Luxor

Here are some pictures from Luxor I'll give the descriptions from top to bottom: top: Me in front of the pillars of Karnak Temple, an shot of the first section built of Karnak Temple (the biggest and most famous of all the temples), one of the reliefs from Habu temple you can even see some of the colors, bottom the valley of the kings you can see the entrance to one of the tombs.

This post will just be about the trip to Luxor I took and I'll maybe get a post up about daily life in Cairo a little later.

Luxor was the longest trip we took this whole semester. Luxor is where many of the ancient Pharonic temples and the Valley of the Kings is located. The area is so much different from the business and crowds of Cairo. The city is right next to the Nile and there's actually fresh air to breath. Seeing the temples was one of the most surreal experience I've had. It was so hard to fathom how old these huge temples were and what they might have represented when they were first built. The temples were built 2000 years BCE and they are amazing. I was impressed by them as a 21st century American, I can't imagine being someone in the ancient world, not knowing anything outside my own home, and seeing something like that. I can understand why they would worship the Pharoes and the gods they did.

The Valley of the Kings was equally cool. You go to this valley (obviously) and there are tons of different tombs and you get to pick 3. You walk down stairs into through these doors and suddenly you're in a tunnel with hyroglyphics on the walls and you walk down to where all the treasures and the mummies were. My historical juices were definitely flowing.

Other than that, we got to hang out in the city and do whatever we wanted. It was really relaxing. The hotel had a pool on the roof and we spent a lot of time up there swimming and hanging out. We could see the Nile and some of the ancient temples while we swam on top of a building, it was amazing!

Saber

This is Saber, my host brother.

This is Saber's story:

Right after getting back from Siwa, we started our Egyptian homestays. I was lucky and placed with a 35 year-old single guy named Saber. It’s kind of rare for a male to live by himself if he’s not married, but Saber was a sweet guy.

He owned a perfume shot which we would hang out in and meet his friends basically every night until 2:00 AM. Saber spoke fairly good English, but I would pretty much sit there and try to talk with and understand what his friends were saying. A couple things I learned:

Egyptians love their perfume/cologne. Every person who came in would spray themselves 8-10 times with really strong perfume, I guess they just like to smell good.
Egyptians also love their humor. Saber was a really funny guy and was always telling jokes and stories followed by laughter like I’ve never heard before.
Egyptians stay up late and expect you to do the same. I also discovered they sometimes don’t understand that just because we go to bed at the same time does not mean we get the same amount of sleep, especially when I have to get up at 7:00 AM and they get up at 1:00 PM in the afternoon! No hard feelings though.

I had a great time with Saber meeting his friends, checking out different parts of the city, and staying up late. My Arabic improved quite a bid and I learned more about Islam and what it really is. It was a great experience.

After the week was over however, it felt so good to be with my flatmates and being living together. During our time with our families we really realized how much we appreciated each other and how nice it was to be with other Americans speaking English.

If there is anything I learned from this week, I want to be a lot more conscious of international students at school. They must get so sick of having to speak English all the time and not being around people from their home country! I can’t even imagine, it must be so difficult for them. If there’s anything I am regretting about my college experience, it’s not taking advantage of the chance to know these people on campus. If you’re reading this and have the chance, get to know those people, ask them questions, learn from them, and see what you can do to make their time in the U.S. easier!

Well, on to the next post, Luxor!

Jonathan

Siwa Oasis

Siwa was probably my favorite trip we had our entire semester. It was a 12 hour drive through the desert and we came upon this lush green area where you can look and see the exact spot where the water stops and the desert begins. The first day we rode bikes around and we ended up swimming in this cold spring and seeing the ancient temple where Alexander the Great went to visit the Oracle. That night, as the sun set, we went to the salt lakes which surround the oasis and just like the Dead Sea you float in the water. I layed down, floating in the water as the sun set over the desert. It was beautiful. Then that night a "band" of local Siwans came a played local music for us. It was a bunch of guys playing the tabla, an Egyptian drum, and singing songs while they sat on a carpet. They started dancing and we all joined them, it was a ton of fun.

The next day we went on a 4x4 ride through the desert. The drivers were pretty crazy and we would go up and down dunes and do all kinds of crazy stuff. It really reminded me of winter on a farm somewhere in Iowa with a crazy farm kid driving a truck through the fields, except we were in a desert. It brought me back a little of Iowa and it felt good. We then did some sandboarding, I wasn't that good, and went to swim in a cold lake in the middle of the desert. That night we slept under the opened sky after a bon fire and food prepared by beduins. One funny thing was the jackel which was near the place we slept. A bunch of us went to just lay in the desert and look at the stars and this jackel actually came up and started licking my roomate's toe. We all had a good scare and it left us alone. It was really amazing.

The whole time while we were there we stayed at this hostel a ways out of town. We were basically all alone and it was great to not have any noise or any other people. It was almost weird to be in a place so quite! It was great though. The trip was a little rushed though as we started our homestays the day after we got back from a 12 hour bus ride. I'll talk about the homestay in my next post.

Thanks for reading!

Sorry it's been so long!

Jonathan