The End

I wanted to get time to blog about the end of my trip, but that time seemed to just fly by. The final went pretty great and so did all of the last minute shopping I tried to fit in. A week before we left we say a show called Take the Floor - it was ballroom and Latin dancing and it was amazing! Unfortunately, Saturday - four days before we left - I got food poisoning. It would have been fine, uncomfortable, but fine if I hadn't had surgery on my stomach 5 years ago. Since I couldn't puke I got really really sick and had to go to the hospital. I spent one night there and felt a lot better by the morning. By Monday I was back to normal - hamdualla. It was really sad to say goodbye to everyone! I'm going to miss the TIME group, but it was time to move on!

London is amazing. We've been here two days now and we've already seen a bunch of sites. We had a little more excitement because British Airways was planning a strike for the day we were flying home! Turns out though that the high court ruled it unconstitutional - so we should still have a flight! yay.

This will probably be my last blog because Kylie and I are not planning on checking email very often from now on. I can't wait to be home and I'll be seeing you soon!

Love,
Jill

My Excursions

It has been awhile since I have had internet long enough to blog. After Thanksgiving, our group went to Hurgada and stayed in a gorgeous beachside resort on the Red Sea. I had a chance to try out SCUBA diving and did a little 10 minute dive around a few pieces of coral. It was pretty awesome! However, the next day the whole group was going out snorkeling so I decided to do that instead of scuba diving. Snorkeling was really awesome. The coral was gorgeous and the fish were so pretty. I saw a clown fish (Nemo) brushing himself on the tentacles of a sea anemone! How cool is that? We spent the entire day out on a boat (from 9am-4pm).

We had a total of three full days in Hurgada (technically it was 4 nights but the first and last day don't really count because they were so short). The last night there we had a No-Talent-Talent Show. I performed a song and corresponding choreography from the movie Love Actually, as well as hosting a fake talk show. Everyone's non-talent was awesome! I was very very impressed. Though I didn't take any pictures - I hope I can get copies of someone else's =).

After Hurgada we headed back to Cairo. Classes were canceled because of the Muslim holiday called Eid, and also because the government is overly afraid of swine flu. We had a paper due on Friday, so I spent most of my time in Cairo (Wed-Fri) working on that paper. We did have one class by Bruce (my professor from Olaf) at the hotel.

On December 4th our group celebrated St. Nicholas day (a day early because we would be on excursion again on the 5th) by all writing anonymous positive things to each other and putting them in other people's shoes. It was really fun and reminded me of home - especially the NERDS, chocolate and candy canes mom would always put in my shoe!

Saturday, we left the hotel at 7am to head North to Alexandria. Along the way, we stopped at two Coptic monasteries, took tours, and had tea with some of the monks. Next, we headed to our hotel - a 5 star resort on the Mediterranean Sea! However, it is the off-season and therefore we were practically the ONLY people there besides the staff.

On Sunday we visited the memorials of the battle of El Alamain. It was a famous WWII battle fought between the UK and the Axis powers. The museum was interesting enough, but the cemeteries and memorials were very beautiful and powerful. The commonwealth cemetery reminded me of Fort Snelling cemeteries back home. The German and Italian memorials were very beautiful but also sad. I never knew this battle had been so important and deadly.

Alamain was the only stop for the day, so it was back to the hotel for us. Everyone worked on homework and just hung out for the afternoon. After dinner, however, the people providing the nightly entertainment invited us to come sing karaoke (probably because we had just been belting out Celine Dion with them). It then turned into a giant karaoke and dance party in the hotel lobby! It was amazing.

Today, we got on the bus at 11 and went strait to the Library of Alexandria. It is gorgeous! The architecture of the new Library is AMAZING! It was fun to look at their rare-books collections and wander the aisles upon aisles of books.

Now, I'm sitting at a starbucks sipping on a white chocolate mocha (SO GOOD) and using the internet. Starbucks has all of their Christmas mugs out, which makes me miss home just a little. The homesickness seems to finally be setting in now that it is approaching Christmas. I can't wait to get home and drink hot chocolate while watching White Christmas with my family! Not to mention eating meat and potatoes again! I will never take venison for granted EVER again!

I hope all of you are doing well and are getting as excited as I am for Christmas. LOVE

My Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was amazing!

We started the day waking up on the overnight train from Cairo to Luxor. Once we got to Luxor we were given time to eat lunch, and because it was Thanksgiving a bunch of us decided to get a traditional American meal - Pizza Hut pizza!! It was fantastic. I didn't think the day could get any better...but little did I know.

We went to Karnak, an ancient Egyptain Temple. It had the most amazing hieroglyphics I have seen yet on this trip. It was beautiful! We went straight from Karnak to a faluka boat on the Nile river and took a ride along the nile to watch the sunset.

When we got back to the hotel we all got dressed up as best we could and went to Thanksgiving dinner. I wasn't expecting much - but our amazing tour guide Waleed came through and had the chef at the hotel make us a genuine Thanksgiving meal (though not as good as my mom's or Grandma's!!). There was Turkey, stuffing (which I didn't partake in), mashed potatoes ... and the best part ... GRAVY! It was the best surprise of this trip!

After dinner we had a secret Turkey gift exchange. This was our earlier version of secret santa. We all got together after dinner and exchanged small gifts - it was FABULOUS! I got pharonic playing cards and chocolate...the perfect gift.

