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.

My Resort

Our excursion in Morocco has been a little rocky. First, our bus was not air conditioned and everyone got motion sick! But thankfully we were given a brand new amazing bus. Secondly, our original tour guide was not a very good guy. He was not very professional and was a bit creepy. A lot of the girls were uncomfortable with him so we complained to the company. They felt so awful that they gave us a new tour guide (a really great guy) and they put us up in a 5 star resort on the Atlantic Ocean in between Rabat and Casablanca. It is AMAZING. I am including a couple of pictures of the view, and of the ocean. Tomorrow it is off to Casablanca. After one night there we are heading to Spain. I can't wait!!

My boarding school

So, yesterday we visited a boarding school for girls from rural areas that don't get the opportunity to go to school because there aren't any near where they live. It was started by an amazing woman named Turia. She decided that girls should get the opportunity to be educated and therefore talked to the governor of Merikesh. She then (I don't quite remember how) got the prince of Saudi Arabia to give her a couple hundred thousand dollars and she build an amazing boarding school. They currently have 109 girls living there aged between 11 and 18. It is just amazing! I couldn't believe that this women could have created such an amazing place that impacts SO many people.

Today, we visited Turia's gorgeous house out in the country and she fed us the most amazing meal I have had yet on this trip! She was so welcoming and awesome.

That is pretty much all I have been up to lately. Tomorrow, we are heading to Rabat and then on to Casablanca! I am really excited because our program changed a little bit so we are now spending a night in Madrid after Casa. I am so excited to be in Spain!! If only for a night. It will SO be worth it!

I hope all is well back home!

So much has happened since my last post. My Moroccan family was so amazing. I went shopping quite a few times with my host sister Majda. I bought WAY too much stuff and now my suitcase will barely close! Leaving my host-family was really sad. It has been 5 days since we left Fez, and we have done SO much. Right after leaving Fez, we drove all day to the Sahara Desert. We were supposed to get there and take camels out into the desert in order to watch the sunset, but we didn't make it in time. We took 4 by 4 vehicles and raced through the desert (not the dunes part) in order to make it ontime, but we were about 20 minutes too late. Instead we sat on the hills by our camp and watched the sunset. We then had a great dinner and lots of fun dancing. Before we retired to our tents (that were practically suites) we sat out and watched the amazing constellations while singing disney songs. The next morning, we woke up at 4 something in the morning and rode camels out to the sand dunes to watch the sunrise. It was absolutely amazing and beautiful. Since then, we have been traveling around Morocco and are currently in Essaouria, a coastal town that is filled with seagulls. So far we have seen gorgeous scenery, as well as a really neat movie studio where gladiator and other films set in the Middle East were filmed. At one of our first hotels, the crew (and possibly the cast?) of Sex and the City Movie 2 were staying. Apparently they are filming the next movie in Morocco! It was pretty neat, though sadly I did not meet any famous people yet - I still have my fingers crossed.

I have a ton of homework to work on during excursion because it was extremely difficult to get work done while staying with my host family. It is shockingly difficult to write a well articulated essay while a three year old is jumping on your head and trying to steal your headband =).

We still have another week in Morocco, then it is off to Egypt - I can't wait!

Also, I think I enabled the comments section so anyone can now post a comment if you want to =)

My family

I have fallen in love with my family! My “dad”, Jamal, is 28 and my “mom”, Faduwa, is 25. Jamal’s sister, Majda, is 21 and really cool. She took us shopping yesterday around the medina and it was so much fun. We went to a traditional dress shop as well as a gorgeous tannery. Jamal would have taken us, but right before we got here he got into a car accident and is unable to do much of anything. He broke his right arm, his left leg and has at least one large laceration on his face. Because of his injury, we are living in the “big house” with his mom (who we call grandma) and Majda. It is so much fun. Jamal and Faduwa have two kids, Simo 6 and Zizu 3. They are absolutely adorable. I am SO glad that I finally get little siblings! I can’t believe how much energy they have all of the time, it is crazy.

So far, Arabic is a lot harder than Turkish. After one week, I only know about 3 words, none of which do me much good in real life. At home, grandma is constantly laughing at my awful attempts at Arabic. Shannon is my roommate for homestay, which is awesome because she is my roommate back home! It was really easy adjusting to life in a Moroccan home with Shannon.

There is not much else that I have to say today, hopefully I will soon!

My 6th Continent

Again, I apologize for not updating this more regularly.

I am officially in Fez, Morocco. We move in with our homestay families tomorrow afternoon! I am super excited but nervous. The family I am staying with lives in the Medina, which is the old part of the city surrounded by a gate. It is a complete labyrinth. We just got back to our hotel from getting a guided tour of the Medina, and it was amazing. I am horrified to try to figure out how to make my way through the streets. Apparently, not even the people who live in the Medina know all of the 900 something streets that are within the walls.

Excursion during our last week in Turkey was a lot of fun but very stressful. We were on the bus everyday making stops along the way. Some of my favorite highlights from excursion were visiting the city of Troy, seeing an underground city, and getting to see the gorgeous countryside of Turkey.

