Adventuring in Alexandria

I lied. I'm a day late on updating the blog, but at least its only a day and not seven. So, without further ado, here's the Alex Adventure. (Also, please note that I took 230 photos while in Alex and have chosen to only place ones of the actual locations in this post. Thanks!)

Spring Break began with a trip to Alexandria, Alex for short. It was the place that I had been waiting to see since I arrived in Egypt. The thrill of the new library standing where the old one once stood, the legend of Alexander the Great and Cleopatra and everything that has become so popularized in Ancient Egyptian history was to be found in this Mediterranean city. 


We left on Thursday at 12:30pm and began the trip to Alex. It was a short 3 hour bus ride compared to the trip to Siwa. I was awake for most of it, except for the very end when I started to dose. 

Arriving into the city was one of the beautiful things I've seen since I've been in Egypt. The sea line is a brilliant blue and the city resembles that of an old European city, as opposed to Cairo. It was also so much cleaner than Cairo, I wasn't sure if I would be able to make myself leave. 


We checked into our hotel, the Windsor Palace, an old fashioned hotel from the 1920s or so it seemed. It was almost like an episode of the twilight zone, but it was perfect for me to sit in and think about the current movie projects that I'm trying to write. 


I once again roomed with Shruti, which is always fun. Our room this time was extremely big and open and the beds were the comfiest beds I have slept in since I started traveling. We spent a little bit of time in our room where I wrote some plot outline for one of the movies I've picked back up and I read some more of the "Yacoubian Building" until 8pm when it was dinner time. 


Dinner was pretty much a food stipend that allowed us to eat wherever we wanted. So, I went with Garrett, Moose, Haley, Ann, Shruti, Will and Lindley to the China House for some pretty awesome Chinese food. I got some wanton soup, honey chicken with fried rice and I finally got the spring rolls that I've been craving. Sadly, my honey chicken took a really long time to come out, which makes me feel like they forgot it, but I did eventually get it and it was delicious when I did. 


After dinner Will, Lindley, Moose and myself stopped for some tea and to get some sheesha. The tea was awesome, but a little more expensive than in a cafe you get in Cairo, and I did try the sheesha, though I'm not sure if I would try it again. But, sitting on the street outside of the cafe was just wonderful. You could really feel the energy of Alex and see the people move about. It was almost like being in a movie. Everything working together to create a moment; nothing going wrong, and nothing out of place. 


We finished up at the cafe and then wandered back to the hotel, where I went back to reading and writing until about 12:30am when Moose called and asked if we wanted to come out. Well, because I was already still awake, I said sure and met everyone to go. We didn't leave until about 1:00am and by that time I was already pretty tired. So, when we found the bar we were going to go to, I was almost entirely exhausted though still ready to have some fun.  

The bar, however, did not feel the same way. It was crowded, with standing room only and I was not particularly happy with that. Neither were the other girls, so I followed them to try and find something else to do. We ended up finding Tyler and Will who had stopped at a desert cart and were talking to the gentlemen running the cart. We chatted for a bit, got some desert from the cart which was absolutely amazing (it was basically a fried dough ball coated in melted chocolate) and then headed back to the hotel. I believe I got to sleep around 2:30am or so, which gave me a decent amount of sleep having to be up bright and early the next morning. 


Friday morning started with a wake up call at 7am. I showered and got to blow my hair dry with a hair dryer...I've never been so happy and then I wandered to get breakfast...which was not in the lobby area as I thought it would have been, but on the roof of the hotel where the view was amazing. 


The breakfast was good and relaxing. It was definitely a great way to start out sightseeing day. 



Our first stop was the Roman Amphitheater (see left) where they also have some artifacts that have been found underwater. It was pretty neat to sit where the ancient Egyptians would have stood. I tried to imagine when I was there what it must have felt like and I concluded that it probably would have felt just like it does now when I sit in large lecture halls listening to a professor...a bit boring...oh well. 

We left the amphitheater and moved on to see Pompey's Pillar (see right), the only remaining structure of a once great temple. The remains around it are statues and areas of underground tunnels. I wandered down into some with Dr. Nicole (my hieroglyphs and arts professor). I love wandering through tunnels and old places and these corridors weren't any different. 


After we left the site, we went to our final site before lunch...the Catacombs. These were some tombs from the Greco-Roman period in Ancient Egyptian history and they were pretty cool. Climbing down into them reminded me of climbing down into the mines in Kutna Hora. I wasn't allowed to take any pictures, but seeing the tombs was pretty interesting, especially because I was able to talk a little about the tombs and see some similarities to the older periods of history. The only complaint I had about being down in the catacombs was the amount of Korean tourists that were in there with us. They were rude and loud. 


Lunch soon followed at Anthineos, where I got some kind of grilled fish dish with rice. It was ok, but it wasn't the best thing I've ever had. 

