EgYpT day 3

say CHEESE!

Visit to the GIZA PYRAMIDS!

The pyramids were a magnificent sight to behold! Honestly, I was SO amazed. I just stood in awe. They are massive, and kind of mysterious. They are the only remaining of the seven wonders of the ancient world. (I think)

At the base of the Largest PyramidSome of our group, rockin the Egyptian

On three...Jumping off the Pyramid

Some of our group...Jess, Dina, Emile, Jacob, Jess, Carla, Me

CAMEL RIDE!!! I got on top of my camel, and the guy who owned the camel just hit the camel, and it started taking off! I didn't have the slightest idea how to control the giant stink beast, I assumed it knew where it was supposed to go, but I didn't, and it started going fast! AND there was nobody from my group with me at first, may camel was going so fast!

We rode our camels around the desert and up to this point for a photo op in front of the Pyramids...My Camel has a great smile! (See the first pic on this post...;)My camel kept making this funny noise as he blew air out of his mouth, it sounded like if someone was making a horse noise...only when my camel did it, he inflated something inside his mouth, like his cheek or side of his tongue or something. It was SO gross! It was even bigger than this picture, this is when it was going down. so gross and weird. This is not a normal thing for camels to do, even the Egyptians with their own camels were gawking at the freak camel!

My Friend Emile and I

The Sphinx was AMAZING! It was massive and just SO cool!This is the whole YSA group. A great group of saints and friends.

This pic isn't the greatest, but its funny because we are eating at a Pizza hut with the Pyramids visible through the window...kinda funny...The Nile River

This is the endless market called the Kahn a Khalili (Have NO idea how it's spelled) I had a LOT of fun bargaining with the shopkeepers about their wares. The market is very easy to get lost in. Most of the shops sell similar if not the same stuff, and they just keep going and going! We had 2 girls get lost and didn't meet up with our crew until 40 minutes after our meeting time. Can you see the sign above me, "AMBER HOUSE for GEWEL RIES"... so funny! I also like the creepy man behind me looking at the camera.

Another merchant shop. SO much to look at!
Me and My drum. I got a great deal on this drum (I also bought another one...got a killer deal!)
Anyway the man who sold me this drum was a creep, as are many of the men here...I dare say most of the men here. He kept saying he would give me a lower price if I kissed him on the cheek. Yeah right. I kept saying no, and I was just ready to leave but my friends were still in his shop. But I also really wanted to get the drums. So I made my last offer 100 egyptain pounds for both drums...which is like $20 US, and he came too close for comfort and whispered in my ear a higher price or motioned that I kiss him and I'll get the price I wanted. I was SO grossed out, especially since he whispered in my ear, so he was pointing to his cheek and smiled saying 100 Pounds...so I kissed my hand and slapped his cheek with it, and firmly said 100 pounds. He was totally shocked...served him right, right? Needless to say I got them for 100 pounds. :) Most of the shopkeepers flirted with me...it got really old really fast, they would say things like "Hello American, Beautiful!" or "very nice eyes" or "please come to my shop, if you buy something here, I can tell everyone a Goddess came into my shop, be good for business" Whatever. One guy even stopped me while I was walking and said "Excuse me, you dropped something" I was surprised and looked down to see what I dropped, but he grabbed my hand and said "Oh, You dropped my heart" PAHLEESE!!!

EGYPT DAY 2

The second day of Egypt was Friday (the Sabbath). I was recruited by Nancy to teach Nursery...waaaay more exciting than relief society and sunday school! :) Plus these kids were so so cute!

We had a bunch of seminar classes also, that were awesome. Kurt Bestors Brother lives in the Branch and we heard from he and his wife. We also played some games and the fun event of the day was a FELUCCA ride!
These are the Felucca's. Sadly there was no wind so we didn't really move. It was also overcast and grey. It could have a been a gorgeous sunset on the Nile...it was still fun though :)








These are the girls I made really good frinds with. L-R...Diana, Juliette, Shada, Armen, Me

These girls are AMAZING, and they are so fun.

We had a break the fast meal with everyone, but there wasn't much for me to eat (without gluten) so we went out that night in search of some local food. I had Foul (pronounced fool) and hummus. Foul is like hummus with dark beans, it tastes like refried beans with middle eastern spices. Yummy. In our first Egyptian Taxi ride...TINY and ANCIENT cars!

Another great day with good friends in Egypt.

Egypt Day One

Our group from Jordan at the Airport

We met at the Church building in Amman at 6:00 AM Thursday morning and drove to the airport. We arrived early luckily because there were 3 people for checking in, and about 300 passengers...not exactly efficient. It was confusing and I was getting a little nervous, I get that way when everyone around me is speaking a language I don't understand. So after I checked in, I had trouble obtaining clearance because of my visa. Long story short, I waited around for 40 minutes for some men to argue in Arabic about whether or not they should detain me or let me go, while there was a Thailand Woman with her British husband throwing a royal fit-crying-screaming-swearing-demanding to see a lawyer etc about. I haven't been watching the news but apparently there have been protests in Thailand...maybe ? and they couldn't get home. Anyway it was stressful! I sat by one of the singles from my branch, who has the most fascinating life experiences. He works for NASA now, but he used to be a pilot, he was the youngest pilot in all of Europe and middle east and Asia when he was 20! He flew for princes and royalty and such, and then he had a job to test fly the jets and pick the best ones to purchase for the airlines. CRAZY! Anyway, fascinating conversation! Interesting kid.

