The Epic of Egypt: Part 3... Valley of the Kings and Romantic Egypt Camel Ride Proposal

So, I finally have some time! Not much though, we leave for Galilee pretty soon so I figured I'd better get as caught up as I can. I'm hoping to get the rest of Egypt, plus Hezekiah's tunnel, Jordan, and Bethlehem covered before I go. ... hmm... yes... "hope" is a good word for that. :) Today was pretty crazy cause it was Brother Seely's huge midterm. I would have never believed that I could cram that much stuff into my head so quickly. But since we are on "lockdown"--due to recent events in the city concerning bulldozers and malevolent ill-wishers of a radically religious nature, (plus the fact that presidential hopeful Barack Obama was in Jerusalem and Jordan on the same days as we were)--many of us got more studying in than we originally expected. It was really good for me to not be allowed to leave the center because then I didn't feel guilty for studying instead of going out and seeing all the many splendid and wonderful things that I could've seen. The hard thing about living here is that when you procrastinate studying, you're never doing something unproductive. It's always something worthwhile, interesting, and productive-- sometimes even moreso than studying would be. Anyways, now that I have time to relax, I will write more concerning the fantastically dazzling trip that was Egypt.

Okay, so on Wednesday, July 9th 2008, (Brittni's Birthday!) we woke up at 5:15 to hit the Valley of the Kings as early as we could, to avoid the heat and the masses of tourists. The morning looked a lot like the day we went to Giza, and it was light out by the time we left, but not overly bright. Luxor is pretty in the early morning, before it gets hot and people begin to yell things that I can't understand in Arabic. I don't remember ever seeing clouds in Egypt, so the sky must've been clear and blue with a grey layer beneath that is something of a semi-permanent desert inversion mixed with some pollution (although less than Cairo). I expected the Valley of the Kings to be much more vast, and look more like hills of golden sand... I was surprised to find it made mostly of pale orange sandstone with a whiteish dusty-looking pathway leading to the tombs of various kings.


Part of me wished that I could've been there to see how it was before all the archaeologists, pollution and tourism got to it. Emad, our tour guide told us that the kings started to be buried ("Bae-reed" Dad, not "Buhr-reed" hehe) there after the pyramids because the pyramids ended up being something of a giant flashing neon sign to tomb robbers saying, "HEY! PICK ME!!! I AM FULL OF GOLD AND TREASURE, PLUS I'M HUGE AND TAUNTING YOU!" so... I think they probably made a wise decision, at least since they truly believed that all their treasure would be helpful to them in the afterlife. Even so, many of the tombs in the valley of the kings were raided by individuals like the bad guys in Indiana Jones, even though all the stuff in them clearly "belongs in a museum" as Indie would say. I believe that the tomb of Tutankamun (King Tut) was the only one which was not plundered, because it was so well hidden due to the excavation of another tomb near it.

Anyways, so here is the part where I tell the story of the time I was most frustrated on the entire Egypt trip: So we got to the Valley of the Kings and received some instruction from Brother Draper that was rather helpful, informative (and very concise!!),


we then had the opportunity to listen to our tour guide explain many things about the Valley. *deeeeep breath*

Okay. So Emad is a very knowledgeable individual. I am very grateful for the things that he taught us... I just had an incredibly difficult time listening to him. I'm sure he is an excellent tour guide to many groups of individuals who don't listen or catch things the first several times around, but I felt like our group is rather sharp, and fairly adept at listening to important and interesting facts. I consider myself a relatively patient person, and honestly, I wanted to be respectful and listen, but I simply could not. The feeling of wasted time in a place that I so desperately wanted to explore, and had such a limited amount of time to do it in, was almost overwhelming. Redundancy is not usually a huge issue with me, but as I was standing there, feeling the air get hotter as the bright Egyptian sun began to beat down heavily upon us and saw what seemed like thousands of tourists pouring into the valley, (thereby destroying the very reason we woke up so early) and torturously watched my minute hand go nearly halfway around my watch, I looked around in angst while trying to remain respectful. I slowly felt any Christlike attributes I may have begun to attain in my life drain from my heart only to be replaced by sorrow, annoyance and frustration. This frustration with poor Emad did not recede for the rest of the Egypt, and he lectured us every day at every site. *sigh* There were times when I felt like screaming Strunk and White's motto of "OMIT NEEDLESS WORDS!" at him. All I wanted was to listen to what Brother Draper (or Brother Seely if he had only been there) had to say about the sites. Anyways, after facing my Mt. Moriah of patience, we were turned loose in the Valley of the Kings, to see King Tut's and the tombs of 3 other Pharaohs of our choosing!!!! :D

