Saturday, September 26, 2009

Egypt
Thursday night at about 11:00 we made it home from our 8 day trip to Egypt. It was an amazing trip and each day was so packed with places and driving and walking. I feel so burned out. We started out our trip on Thursday morning at 6:00 am to start our long drive to the Egyptian border. We made a few stops on the way and saw some really amazing places. We went to a fortress built up on a hill with homes carved into the sides of the limestone mountains. We went to the tel where they believe Abraham lived for a time. We went to a look out which is probably the place that Lehi's family came down as they traveled out of Jerusalem. It looked like the grand canyon. It was breath taking. We stopped at a crater and watched a very outdated movie about the earth. I think at that point all 82 of us were asleep. Then we made our way to a Kibbutz. We got a tour of their date plantation and ate some summer ice cream. I had no idea ahead of time what a Kibbutz was or how it worked. I was amazed to see it all. In a way they are living a life similar to the law of consecration. We spent the night there in their hotel. So it took us all day with our many stops to get about 4 hours outside of Jerusalem. It was a very long day.

We started the next day out early and headed off for the border and our long process through customs. Since everyone in our group is too nice Egyptians just kept cutting us in line and we wouldn't say anything. So it ended up taking us a very long time to get through. Once we made it over that line we said good bye to vegetables, fruit and tap water. We had no idea our carb intake would go so high over the next few days. Once we made it over to the other side we picked up a new bus and our tour guide Islam. Islam made for much entertainment on our trip and was a wonderful addition to our bus. We then headed out for our 8 hour ride . We had to come up with lots of different things to keep us all occupied since sleeping was so uncomfortable. We found out a few things. One- about 50 percent of the boys on our bus knew how to french braid hair and were actually decent at it. Two- it is really hard to try and balance on a tour bus when you are competing with everyone for who can stay up the longest. Three- most people don't know the words to popular songs , so singing as a group turns into a solo for those of us who really do know the words. Overall the bus was very entertaining and I found out a lot more than I ever expected about the people on my bus. We pulled into the city late in the afternoon to see the pyramids blending in with the skyline of the city. At that point we were all freaking out that we were actually looking at the pyramids in real life. It honestly was so cool. We unloaded our stuff at the hotel and then headed out for a light show at the pyramids. A little bit of background: When they told us light show we were all expecting some sweet lasers and music. We were very mistaken. I felt like i was in an old documentary movie with old fashioned lights and pack man style graphics. Our favorite phrase of the evening was " The world fears time... but time fears... THE PYRAMIDS" you can imagine the chills after that statement. So even though the light sow was a little bit of a disappointment it was still really cool to be right there experiencing it. 

I still really need to recover sleep wise but i will finish my Egypt experience tomorrow!
          Love you all

2 comments:

Dayna said...

wow. all i can say is wow. and A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.

Krystyna said...

hahaha oh my gosh, I am loving reading your blog because it totally brings me back. That's pretty much EXACTLY what we did, too! LOVED that light show... not! Isn't it crazy how the pyramids are totally incorporated into the skyline? Egypt is amazing. And I totally gained like 7 pounds while I was there because pretty much all I ate was junk food cuz I was so worried about the food haha. Great experience, but doesn't it just feel so good to be back home at the Center now? :)