The flight from Turkey to Morocco was a little rough, We woke up at 3 in the morning and had to leave for the airport at 4. I only got to sleep about 3 hours that night because of different organizing things I had to do. We caught our first flight no problem, and even got breakfast on the plane - which was a plus. Next, we had a few hour layover in Madrid, Spain. It was pretty cool to be able to actually use some of the Spanish that I learned for 6 years but could barely remember =). We had no problem getting on our next plane and arrived safely on time in Morocco. The stress and wear started to get to me when we were waiting to get through passport control in the Casablanca Airport. At that point I hadn't eaten or slept in a very long time (I can't sleep on planes). We waited in line at passport control for about 2 or 3 hours. It was hot and uncomfortable but not terrible. We then waited for a bit for a bus and went to our hotel. We finally went to get dinner at 7 that night, which was about 15 hours after we had been served breakfast on our first flight. I got really worn out and exhausted, but I was able to sleep 12 hours that night and now I'm good as new!

It has been great to hear from a few of you guys that are reading this! I really am trying to update whenever I can. I keep getting distracted by everything there is to do around me, but I will try to strike a better balance =).

Just to leave you with a funny thought. My favorite part of the Medina so far is that whenever you hear "Belek, Belek!" being shouted behind you it means (roughly) "Watch out, there is a heavy laden donkey bearing down upon you!" The best part is, though our group thought it was a joke when we first read about it, we quickly found out that it is in fact not a joke at all! If someone yells "Belek, Belek" they are not kidding, there is in fact a donkey coming toward you. Which I think is pretty darn awesome. I can't wait to post pictures (which I will try to get up soon) so you all can see where I will be living for the next 3 weeks!

I love you all and miss you!

My Besiktas

Tonight we went to a soccer game right by our hotel to watch a Turkish team named Besiktas play Manchester United (one of the best soccer teams in England). The game was completely amazing! We got to the game about 1 hour and 45 minutes early. We thought it would be just like getting to a game in the states that early; however, for the fans, the game started an hour and a half before the players started playing. There was music and chants and cheering and dancing! We got to know a man behind us who spoke English fairly well. He told us all about Besiktas and why they were the best team in Turkey. According to him there are three teams in Turkey. One has the rich fans who have no heart. One team has the well educated fans that are devoted yet not driven. But Besiktas stands alone, having fans with absolutely no money - but TONS of heart. And I would have to agree with him (at least about the heart!). I had read that Besiktas fans were insanely devoted to their team, but I was not prepared for what I experienced. 40,000 fans Screaming, Yelling, and Dancing for about 2-3 hours straight! We never sat down once during the game. I have never been to a game in the US where the entire stadium goes from screaming at the top of their lungs to completely silent holding their breath (during a shot on goal by Manchester United that barely missed). I felt completely united with every person in the stadium even though we didn't speak the same language.

I really wish there was a sporting event in the US that I could compare this to, but there is none. I also wish I could do a better job explaining the phenomenal experience I had tonight, but I did my best.

Besiktas held off Manchester United (which was pretty impressive!) until the 76th minute, when Man U scored a beautiful rebound goal. Besiktas had a few chances, but just couldn't manage to put one in the back of the net. Though, I feel that I did my part by cheering as loud as I could, in English. All the Turkish fans around us kept staring, but I didn't care. I figured the louder I cheer, the better the chances were that Besiktas would score - right? Too bad it didn't quite work, darn!

Well I have to get up for class in 5 hours so I am off to bed! This will definitely be an experience I will never forget for the rest of my life!

My Wanderings

I have been so busy this past week I have had no time to blog. Since my last post, we have gone to both a Greek Orthodox service and a Jewish Synagogue. The Greek Orthodox service was really cool. We were able to come and go as we pleased and simply observe the men chanting for about 3 hours. The only problem I had was that it was fairly warm and they were burning a LOT of incense. The entire church is covered in religious sculptures, relics and paintings. One of the coolest relics is supposedly the post that Christ was whipped on. It is very neat to see. The Jewish service we went to was very different. First of all, it was one of the most intimidating moments I have had on this trip so far. We were all taken to a side entrance with large iron doors where there was a blank hallway as an entryway. Next, we were taken one at a time through a room with three security guards. There, they x-rayed our bags and confiscated our cameras and had us walk through a metal detector. We also had to give them all of our passports - and this was just to enter the Synagogue. The reason for all of the security is because of the violence in Israel Palestine and I believe the Synagogue was bombed about 10 years ago. The service was really neat to be a part of, but the best part was the meal we shared with the people afterward. They invited us to take part in a traditional breakfast meal. We tried communicating with some of the people there and found out that not only did they speak Turkish, but many also spoke Spanish or French. So, we were at a Jewish Synagogue in Istanbul, Turkey speaking Spanish! It was an amazing experience, and we got to learn a lot about different cultures and religions in this part of the world.
The hospitality we have come across here is absolutely astounding. People are completely welcoming in every way. If someone speaks English and hears us talking, they will just come up to us and ask us where we are from and we then have a conversation until we get to our bus stop or have to leave wherever we are for whatever reason. A lot of people have been given free meals and invited to join families to break the Ramadan fast, called Iftar. As of yet, I haven't been invited to spend Iftar with anyone, but hopefully I will be!
We are going to a soccer game on Tuesday and I am super excited! It is Manchester United against a local Turkish team - Beshiktash. Today we went to a local artisans bazaar where I got a necklace and a ring. It was really cool to see a bunch of local crafts and things.
I don't know if all of you have heard about the floods here in Istanbul, but so far they have had the worst rain in 80 years. The streets about 15-20 miles from my hotel flooded and caused 21 people to lose their lives. It is so weird. Us Minnesotans are used to this type of rain (moderate showers every day for the past week), but I guess that is pretty much unheard of here.
I have about 200 pages of homework to read for tomorrow's class so I am off to do that! I hope to hear from all of you soon. I love getting e-mails!