After lunch we resumed our sight seeing with Fort Qait Bey (see left), now a mosque. This was a rather interesting adventure as there were boy scout-type people dancing and singing. Some of the kids on the trip with us danced with them and I caught it on video. There were also a lot of people taking pictures of us as we toured the fort. For some reason, Egyptians think it's ok to take pictures of us without asking, but if we take pictures of them, they get angry. It's kind of annoying actually. I did get some really pretty pictures of Alexandria from the fort though. 


Our last stop for the day was the Library. The one thing that I had been hoping to see since I arrived in Cairo 2.5 months ago. It was gorgeous. I looked around in the antiquities museum first and that was much more enjoyable than the Egyptian Museum as everything at least had a small label of some kind. I then went and into the library and stared in awe at the books. It was beautiful. The tour we took was quite enjoyable as well.

The library from the inside down on the floor with some of the books.

 Inside again, but from above. Taken during the tour. 

A part of the library from the outside. This place is huge

We left the Library of Alexandria and headed back to the hotel exhausted. We only had about an hour and a half to kind of just chill, so I took a quick nap, but ended up cutting it short as the hotel was working on painting a room and the paint fumes had started to make me sick. So, I left and went downstairs to wait until dinner time, which was only 15 minutes away anyway. 


Dinner was at the Greek Club and I got some pretty delicious Shrimp Alfredo. I don't really know what to say about dinner, it was a pretty average meal. I talked with people and we joked around. And for once I felt very comfortable and like I fit in again. 

But, as usual the cliches resumes after dinner and I don't know where the other half of the group wandered to. I got ice cream with Ann, Shruti, Haley and Professor Sherinne (one of the professors on the trip with us) and spent the rest of the night hanging out with Shruti, Ann and Lindley watching Once Upon a Time in Mexico before crashing for the night.


Breakfast the next morning made me extremely happy. I got an omelet made for me with roast beef bits and cheese, plus a pastry. So delicious! I once again enjoyed the view so very much, but I could have done without the wind that had started to blow a little bit. 


We left the hotel around 9:30am or so and headed to go and see the old walls of the ancient city(see right), which were pretty cool to look at. Sadly, though they have been kept in disarray and not really kept like a historical site. There is not much to indicate what they are except a small sign with bad English. We wanted to see the cisterns of the city too, but sadly they have been closed to the public.

We then headed to see the palace. I'm not talking about an ancient Egyptian palace, but a more modern one built by King Fuad in 1932. It is known as Al-Haramlik Palace  (see left)and is a Presidential residence. We were not allowed to go inside, but looking at it was beautiful. And for those who know me well, you know that I judge a country based on their castles/palaces and this one just bumped Egypt a little higher on my list. 


After seeing the palace and taking pictures of us in front of it as we normally do when playing tourist, we headed down the road a little to the beach. 


This was my favorite part of the trip. I sat on the beach and watched the waves roll in and I even went swimming in the Mediterranean Sea with Garrett, Will and Tyler (no one else would get in). The water was cold at first, but the more you stayed in, the more comfortable it became. We swam for about half and hour or so before getting out to lounge on the beach with the others. 

The beach along the Mediterranean Sea. It was so blue!

 Ann plays with Mohamed in the sand.

A little bit later, Dr. Riham (our new academic adviser here), Professor Sherinne, Mohammed (Dr. Riham's little boy) and myself rented a paddle boat and went out on the sea for a little bit of time. None of them really knew how to steer the paddle boat, especially when some of the other boats in the area started creating more waves than necessary (boating rules obviously don't apply here either). Luckily, my years of paddle boating experience took over and I prevented us from falling over board and such. 

We returned to the shore and then shortly after left for lunch at Chili's (ahhh...chicken strips and delicious American food) before heading back to Cairo. 


The ride home was pretty standard. Lots of sleeping, lots of people planning out where they were heading once we got home, and lots more sleeping. We did make a stop on the way home for a quick bathroom break and the place we stopped had a playground. Naturally, we all became 5-year-olds again and had to play before being called back to the bus by Dr. Nicole. 

Everyone playing on the playground like we're 5.

We made it back to Cairo around 7:30pm. It was dark and the city was abuzz as if we had never left. And that was the start of Spring Break Egypt.

فين الأتوبيس؟

[Translation: Where's the bus?]

At the moment I am sitting here in my nice cool apartment, sipping on my mango colada juice, and realizing that I am completely exhausted from today and everything else this week. I'm also realizing just how many times I've tried to write this post and have failed. Oh well. 

I know I explained a little on Monday about the week, so I'll just do a quick recap and then I'll move onto the more recent stuff. But, it's been an exhausting week. 

Alrighty, so let's take this post back a little bit. Let's go back to the "Egyptian Wedding", which I found out wasn't actually a wedding, but the party for the groom's side of the family. It was still a lot of fun and I enjoyed it a lot. 

