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
Friday, December 18, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
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
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
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