My Life in Istanbul

My first test went pretty well. Our professor gave us an extra day to learn the material, because it was SO overwhelming. I completely blanked on how to say one hundred and one thousand, but besides that it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. The other day, a bunch of us went down to Bebek (the part of Istanbul that is near the water). It was amazing and gorgeous! There was a small fitness area in the middle of the park. We played around in the park for awhile and worked out. Other students have finally arrived on campus, it is really weird to see other people walking around. Nothing much else has happened, but I'll blog more after our fun trips this weekend!

My Turkish

Istanbul is an absolutely amazing city. Our first full day here (Friday) was filled with Turkish lessons. It is the most peculiar language, and sounds like a mixture of Norwegian and Japanese. Our professor is very intense but really cool at the same time. The hardest part though is that she expects us to know the words or the grammar as soon as she tells us. I never thought I would wish I was back in Spanish classes.

Yesterday (Saturday) we took a tour in the old city. Our first stop was the Blue Mosque, but because it was so crowded we decided to go to the old Saltan’s Palace. It was really cool and I have officially decided that I am going to be a Saltan. I got to see an 80 karat diamond (Carrie though yours is pretty, this one kind of puts it to shame) and a huge box filled with uncut emeralds! It was awesome. After the Palace we went to the Hagia Sophia. The Hagia Sophia is over 1500 years old and is absolutely breathtaking. It was originally built as a church during Constantine’s rule (or something like that). It is about 5 stories high and completely covered in marble. The ceiling was originally filled with mosaics, but most of that has not survived. However, the few that have are absolutely amazing. They are gorgeous pictures of Saints made with tiny little square centimeter tiles. When Muslims took over the area they converted the church into a mosque and whitewashed the walls to purge the place of its iconography. The funny thing is, this ended up preserving a lot of the mosaics and other artwork much better than had it been left alone! I will figure out how to put up pictures soon so you can see it. After the Hagia Sophia we went across the street to the Blue Mosque. It is an absolutely gorgeous mosque.

A few of us decided to stay in the old city in order to see the iftar or breaking of the fast because currently Ramadan is being celebrated. Iftar is at sundown or about 8PM so we had about three hours to kill. We went to a place called the Green Café where we got to sit on a floor level couch and ordered ice cream. Then we went to the grand bazaar, which is almost unexplainable. It is indoors, but yet looks like there are a bunch of houses with shops inside and out front. I didn’t buy anything but saw a lot of really cool things and definitely want to go back.

At sundown we sat in the middle of a park and broke fast with all of the locals. It was a really cool experience that I will never forget. Next we snuck into the Blue Mosque to see the call to prayer. I honestly mean snuck because visitors were not supposed to go in, but they let us stay.

All in all it was a very awesome day.

Today (Sunday), we had another full day of Turkish lessons, which are just so overwhelming. We have a huge test on Tuesday so most of us are cramming tonight. I better get back to studying!

My first Day

My morning,

8:00AM: I woke up and started to get ready.

9:00AM: I went to back up my computer on Carrie's external hard drive. When I turned on my computer, I was not happy to find that it had decided to crash again. I was planning on bringing my mac with me, and then with only 3 hours before I was supposed to leave for the airport my computer crashes!

10:00AM: Carrie (aka my hero) ran my computer to the mac store where the amazing genius bar workers were able to replace my hard drive (though it did lose all of my files).

1:00PM: My mom, dad and I get to the airport and find out that Carrie was already there waiting with my fixed computer.

1:45PM: I said goodbye to my family and went through security.

All of my flights were thankfully uneventful, but long.

Istanbul is a gorgeous city and the university is amazing. Tonight was fun. We went out to dinner, and when we got back I figured out how to use skype minutes to call home. A bunch of people ended up hanging out in Shannon's room (where the internet was) and using my computer to tell family they got home safe. All in all it has been a pretty great first day.

I'll write more when I get time!