The following Thursday night consisted of me staying in and sleeping, something my body was telling me that I desperately needed...especially as I was falling asleep on the couch. 

Friday morning I woke up and received a phone call from a friend of my professor's, who she had been trying to put me in touch with for a while. We set up a time to meet and soon I was on my way to Shubra with the other kids in my program who didn't go to Alexandria for the weekend. We were going to visit some of the churches there as well as some other fun things, like the summer palace of Mohamed Ali Pasha. Well, when we got out to Shubra, we did visit the summer palace, but the churches were a no-go. Instead, we took a ferry across the river to a small island to look for a coffee shop. 


On the island, we found a lot of goats, a lack of cars, some odd looks from the locals and a rather sketchy looking "coffee shop". Needless to say, we ventured about halfway onto the island before promptly turning around and catching the next ferry back to the main land. I guess if nothing else, it was adventurous of us to even wander onto the island. 


Once safely back on land, we caught a taxi and headed into Zamalek for lunch before heading back home. Later in the evening, we (Lindley, Shruti, Will, Sean, Claudine and a few Egyptian friends) met up and then a went to rooftop party with Tamer, which was at an artsy type gallery. It was quite fun and I enjoyed it a lot.

Saturday rolled around a lot faster than I expected and I met with my professor's friend, Nigel, downtown. He was extremely nice and after hearing what his business did, I was super excited to hopefully have an internship with him. (Let's face it, I was super excited before I met him. The idea of working in docs [documentaries] or anything film/tv related even in the least makes me excited.) The "interview", I guess it could be called that, went really well and I was offered an internship that began the next morning. 


I returned to my apartment to work on my Customs and Habits paper and then hang out with Emy. We were supposed to go and see Avatar, but sadly the theater was sold out so instead we wandered around Khan Al-Khalili for a while. She taught me some new Arabic phrases, but I found it extremely difficult to learn them. Especially, when walking down the crowded streets of Cairo. I still feel very inadequate when it comes to trying to speaking the language. But, this too shall pass. 


I had to cut our time together short so that I could finish my Customs and Habits paper, and get to bed at a reasonable hour so I could be up for my internship in the morning. 


Alrighty, now for a quick interlude about my internship. I'm extremely excited. I'm working in Public Relations, which is something that has a major appeal to me because it deals with social media and promoting stuff. I'm super excited about having the hands on experience that this internship is allowing me to have and I've only been there a week. I also really enjoy my time in the office, which is always a good thing. Ok...interlude over. 


So, Sunday consisted of internship in the morning, Customs and Habits in the afternoon, then the dance performance, which I already covered in my last post, and of course the Oscars. As I have already discussed these items, I will omit them from this post and move on.


After IR, everyone thought it would be a great idea to gather for a "family dinner" night, which was awesome...at the time anyway. We had burrito night with homemade guacamole and it was just absolutely delicious. I crashed so hard after coming home from this, but the next morning was crappy. I don't know what it was, but something decided that it was not going to agree with me and I was majorly sick. 


I got up not feeling well, went to work feeling better and had a day of ups and downs. I pretty much decided after work that I was headed home to bed and not going to class. I let the proper channels know and headed home and crashed for a good eight hours. Sadly, I missed movie night at AMIDEAST, but I don't think I could have made it through. 


Wednesday was a much better day. I was able to sit through class and not be sick. After classes we had a lecture on Islamic Feminism by Dr. Riham Bahi who is going to be the new academic coordinator at AMIDEAST. It was a really good lecture and I enjoyed hearing about the issue, even though I'm unsure how I feel on the matter. Afterward, Matthew invited us to his apartment to have pizza and watch a documentary called Why Democracy?, and I highly recommend watching it. It takes on one of the issues that I actually advocate for...freedom of speech. And this looks at freedom of speech in Egypt. I don't want to talk about it too much as I don't want to give away what the doc is about. All I'm going to say is google it, I'm sure you'll find it and definitely watch it. 


Thursday came around rather fast this week and I found myself on another tour of Islamic Cairo, this time specifically Khan Al-Khalili. This day proved to be more eventful than ever intended. We visited on of the most famous mosques in the area, the Al-Hakim Mosque, and were even allowed to climb up and walk on the walls, which normally you aren't allowed to do. I got some pretty awesome pictures, but unfortunately, you will all have to wait to see them as they were taken on Sylvia and I left the firewire cable home. Oops. It reminded me a lot of the castles that I saw in Europe. The design was similar and another interesting aspect was the fact that some Pharaonic stones were used in the construction of the mosque. So, you could find stones with hieroglyphs in them randomly on the walls. We visited another mosque, which had a school attached to it, and it reminded me a lot of one we had seen in our previous tour. I think this one was the Aqmar Mosque, but I don't quite remember. 


