy than I can possibly express in words. My soul does NOT need to be downcast. I can be joyful in knowing that there is always someone there for me and always something more to hope for. You know those moments in life when you're so excited about something you can't contain yourself? Times when you're grinning like a fool or can't help but laugh/scream/jump. That is what it feels like to be in this relationship with God. The more I read about him, the more I talk to him, the more I want to, the more I fall in love with Jesus. The best part? I know i'm not the only one in this boat. Whenever David talks about being joyful in God, he talks about singing praise. He knows this feeling. He knows that when you love someone you want to shout it out to everyone and sometimes, that means freaking out and singing out your lungs...other times it means laughing about whether or not angels/God are laughing at you (Bethany=]). David knew, and I feel it now. When crap happens to me I need not fear. I have someone to listen to me, help me, guide me, comfort me when no one else can. Hah. that's why I got the Isaiah 41:10 tattoo right? I needed a reminder so that next time the world throws something that seems unbearable my way, I remember this.

"Do not fear for I am with you.
Do not Dismay for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you.
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."
Isaiah 41:10

God not only is there for me....he's freaking gonna take his time helping me. Yeah. I think I can deal with that. So yes, like David, in bad times all I can say is this: "I will YET praise Him, my Savior and my God."

"Say Hello to Cleopatra for Me!"

Ahhh! It's been forever and a DAY since I last posted something. I apologize. My life has been a constant stream of activity. And no, not interesting, let's blog about it things. Rather, it has been a wonderful onslaught of completely banal happenings such as studying, eating, hanging out with friends, taking 3 hour bus rides from school and taxi-ing our way to everywhere. BUT, there have been intermittent periods of entertainment, and so I give you, THIS BLOG POST.

Okay so there are 3 Basic things I must catch you up on. First, Daily happenings and a lovely trip to al-Azhar park. Second, an amazing trip to the BEAUTIFUL Alexandria, and finally, a random day full of events. So, let's start with numero uno.

1) DAILY THINGS, oh and Al-Azhar park too=]

First off, don't even ask me why I grouped these two things together. They don't really have anything to do with one another, I just thought about them in this order, so that's how they're going to be written. Basically I just felt like saying some random things about Cairo, living here, and what's up.

So, random things that come to mind when I decided to write this:

• Bus rides to and from school--they take FOREVER. On an average school day, I spend at least 2 hours on the bus. Some days it'll take 2 hours just to get home. On the one hand, this is absolutely absurd.  It is aggravating, hot, and just a generally unwanted occurrence. On the other hand....who am I to complain? Let's take a look at the positives here: I get an hour long nap before and after school. I get a constant reminder of why I love this city as we pass by skyscrapers, dirty streets, broken down building and mosques. I have time to read the Bible, pray and generally spend time with God. I get to chill and think over whatever my mind may be reeling about at any given moment. I have a chance to do homework before I get home. I enjoy games of backgammon courtesy of Andrew's iPod. And i get a chance to really appreciate some of the music on my iPod that I hadn't listened to before. So, I guess that kind of outweighs whatever negatives I originally found. Glad you all worked through that one with me=]

• I LOVE FOOD. I know, for anyone that knows me this is a ridiculously obvious declaration to make, but I'm choosing to do so anyways. Why? Because I just need another chance to inform you of how wonderful the food here is. While the fact that it's cheap DOES factor into why I love it so much, I do just generally enjoy it. I know I posted a few pictures of different things a while back, but I'll make a Food in Focus blog soon, don't you worry. I wish I could bring you all here to enjoy the wonderful character of places such as Alex Top, Alf Layla wa-Layla ( ألف ليلة وليلة), Goal, Saladero, Munch'n Bagel, Euro Deli, or Cook Door. Okay, well, those are just simple everyday places. But, I've also had some WONDERFUL Yemeni, Korean and Indian food since being here. Next up are Egyptian, Sudanese and Ethiopian hopefully! Oh! And I had brain the other day. Yeah. we'll discuss that later.

• Bartering. You have to haggle for everything here. Okay, not everything. Just some taxis and at marketplaces. But, I'm tired of it. that's pretty much all I have to say about that. 
• School. It's getting in the way of my travelling desires. I'll be honest and say that it's nowhere near as hard as UVA but the work is still enough to take away from fun trips, sleep and generally hanging with friends now and again.

2. Al-Azhar Park

The citadel from afar

Yeah, okay. I decided it deserved it's own bullet. I don't actually have a ton to say about it. It was beautiful. One of the gents and I went there for the afternoon and just hung out. It was so nice to be out of Zamalek and  at least feel as if we were out of Cairo for a bit. There was grass, flowers, benches, fountains, and COUPLES! People being couple-y in Egypt is pretty much Haraam (or no bueno as I would say). It was so odd to see so many couples wandering around. But, moving on, the view was awesome. We could see the pyramids, the Citadel and the majority of Cairo from the top of the hill. A refreshing change to say the least.