The flight was just over an hour, and as we got close, we could see Pyramids from our Plane windows! It was amazing! Stepping off the plane was bad because you could feel the pollution, like it was tangible, and seeping into your lungs.

We rode a bus to the Branch building and got to see some of Cairo, and a place very close to where there was a huge rock fall from the mountains that killed many families, like 200 families very recently.

We ate at the church and after we walked through Maadi to the Train station where we piled into the overcrowded train with people who have not been introduce to deodorant, and it was so hot out! All part of the adventure though :)

We went to Coptic Cairo. Coptic is a branch of Christianity, and they have many old churches and buildings. We went into many, as well as walked through the cemeteries where Coptics are still being buried in family tombs. Some of the tombs are huge (for places where bodies go) and most are really old. They remind me of really tall apartments in London or something that are tiny but tall.

This is St Georges Church behind meNotice the tomb in the middle is leaning pretty far!

Inside another Coptic church, this is said to be a place where the Holy Family stayed in Egypt

This is some guys at the well...said to be where the Holy Family drew their water...who knows. But people were passing around a nasty cup drinking the water. I thought...uh no thanks I don't want to share germs with a million Egyptians, thanks. But I did pour some of the water into my hand to drink it....I was just curious. It was SO NASTY! The grossest water I have ever drank...ocean water tastes better! YUCK.

This is our Host Family, the Heiss' little girl Rachel. Everywhere we went everyone wanted to touch her, kiss her, and mostly take pictures of her with their cell phones. Andrew and Nancy are very patient letting everyone kiss their angel baby girl. She's SO cute!

Inside the cemetery

The streets of Coptic Cairo are a smaller version copy of Old City Jerusalem. There is a wall that encompasses the entire outside, and the streets leading everywhere look just like Jerusalem, lined with shops and merchants selling their wares.

I thought this was hilarious! This is a bunch of cigarette boxes...look closely (i know the pic isn't that great) there's a picture of a man on a gurney with an oxygen mask on his face...he doesn't look so good! It doesn't seem to deter anybody from smoking though. (Side note...I thought it was so funny, and i looked at the cigarettes in Jordan and they have a picture of black nasty smokers lungs on their cigarette boxes...funny)

This is a fruit stand along the famous road nine in Cairo. Road nine is the name of the street that TONS of shops reside in. The fruit stand is called the tree aptly so, there's a large tree growing INSIDE the store, like the tree was here before the shops, the shop was built around it. And it's still totally alive and leafy! Interesting!

Inside a souvenir shop on Road Nine.

Do I look like a pharaoh?

My new scarf...I got totally carried away with the scarves! They were SO cool! Also, you can kind of see how small the cars are behind me...they look like little roller-skate taxi's! :)

AQABA

Okay here are a few images from our trip to Aqaba. I took Jeremy and Jared with me, partly as body guards ;) Stories to come...

Scuba diving is amazing-period! But the red sea has some of the most amazing coral on the earth. It was so surreal to be so deep under water, looking at fish and creatures and coral so close. I got close enough to touch clown fish, lion fish, a white morray eel, and a million different kinds and colors of coral. But don't worry I didn't actually touch any of it :) I did take my underwater camera though and I'm waiting to get film back, so underwater pictures to follow:) Scuba diving is such a rush! I always have crazy anxiety at first when I'm like flailing in the water after I jump in with all my gear on, and i am relieved that I am floating not sinking and that my regualtor works becasue I am still breathing...whew. After the initial shock, it is so peaceful under the water. I was really glad I forced myself to do this trip, I would have seriously missed out!

Aboard the ship. Fist of all, it was a nice size, plenty of room for the twenty people to move around. Also there was a CHEF on board that made our lunch...he worked in this tiny closet-sized kitchen, and before we knew it he had at least eight LARGE dishes of amazing food for our lunch/ feast! It was a gorgeous day!

This is at our hotel the day we got back form diving and snorkeling...we felt so high class to be staying in a fancy hotel that made your towels into swans...all part of the experience!

We had a lot of fun strolling the streets of Aqaba...I loved all the tourist shops..and the boys tolerated them. They were the best body guards ever though. Even with them I got a few marriage proposals, and many comments like "Nice AAACcent" And some inappropriate invitations. Yuck. Why do Arab men assume that all American women are Loose? SO Anyway I was VERY glad to have my body guards!

I paid these men to make me a bottle of sand that said Jordan and had camels in the sand. It was well worth the money just to watch them make it!

I was very happy to be able to spend a few days alone with the nerd herd. They are really great boys, they are smart, hilarious, and just SO cute! They took their job as my body guard so seriously...they would fight about which side of me they got to walk on, and who would carry my bags. It was pretty cute. I am so glad I got to spend time with them...we had so much fun the last few days and really the last few months...watching movies together, playing basketball after school everyday, and I am pretty good at teasing them :) I think I'm the "cool" sister in law...YES!