Anyway, here the part of the story where things get rather odd. After the tour was ending, we started to head back to the bus. Sort of. Something had happened, and I was left out of the loop. It wasn't a problem that I was left out of the loop, but it was a problem that no one had bothered to tell our Arabic teachers, the two who were left to take us back to the bus, where the bus could be found. "فين الأتوبيس؟ ", "Feen el-autobees?" (translation: Where's the bus?) became one of the most common phrases we uttered to one another while trying to figure out what was going on and trying to find the bus. The one good thing that came out of this had to be the sugar cane juice that I got while we tried to figure everything out.


Even now, I'm still unsure of what actually happened, but according to everyone I've talked to everything got sorted out. We did find the bus and headed back home. 


Later that evening a very large group of us headed out to Muqattam Hill to hang out. There were a few wedding parties on the Hill and the city was all lit up. It looked beautiful. I stayed until about 1:30am when my stomach started to act up and I decided that going home was a good thing. 

I promise, I'm almost done summing up everything and then you can all go back to your regularly scheduled lives. On Friday morning, Sean and I myself made the trip out to Heliopolis to go on a tour with Tamer. There were supposed to be others, but we were the only two who came. The morning started with getting some of the best ice cream I ever had! I got creme brulee and Swiss vanilla cake roll ice cream covered in caramel sauce in a waffle cone. Oh man, it was amazing! 

We saw a Coptic Christian church and sat through about fifteen minutes of the church service before deciding that we should move on. We tried to visit another church, but found that it was only a night church and so we had to forgo the visit until a further trip. After this we made a stop at Cilantro, one of the local coffee shops around here, and we had juice and smoothies. Oh how I love the mango juice in this country!


Once we finished relaxing a bit, we traveled to Baron Palace which was a palace built by the guy who originally built Heliopolis for him to live in. It looks kind of out of place within the rest of Heliopolis, but is very pretty to look at as it consists of European style architecture with Indian decoration. I would have loved to have gone inside, but sadly the guards would not let us. They said it was subject to renovation at the moment. 


With this as pretty much the last stop on the tour, we hopped in a taxi and Tamer, Sean and I headed over to City Stars, the giant mall in Heliopolis. Sean was looking for some pants, which sadly we could not find any that he liked. While, I did find the set of earrings that I was looking for as well as a new camera, which I have so lovingly named Benjamin VII. It's nothing against Sylvia, but it is rather hard to take still photos with her and with Camille waiting on repair, Benjamin VII was rather necessary. So, soon I will be able to post more pictures! Yay! 


We had a lovely time shopping around the mall, and then we returned home before once again heading out. Some friends of Tamer's were having a party on the house boat that they lived on and he invited us along. It was a good time. I dance and met a lot of new interesting people. 


And that pretty much brings us to today. Saturday. The last day of my weekend here in Cairo. And I definitely made the most of it as a weekend, seeing as how I slept until noon today. When I finally did wake up, I got myself ready for another day of Egyptian cooking lessons. Now, don't get me wrong, I love the food we make, but it's always so chaotic to make. I don't even remember what we actually made today, but I do know that it was delicious and as soon as I get Benjamin connected to the computer, I will post those pictures. Overall, today was a good day. 


...Wow. That's it. As of this moment, everything in my life is pretty much caught up. I apologize for the length of this post and the lack of pictures, but things have been out of sorts this week as you can tell. I'm going to try and update more frequently...but, I'm pretty sure I've said this before and I have yet to follow up on that. Well, I'm going to try and do it this time. 


Also, this week coming up should be rather interesting. I don't have a whole lot of stuff going on, but I am heading to Faiyum this weekend as an excursion with my program and for the cultural festival. It should be loads of fun. Stay tuned, who knows what adventures this week will hold. After all, this is Egypt!

Lessons from the Desert

Finally, a break to sit and write. I keep trying to sit down and write this post, but I always find a more pressing matter that must be dealt with right away, or I fall asleep, as was the case last night when trying to write. The last five/six days have been non-stop. Also, most of them have been without internet, computer, or many of the technological conveniences that I normally carry around with me in my everyday life that keep me connected to the world. In a way it was wonderful to just be out in the middle of nowhere, with very little connection to the outside world. On the other, I kept dreading the amount of e-mails and facebook messages and tweets I was going to come back to and have to catch up on when I returned...which were a lot. 


Overall, I have to say that the trip to Siwa was extremely relaxing, enjoyable, full of some adventure, and a trip I will never forget. If I have ever sounded like coming to Egypt was a mistake, which come on now...it's Egypt, how can it be a mistake to live here for 5 months?, this trip made up for the hard times I've had and has paved the way for more good times to occur. At least I hope...