3. Alexandria

Cairo Train Station

Ah, yes, the portion you have been waiting for. Or, more likely, the segment you just skipped straight to reading. Either way, here we go! This past weekend Andrew and I hopped on a train to Alexandria. It's only about 2.5 hours away so not a bad ride at all. Also, the Cairo train station was BEAUTIFUL. Weird. Clean and beautiful doesn't happen often in Cairo. So, trained on up to Alex, chilled out for a bit and then met up with 2 other friends for dinner and shisha. But, before I move on, let me just tell you about dinner. It was phenomenal. Yeah, I bolded, underlined AND italicized that. The food, price (and company) was THAT good. We got more bread and dips than we could handle, 3 different types of fresh fish, waters and Anjana got a sort of odd, but not terrible chicken dish.

Devouring the fish.

J's not a fan of fish=]

We keep it classy.

Balbaa

Alright, so good times all around at Balbaa. Then, the next day it was SIGHTSEEING! YAY!

 We started off by walking down the boardwalk until we hit this lovely Fort. It's the Citadel of Quaitbay and it's built on the exact same spot that the Lighthouse of Alexandria used to be.

View out of the Citadel with Alex in the background.

Did I mention that the weather was GORGEOUS? It was, and the waves were super Little Mermaid-esque  as they crashed on the rocks. It was amazing.

 Pompey's Pillar was hilarious. First because it's in the middle of an extremely rundown town and second, because well....that's it. It's a pillar. Don't get me wrong, it's a GIANT pillar. But, it's still just a pillar.

After Pompey's Pillar we went to the catacombs known as Kom al-Shoqafa. They were really, really, really cool. Not only was it incredibly intricate with rooms and you know, burial places, but it had a "mummy-chute" to get the mummys down there. Plus, in terms of history, it was a fascinating combination of Roman, Greek and Egyptian art and architecture throughout. Also, there was a chopping block where they would behead Christians, and a room where they buried four horses and a donkey. Interesting. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures so you'll just have to google it. 

That evening we just wandered around a bit. Ended up finding this amazing marketplace. I wish i could have gotten a better picture but I didn't really want to keep my camera out.

ALSO, I got this dessert. Ice cream, peach, and strawberry sauce. ahh YEEUH.

     The last day, right before we headed back on the train, we ran over to the Roman ruins nearby. There is a magnificent ancient Ampitheatre. It was surrounded by classrooms, a bath house (on the far left in the picture  below) and houses. The rooms of all those things are there, but overall they are of course, ruins. It was awesome to see all of it nonetheless=]

In this picture...directly behind me are the classrooms, to the left (where the pillars are in the background) is where the bath house was, the ampitheatre would be to the right and the houses in the WAY back.

3. The Past Few Days

 So, since the trip to Alex I have had a midterm, test, and am now preparing a presentation for tomorrow. It's been a bit hectic. To top things off, I chose to spend the day gallivanting around Cairo with a friend yesterday. Which, let's be honest, I don't regret at all. We went to Giza to legitimately see the pyramids (I only galloped around them last time) and then headed over to Khan al-Khalili to get some scarves and a shisha. While there I got to enjoy a taste of brain. I KNOW. And, you know what? I didn't hate it! Actually, it was pretty good. But, it probably would've been better if I hadn't been mentally freaking out over the fact that it was brain the entire time I ate it. Also, it was just one bite. So, let's not get too crazy here. Maybe i'll do the full sandwich next time.

The sandwich on  the left is brain. 

     Oh and remember how busy I was? Yeah I spent the morning at City Stars. It's a giant shopping mall---possibly bigger than Tysons, in the south of Cairo. It was FREAKISHLY western. I ate Pinkberry's for goodness sake! But, while fun, the overly western feel almost bothered me. I've gotten far too accustomed to my normal, raggedy Cairo. Also, we hit a guy on the way over to the mall. Like how casually I slipped that in there? Yeah, that's what it felt like. Remember those blog posts where I freaked out about how ridiculous the traffic is here? Well, today that finally culminated in our taxi hitting a middle-aged man at full speed. Yes, he tried to slow down. Yes, he ran out to help as soon as it happened. Yes, we got waved on after 15 other people rushed to help him. Yes, that's it. It was terrifying. I'm pretty positive my heart stopped. We were in complete shock that it happened. I'm praying he's completely okay. He didn't look like he  broke anything but he was older, we were at full speed and he was limping. Not a good situation. Yup. That's Cairo for ya. And he wasn't even crossing an 8-lane highway! Amateur.

Well, that's pretty much all I got for ya for now. Thank you for waiting patiently with me through this novel of a blog.