I tried calling home, but the internet is not very good here. All of our festivities today made me super happy but also made me miss home a little bit. I can't wait to get home and celebrate Christmas with all of my friends and family. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone back home! I love you and miss you all!!!

P.S. Please eat some pecan pie for me!!

My Pyramids

This weekend was devoted to seeing the ancient Egyptian sites around Cairo. On Thursday we went to the Egyptian museum. It was really awesome to see ancient artifacts including King Tut's head covering. So COOL!
On Friday we went to Memphis to see Sakkara and the step pyramid as well as a lot of tombs with hieroglyphs. Some of the spaces to get to the tombs were really small and it was so much fun to go through the tunnels.
Saturday was our trip to the pyramids!! They were absolutely amazing. We were among the first 150 people in line so we were able to get tickets to go INTO the great pyramid. The climb up was really scary and there wasn't much air flow in the pyramid - but it was TOTALLY worth it! I still can't believe I was IN the great pyramid. The sphinx was pretty amazing as well.
Now it is back to school for a couple days before we head to Luxor to see the valley of the kings and then Hurgada for some beach time! I hope everyone is having a fabulous November and has a great Thanksgiving!

My Cairo

Things have started to slow down I think =). We have settled into the Cosmo Hotel and started classes at the American University in Cairo. Cairo is a great city so far. I haven't seen much of it because I got a bit sick this first week here, but I'm on the mend and am planning to explore!

Last night there was a huge soccer game in Egypt. The Egypt national team played Algeria to qualify for the world cup. The shop keepers outside our hotel set up sheets in the middle of the road to project the game. The game started at 7:30 but the cheering and noise started at 3! It was nuts. I went out to watch the start of the game, but I am WAY too short to see anything in a crowd so I went back inside and watched it in my room. It was really cool to be a part of that type of community again - I've missed it since the Beshiktash game in Istanbul.

Nothing else is really new. We've been occupying ourselves by doing homework, watching the one english channel we get that has really good movies, and hanging out. Things are going to start picking up because we start touring egypt every time we don't have classes.

My Mountain

The flight to Cairo was pretty uneventful, except for the fact that I couldn't sleep. Right after the we got through customs, we got onto our bus and drove for 6 hours (overnight) to Sinai. We were heading to Sinai instead of Cairo in order to climb Mount Sinai and watch the sunrise. When we arrived at our hotel in Sinai we went directly to some hotel rooms that they let us crash in for the afternoon until our real rooms were ready. I slept straight through the afternoon, woke up for meals, then went to sleep for the night. (If you can't tell, I was a little tired). Our entire group had to get up at 2AM, eat breakfast (which was basically as much coffee or tea as people could drink) and be on the bus by 2:30. I layered on as many warm layers of clothing that I could in order to not freeze while climbing Mount Sinai, because surprise it was COLD! I was still pretty tired, but managed to wake up at 2 and was ready in time for the bus to leave. It was pitch black when I got to Mount Sinai. The original path was pretty flat, but soon got quite a bit steeper making the journey up a bit of a challenge. It was very rough, however completely worth it once I got to the top. The view was amazing, and we had a great seat (there were a BUNCH of tourists) to see the sunrise! It really was a majestic experience. A couple of us decided that instead of taking the easy route (the route we took up the mountain = NOT SO EASY lol), we took the 3750 stairs of penitence down. The path was amazing, and not nearly as difficult going down as it would have been going up!

After Sinai, we took the bus back to Cairo - another 6 hour bus ride. We arrived at the Cosmo hotel in Cairo at about 6PM and had dinner by 7. That day was my friend Shannon's birthday, so we had cake and a small 21st birthday celebration, and I went to bed as soon as I could in order to be able to be awake for all of the busyness that was going to happen the rest of the week. (Just to help you follow, we woke up on 2AM Sat morning and arrived at the Cosmo hotel at 5PM Sat night.)

On Sunday morning, we left the hotel at 9AM to tour the new campus of the American University in Cairo. It is gorgeous! I could barely believe it. I am really sad that our group doesn't get to attend that part of the University - it seemed like such an amazing and fun place. After our tour we had class for two and a half hours. We got back to the hotel in time for dinner at 7. It was a very long day, but since I my midterm is due on Thursday I figured I would spend a little bit working on it after dinner. I finally got to bed around 10!

Today, we took a bus tour of Cairo and saw all the different aspects of the city, including the outlines of the Pyramids rising through the haze (which is not fog - it is pollution...ew). After our tour, we had a lecture by a former St. Olaf prof who is from Egypt and now works here. Again, another pretty long and busy day! All I can say is I can't wait for this weekend because we have Friday AND Saturday FREE!!

My Madrid

Our flight from Casablanca to Madrid was pretty uneventful, which was great. We got into Madrid and checked into our hostel. Then our tour guide, Annette (a former OLE!) showed us around the city. It is gorgeous! I can't believe how amazing this city truly is. We got to see a Cathedral that was built in 2003, and other historical landmarks. We ended at the Reina Sophia Art Museum. This museum held Picasso's Guernica. It was amazing! I have never truly appreciated Picasso before. Today we are off to the Prado and a walk through Madrid's main park (but I can't remember the name). We are leaving right about now, so hopefully I'll get time to blog tomorrow in Cairo.