I guess I should start at the beginning. Since that's the most logical place to begin a story and unless I feel like trying to put it in order later, this is just safer. I'm going to say I'm sorry now as the post may get a bit lengthy...and by may I mean will...You can't write a short post on a weekend where you ventured into the desert and took nearly 300 photos. It just can't happen. So, here goes nothing. 

The trip to Siwa began bright and early on Thursday morning. Classes had been canceled and we were to meet at the normal meeting place, Cinema El-Tahrir, at 8:00am for the bus to depart. Unfortunately, we didn't depart on time as rain had hit the city of Cairo, a rare and mysterious concept for those who live in a very dry climate...it's kind of like when DC and Baltimore get hit with snow...no one knows what to do...so, the traffic was absolutely horrible and we ended up having to pick up one of our adventurers from the side of the road where his taxi left him. But, we did eventually begin the trip around 8:30am...which is still pretty good considering we are all college kids who normally don't move until after 10am on a good day. 


I don't remember much of the beginning of the trip as I had put on my iPod and pretty much passed out until we hit the first rest stop. We had been informed to use the facilities everytime we came to a rest stop as they are far and few on the highways in Cairo. So, I did just that. And then I bought myself a tea at the coffee/tea shop at the rest stop just so that I became somewhat functional. It was a good choice. I was then able to be awake for some of the trip and read some of The Lottery and other short stories. I made a good dent into it and of course, I skipped around and read The Lottery so that I could discuss it with the others on the bus who had read it. 


I have to say, the bus ride there was super long. 12 hours to be exact and we definitely got lost a few times along the way. From the few times I woke up (I slept a lot on the way there), I can remember the bus driver asking for directions and stopping at a lot of places only to find we had missed a turn or something like that and had to turn around. Good times. 


We did, however, stop at El Alamein on the way to Siwa. For those who don't know it's a huge graveyard where many soldiers from WWII are buried. It was peaceful and I could have spent a lot more time there than we did. We then went into the museum and saw the exhibit on the battle, but due to our tight schedule I didn't see as much as I wanted. Also, the English translation was definitely not good...more like a direct translation from Arabic with no changes at all when put into English. 

  The entrance gate into the cemetery.

The El Alamein War Cemetery.

One of my favorite pictures that I took while at the cemetery. 

After our stop, we boarded the bus again and had lunch, which was packed by Tyler, Moose, and Matthew and was quite delicious. I really do enjoy the fact that whenever AMIDEAST takes us someplace, they come prepared with sandwiches, chips, fruit and drinks. It's kind of like being back in elementary school, but it's awesome. 


With some more road stops and a few more turn arounds, we finally made it to Siwa...at 8:30pm. We quickly checked into our rooms and headed for dinner in the restaurant of the hotel, which was pretty good and consisted of rice, chicken, there was some pasta, desert, tomato soup, and other things that were delicious. After dinner, a good bit of us sat outside, chatted, and had some tea before heading to bed. I crashed pretty early this night and I'm not quite sure why as I slept a lot on the bus. Oh well. The real adventure started on Friday morning. 


Friday morning came at around 7:30am for me. Breakfast was at 8am and so, I wanted to make sure I was somewhat functional before I left. I also made sure that I had everything I was going to need for the day before I left the room. Here's the part where I thank Geoff a lot for buying me the backpack he insisted I have before going to Prague last semester. The detachable part made caring everything in one succinct area so much easier...so thanks Geoff! 

The city of Siwa. A mix of old and new. 

Once everyone had finished breakfast, we loaded the bus and began on the historical aspect of our trip. Our first stop was an area in Siwa used for tribal rituals though for the life of me I can't remember what it was called. After that we headed to see the Old City of Shali, which were in ruins but very awesome to look at and climb through, we saw the old mosque briefly and then went to the House of Siwa, which was opened specifically for us. The House of Siwa was a museum that pretty much documented the culture of Siwians that is slowly dying out. It houses a lot of the old jewelry and clothes and the museum itself is actually built like a house is built. 

 The ruins of the Old Shali city.

 After the lunch, we departed for Geb el-Mawta, which were Pharaohnic tombs if I'm not mistaken and I believe the Roman tombs. Either way, we saw some tombs and William and myself once again found ourselves trying to read the hieroglyphs on the walls, and on any other piece of rock we found. I really think I'm going to just start bringing my hieroglyphs book with me on trips so we can translate things.

 The Pharaohnic tombs were buried inside the "mountain". We climbed all the way to the top! 

We then stopped for lunch at a small restaurant in town where I had some delicious chicken curry and mango juice. Couldn't have asked for anything else. 

Then we finally got to the real reason Siwa is "famous". We got to see the Temple of the Oracle. This is the same temple that Alexander traveled to and received his great news. We got to see the sanctuary where the oracle would have been and it was very cool. We also stopped by the Temple of Amun, which was pretty destroyed due to a gentleman taking it apart for use in his house...but, nonetheless, Will and I proceeded to try and read the hieroglyphs. We also stopped by Cleopatra's bath briefly and considered coming back to swim, but unfortunately did not. 

