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!

Valley of the Kings....and the Crazies.

Airport naps.

Ahhh so in my excitement over finishing the whole spring break posts and my trip to Sinai this past weekend I COMPLETELY forgot about all the amazing things that happened in between! Like, oh you know, a casual trip to Luxor and Aswan.=] So, i know that I just put out the post on Istanbul, but let me do a filler on what happened the weekend after! Jake, Taylor and I all flew down to Luxor and Aswan where we met up with a few other friends. It was an insanely early morning flight (Whattup 5am?!) But, I was ridiculously excited anyways considering we were about to go see things i'd been dreaming about seeing since I was in second grade. But, once we got to our hostel, and got settled in we slept for a few hours before heading out to Karnak Temple. One of the absolute most stunning things i've ever seen.

The Manager of our hostel was LOVELY. He sat us down and gave us a quick overview of Luxor. He told us what there was to see and do, best places to eat, some safety tips and of course how to get places most efficiently. Really everyone at the hostel was phenomenal. One of the guys that worked there, Tarek, was SO sweet. He helped us figure out places to go, and even brought us juice to one of our meals! Juice is insanely wonderful here. All freshly squeezed and not at all like the watered down sugary mess we drink in the states.

Note the sign about check "AUT" 

So, after napping for a few hours, the gents and I decided to head to Karnak Temple. and we ended up running into another friend of ours, Eli, who joined us for the adventure. So, we walked a ways and then finally ended up taking a carriage ride there for 10EP. Not a bad deal, and Eli was doing his thing becoming best friends with our driver, while getting Jake to smile became our driver's main goal for the trip. "Mustache! Smile, mustache!" hahah it was wonderful. And when we finally got to Karnak...well it is OVERWHELMING. It's such a magnificently huge place, and in come areas (where the sun hasn't killed it) the color is still astoundingly vivid. And the size of the place is deceiving. Because there's a long, flat area you walk through after the ticket booth before you actually get to the beginning of the Temples. So, when you do see it, you can't even understand how big it is.

                  

                                       

I'm obsessed with all of the color on these things, because when you see it you can begin to imagine what these places must have looked like in their prime. I feel like i'm in The Prince of Egypt wandering the halls of elaborately painted, hieroglyph covered walls. It's amazing. too bad I can't read hieroglyphs. Or maybe it's a good thing, cause we would've been everywhere twice as long. 

Moving on: after checking out Karnak Temple for a few hours in the scorching heat, Jake and I hit the museum for a bit. the museum was pretty cool, albeit overly priced for how small it was. Then, we all headed back for nap number two before heading out for an evening at the Temple of Luxor. Conveniently, the Temple of Luxor was a 10 minute walk from our Hostel, so after grabbing some food the entire crew headed over.

It's beautiful at night, right?? I love the way it's lit up. It made it even more spectacular. We spent a while there just hanging out and chatting amongst the columns. Then headed in for a good night's sleep before doing the Valley of the Kings, Hatsheput's Temple, Medinet Habu the Collosi of Memnon and the Tombs of the Nobles. 

When we got up the next morning we headed out to the 1EP ferry to get to the West Bank and after securing a cab for the day for 150EP ($25), Taylor, Jake and I headed to the Valley of the Kings! It was so cool to see these tombs up close and personal! For the entrance fee, you can get into 3 of the tombs. So we chose tombs 2 (Ramses IV), 11(Ramses III) and 14 (Twosret and Setnakhte). Unfortunately you're not allowed to take picture in the tombs...which we found out the hard way....twice. But, after the second time I decided I wouldn't take any pictures with my own camera. So, if you want to know more about the tombs we went to and maybe see some cool pictures, please click: HERE.

After a pretty sweet morning of seeing some beautifully decorated tombs (Let me tell you, they were GORGEOUS) we headed to the Mortuary Temple of Hatsheput. Honestly, compared to the hieroglyphs and whatnot we had seen at other places, it wasn't all that amazing. But the rchitechture itself was pretty cool...and you know, it's kinda famous, so...gotta check it out=] My favorite aspect of the entire temple however, by far, was the tree out front. There were multiple depictions on the walls of the people building the temple getting the trees from elsewhere and transplanting them here. the trees would have been in the grand, open space you see in front of the temple itself. But, this little charred up twig you see was apparently one of them. I felt bad, but really guys? We had to FENCE this? We couldn't have just planted a few replicas or something?? haha oh historical sites....I love you. 

After spending an hour or so at Hatsheput's the gents and I headed off to the Tombs of the Nobles. Some pretty cool tombs, but yet again a no-go with the picture taking. We even asked this time! But, by the end of our tour, our guide asked one of the boys under his breath if he was still interested in taking photos. And so, that is how with 20EP less, in his pocket, one of the guys got photos of a sweet tomb. I'd share them on here...but they're really not mine to share. You'll just have to google it again. Sorry! But, then we headed to Medinet Habu...which is something we could and did take pictures of=]

You can't see it super well in this picture...but the picture behind us is of the Scribes counting the dismembered hands (top) and genitals (where Taylor is pointing) of their enemies....lovely.

And...FINALLY. we hit the Collosi of Memnon...which are just these two giant statues. Sorry I didn't catch anyone in the picture to show how big they are...but they are in fact MASSIVE. 

The next morning, we all got up and hopped on the train to Aswan where we would take a 3am convoy through the desert to see Abu Simbel. I COULD NOT WAIT. But, since we got there early afternoon, we chose to start our day with a lovely sunset felucca ride. Not long after we set off, this little kid joined us...asked one of the guys if he spoke Spanish, and then began to sing all the Spanish songs he knew. It was fantastic. After a bit, we stopped off at the botanical gardens and then hopped back on to enjoy the sunset.

That evening we tried to get to sleep somewhat early and only sort of succeeded. But, while the beds were absolutely terrible...I figured that was just to get us to wake up in time for our convoy. It also was not the most comfortable 3 hour journey, but we made it...and in my opinion it was totally worth it. I had been wanting to see this forever...so super pumped that it happened. The only downside was that it cost 53EP to get in, when we had been told it was 40. Well, being the savvy not-quite-tourists we are, we told the people this and proceeded to argue about the price. Then, when we finally received our tickets, after paying the 53EP, we find out that the entrance fee is, in fact, only 40EP but they make you buy a ticket for a tour guide...which we of course did not need...thereby inciting argument number two. But they insisted we had to pay for this...which makes total sense considering you never actually use a tour guide once you get in. Anyways, past that little hiccough, everything went splendidly. To prove it, here are some super sweet pictures we took:

It was pretty fantastic=] sorry for the multiples of the shots, but I want people to note how giant these things are! It's incredible! Also, that these aren't where they originally were...nope. They were moved about 200 meters...to be saved from erosion from the river. Crazy. Check out the wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Simbel_temples

So, that's what i've got for ya'll today! Check up later this week to hear about our INCREDIBLE trip to Mt. Sinai!