The Temple of the Oracle ruins. 

M

Me standing outside where the oracle would have been kept. 

Rebecca "saving" Will from one of the last walls of the Temple of Amun...he's trying to read the hieroglyphs.

Instead of swimming at Cleopatra's bath, we settled for the hot spring-like pool that was at the resort. Although, I must say it was rather gross feeling on the bottom. My guess is that because it's not tourist season yet, they didn't clean the pools and such just yet. But, it was rather nice and enjoyable to float around in.

Once we finished swimming, I quickly returned to my room for a shower and then met everyone at the bus for a trip to see the sunset on Siwa lake. 


The sunset over the lake was the most relaxing thing I've ever seen. I sat and talked with people and just lounged in chair. I took a lot of pictures of when the sun went down and enjoyed it. 

Saw this sign on the way to watch the sunset. I thought it was pretty funny...it's about swimming in one of the springs nearby.

 

The sunset over the Oasis. So pretty!

We then returned to the hotel for dinner, and then hanging out under the Bedouin tent playing cards and games. I learned quite a bit of card games and I sort of learned to play tawla aka backgammon...sort of anyway before I returned to my room for the evening. 


Saturday morning came around at about the same time as Friday, though it didn't have to. I got up for breakfast and then caught the bus with a few others and went into town to do some shopping. I started off with everyone, but soon drifted off on my own to do my own thing. I bought some gifts for the people back home, plus a few things for me, which is rare as I never buy things for me. 


We returned to the hotel at 11:30am, had lunch at the hotel and then met out front of the resort where we boarded three SUVs and began on the "desert excursion". I didn't realize how close our resort was to the Sahara desert. We literally drove two minutes and then we were in the desert where we began jumping dunes and driving. It was so much fun. I want to do it again! 

SUVs in the desert. Taken from the window of the SUV I was in.

We drove for a little bit and then stopped once it seemed we were nowhere near civilization. There was a huge dune which we all proceeded to climb up. It was here, unfortunately that Camille, my camera, became a victim of the sand gods. (I'm currently looking for a place to fix the lens problem as that's all that's wrong with the camera.) It kind of killed my mood for a bit of the trip...which meant the stop at the warm spring wasn't exactly fun as I really wanted pictures, but couldn't take them. Oh well. By the time we hit the huge dune for "sandboarding" I was fine again. I didn't get to "sandboard" per say, but I did get to "sandsled". Unfortunately, I only got about halfway down the dune before my board began to cover in sand. I quickly got up and started back up the hill and realized how hard it was to climb in sand when you can't see. I decided not to try again as the hill was so difficult to climb. 

The boys heading for the top of the dune.

 Everyone falling in the sand. You can can sort of see how windy it was.

Once everyone had had their fun with the sandboards, we packed the SUVs again and drove down the massive dune and made a rest at the lake. Some of us went swimming, I opted to only dip my feet in the water as it was really cold. The drivers also brought some tea and cake with them, so we sat under a canopy in the desert and sipped on tea and ate cakes. These are things that you really only get to do once. 


After a nice long rest, we loaded the SUVs again and drove to the Great Sand Sea, where we were shown fossils of fish and sand dollars. I'd say I'm now pretty convinced there was once a sea where the sand now sits. It was pretty cool, I have to say. 


We returned back to the SUVs, did some more awesome riding around in the desert and then headed back for the resort where I watched the sunset over the desert from the wall of the resort that bordered the desert. Luckily, Sylvia, my video camera, was there to take some pretty pictures of the sunset. 


Dinner was again at 8pm, and it was soon followed by more hanging out under the Bedouin tent with people. This time I actually played a few card games instead of just watching and learning. I really enjoyed playing with the guys and Yasmina. It was fun and I stayed up much later than I have in the past just hanging out and such. It was a great day...the only problem had to be getting the sand out of my hair and off of me once we returned from the desert. 


Sunday morning marked the end of our expedition to the desert. I packed my things the night before and proceeded to put them on the bus around 7:45am or so. I then had breakfast and everyone met on the bus at 8:30am. We were trying to make the trip shorter on the way home, so we planned on cutting out a stop at a restaurant for lunch and instead just stopping at a fast food place...too bad this didn't work out. 


We had been on the road for approximately three hours or so, when all of a sudden the bus began to slow down. We had run out of gas...in the middle of the desert. I'm sure you can see how this would be a very bad thing. I think our driver was worried about this so, he had asked the police to follow us in case it did...and well, it did. Luckily for us that about three minutes later, a tankard carrying petroleum came cruising down the road. We flagged the tankard down and were able to secure some more gas rather quickly and soon we were on the road to Mersa Matruh, the port town we weren't supposed to go to. We stopped there for lunch at a very nice restaurant and then took a quick stop over to see the Mediterranean Sea, which was beautiful, blue and cold. I did dip my toes in. 

The rest of the bus ride home was pretty uneventful. I did all of my International Relations reading, sat and talked about things with Dr. Randa, my Egyptology professor, and read some more. I was awake for most of the ride home. 


We arrived back in Cairo at approximately 9:00pm, which left us all pretty exhausted and unexcited to have classes the next morning. So, we offloaded our things from the bus, and headed back for the apartment where I then proceeded to crash. 


The trip itself was wonderful. A bit tiring and full of adventure. So, by this point I'm sure you are all wondering about the title of the entry. Well, while in the desert I learned a lot of new things. So, without further ado, here's the list of lessons I learned in the desert. 


1. The proper use of a scarf is to tie it around your head, so that sand doesn't get in your hair and it can also be used to cover your face. Sunglasses also help you see when the wind picks up. (I will post a picture of this as soon as I can find one of me...)
2. Cameras do not appreciate when you fall in the sand. 
3. The desert was at one point a sea. 
4. Burial tombs are fun places to try and read ancient writing on the wall. 
5. Running out of gas in the middle of the desert is not necessarily a bad thing. 
6. Using squat toilets are quite interesting and let you know that there are muscles you've never used before. 
7. Being on a bus for 12 hours is quite exhausting. 
8. Before tourist season, swimming pools are rather gross. 


And that's about it. I'm pretty sure there are more than that, but I don't remember much more. It was awesome. End of story. 


So, keep looking for more adventures like this one. They are sure to be appearing more frequently now that the semester is definitely kicked into full gear. I can't believe I've been here over a month already. Time is flying, and the posts are too. Keep watching!

To Berlin and Back Again!

It's Saturday! The day that my entire week leads up to. The day where I don't have class, don't feel stressed because I have class the next day and I don't worry about much of anything. Saturday...I feel that I sometimes need more of these. But, now that a good chunk of our classes are over and I don't plan on traveling any more this semester, I think that perhaps I'll have a lot more Saturdays like this one. (I'm sure you can almost hear me breathe that sigh of relief...)

Alright, I guess I should actually get started then. My apologies once again for not updating for so long. It seems that I'm starting to fall behind in telling the tales of my adventures. I promise I'm going to work on that, but this last week was once again jam packed. So, without further ado. Here's the latest and greatest tale/ tales from me!

I'm going to start this by simply stating that my trip to Berlin was absolutely incredible! I want to go back again someday to see all the amazing things that I wasn't able to see. I can't believe that it was a week ago. Wow! Time is flying here and I can't seem to stop it. But, anyway...

We couldn't have asked for a better weekend to head out to Germany. Kris, Liza and I began the journey early Friday morning by trekking to the train station and catching the 6:30am train. While I was extremely tired, the thrill of what awaited for me in Berlin made me extremely excited! New sights and of course...Geoff. Someone from home, my boyfriend, that I haven't seen in two months...except on Skype, but that doesn't count.

I slept most of the ride there, but from what very little I did see of the German countryside it seemed very pretty.

We arrived into Berlin around 11:30am...15 minutes later than we were supposed to arrive, but the delay didn't make much difference. I got off the train and Geoff was waiting for me on the platform, so I took off running. When I returned, Geoff following behind, Liza had found her boyfriend Winston and Kris was meeting her friend Dorothy at the McDonald's. Once we made sure everyone knew where we were off to, we parted ways for the weekend and Geoff and I headed off towards the hostel.

We found the hostel with very little problem and then began to explore the city. I saw a lot of the monuments and iconic buildings. The most notable thing I saw on the first day was the DDR museum though. It was an interactive museum discussing the days of East Berlin and since we were staying in East Berlin, I found this extremely cool! Also, hands on museums make me happy because I can move the objects and stuff around within the exhibits. I feel that I learn the most from exhibits that let me learn by doing. (Probably explains why I like film...) I also got to the East Side of the Brandenburg Gate, but it was "under construction". I use the quotation mark here because what I mean is that they were putting up stages and setting up for the freedom festival that was to start on Saturday.

After this we headed back to the hostel to meet Steph, Shayna, Dave and his friends, Evan and Emile.

Now, I have to say it. Sorry Shayna. While on the street tram headed back to the hostel, I've been staring out the window with Geoff. All of a sudden, Shayna and Steph appear outside the window and are waving frantically at me. I gave her a strange look as the stop we needed was the next one and pointed in the direction. It took her a minute to understand and by the time she did, the tram had pulled off. I can't help but giggle at this moment, it was just funny. We did finally meet them at the correct stop and found our way to the hostel.

Later, we all headed out for dinner. We were looking for something "German", which we sort of found. I had Berlin potato soup and a salad, but some of the things everyone else got was a little more German.

After dinner, we headed back to the hostel, paid for our rooms, chilled for a bit and then Geoff and I went to bed. We had a big day on Saturday full of stuff to do.

8:30am...this is not a good time to hear an alarm on a Saturday, but you know. We started the morning with a trip to see the East Side Gallery, also known as the longest stretch of the Berlin Wall left in Berlin. This is the reason I wanted to go to Berlin...my love affair with the wall. I just needed to see it and the murals on the East Side were gorgeous! We then continued on the see the Reichstag, and then on into the Freedom Festival where there were 1000 dominoes painted and set up along the perimeter of where the Berlin Wall once sat 20 years ago. The dominoes were set to fall Monday evening, but just seeing them set up was fabulous. We also saw the Holocaust Memorial, which was rather interesting because you could go inside of it, before heading over the Film Museum (another must see on my list). With little over and hour and a half before meeting everyone, Geoff and myself went off to try and find a chocolate shop that he remembered going to when in Berlin. We found it eventually. It was pretty cool as they make sculptures of monuments out of chocolate. We bought some chocolate and then went to meet the others.

Once we found everyone, figuring out where to go was an adventure, but we eventually settled on an Indian place called Khushi. The food was decent, but nothing too special. After, we all headed back to the hostel and Geoff and myself once again called it an early night. There was more sight seeing to be done in the morning.

We checked out of the hostel at 9:30am and headed off to try and go up in the dome of the Reichstag. After about 20 minutes of waiting and not really getting far in line, my patience gave up the ghost and I decided that it wasn't worth waiting to see. I don't really regret not seeing it as the visibility on Sunday wasn't all that good and now I have an excuse to come back to Germany. Instead, we got crepes from a stand at the Freedom Festival and walked around the Tiergarten, which was beautiful I might add. I then stopped to buy a few souvenirs and then we headed the the train station to come back to Prague.

The train ride was pretty much a standard train ride, but I did get the chance to eat in the dining car, which was pretty cool!

Here are some of pictures I took when in Berlin along with a video of the dominoes falling:



They are the TV Tower on the East Side of Berlin, the Reichstag, the dominoes lined up waiting for Monday, the Holocaust Memorial while I was walking around inside, the Film Museum, me with the Berlin Wall, the East Side Gallery, part of the Tiergarten, one of my favorite memorials (it is an empty room full of bookshelves commemorating when a bunch of Nazis burned a bunch of books, and my favorite picture of the weekend- the Brandenburg Gate with the domino wall in front of it.

Unfortunately for Geoff, I had classes this week and thus I couldn't spend as much time as I wanted with him, but he was a good sport about it. Monday I took him to see some random parts of the Castle District before meeting with my production managers. We got traditional Czech food after the meeting.

Tuesday was jammed as per usual. I handed him my guide book and told him to explore Old Town, which he did and once I returned from all of my classes we went to Friends for karaoke night! (I love karaoke night! I'm starting to go more often...).

Wednesday was once again packed...We woke up really early and Kris, Geoff and myself went out to Letná Park (our film location...also, the place with the giant metronome) and took still shots for our storyboard. Geoff played the main characters, I played the girl and the extras. After this, Geoff explored New Town, I went to class and the evening was spent working on our Acting Studio Finals.

Thursday was the day I got to really to explore. Due to my history class being canceled, I was able to take Geoff to Petřin and Vyšehrad. Both two very gorgeous places! I really loved the cemetery at Vyšehrad. It was a lot of sight seeing in one day, but I feel that it was worth it. Especially as he left very early Friday morning. It was hard to say goodbye. I'm still a little sad that he's gone, but I know I'll be home soon enough, so until then I'm going to keep on going and keep on enjoying my time here while I've still got it.

Some pictures from the week!







These pictures are pretty self explanatory. The first one is a Memorial to the Victims of Communism, then there's Prague from the Petřin Tower, Geoff and I with Prague Castle in the back, Petřin Tower, Vyšehrad Cemetery, the Cathedral at Vyšehrad and the view of the city from Vyšehrad.

So, beyond Geoff leaving Friday morning, Kris and I worked on putting our photo storyboard in the correct sequence. We fixed the script and sent out e-mails. Later in the evening, we went out for Czech food (I ate a lot of Czech food this week...not that that's a bad thing...) and saw 2012. My quick review of this movie says, "See it if you want to see lots of things blow up and have a pretty good laugh. Don't take it too seriously."

And that's it! Everything I've done since I left for Germany a week ago. I can't believe that it's the middle of November already and that next weekend Kris and I will be filming our short film. It's so unreal, nerve wracking, stressful and exciting at the same time! I hope everything goes according to plan. Here's to success! Don't move, more to come!