I first went into King Tut's tomb, which was pretty interesting. They had his mummy on display in a case at the lefthand side of the tomb... he was just a little guy. (A lot of that was probably the fact that he was a mummy and his organs were in jars somewhere and skin was all dried out.) But still. He was young when he died, possibly about 16 or 17, and Egyptians were a pretty small people to begin with. Little did I know it, but his tomb was far from impressive compared to the tombs of some of the other pharaohs that I saw that day. It was rather small, with some painted hieroglyphics to the right side where his sarcophagus was for thousands of years. The quality of the paint was astonishing to me, I couldn't believe that it had lasted so long. There was a guard down there, making sure we didn't take any pictures. OH! And I picked up another pet peeve in Egypt. While I was yet annoyed with poor Emad (Or "Habibi" as he is commonly referred to by the Draper students due to his superfluous use of the word to command or yell at us), I felt a jabbing agitation at Arab guards, who, when they do not speak English, feel that it is their duty to communicate harsh or abrupt commands with loud clapping, and seem to think that will do the job. Being angrily "clapped at" when you don't know what you are doing wrong is highly frustrating. And listening to others being constantly clapped at is not all that fun either. (So the angry-arab-man-clap has officially made it to my top 3 pet peeves, right after stuff in the eye and pronouncing the word "nuclear" "nukular".) So we were angrily-arab-man-clapped at several times before we figured out/decided that he was trying to tell us that our time in the tomb was up and we needed to leave... and even then as an act of rebellion I stayed stubbornly situated in the tomb for 2-3 more angry claps, pretending like I didn't hear/understand them until I felt good and ready to go. I am an arrogant American after all ;). My friend Savanna and I got our picture taken by the sign when we got back up out of the tomb.

So after hitting Tutankamun's tomb, we were forced to listen to Habibi for a short while (although it seemed like eternity) we were finally set free on the site. I believe the tombs I went to were that of Ramses IV, Tutmoses III, and one that I wrote in my journal as "I can't remember, I'm so exhausted." The other tombs were truly impressive. We weren't allowed to take pictures in any of them, although I got some of the entrances.


Colors in the tombs were highly impressive, as well as carvings that covered the walls and the ceilings. In many, the outermost casing of the coffin was left, gigantic granite boxes, held open slightly so that if one were to shine his or her "torch" in them, one could see the inscriptions and carvings on the inside. All of the tombs made me wish I was an Egyptologist who could easliy read hieroglyphics. I knew what many of the symbols meant, from packets, class and Brother Draper's optional pre-Egypt seminar, but couldn't piece together anything really exciting. By the time we left, the sun was really working us hard and we were all feeling the heat. We had a bathroom break--Water Closets or WCs (restrooms) are a valuable commodity in Egypt. You have to pay, usually a few shekels, and take your own toilet paper since the individuals stationed there feel that it is only needful for you to have a teensy tiny square. Going to the bathroom in America is a ridiculous luxury that I will probably someday take for granted again, but hopefully not too soon. Luckily, not every toilet was a squatter-hole in the ground, although a flushing toilet was considered "nice." Hand sanitizer became my best friend. Funny side note--a few days after we got home from Egypt, my roommates informed me that while I was sleeping one night before they went to bed, I slept-sanitized my hands. I clapped them together above me and rubbed them vigorously and said "thanks Ashley!" as though I had borrowed some from her. That is how habitual it became. Okay, so we had a bathroom break after the valley of the kings which was very helpful considering many of us had already consumed 1.5 liters of water.

As for the rest of the Valley of the Kings day, we visited the temple of Ramses the III which was pretty cool, and then went back to the hotel. Then I believe several of my friends and I walked down the road from the hotel a ways (to the end of the Luxor Temple--which is in no means a Mormon temple for any of you that might've been confused) in the blistering heat before going back and deciding to go swimming.

Swimming!!! Hooray! It was so much fun. The water was cool, and although I was frightened at first to put my face in, (you know, amoebas, protozoans and giardia and whatnot), eventually I caved to peer pressure (only after an intense scrutiny of the water and its possible chlorine/ozone level) and many of us were splashing and playing for a good few hours. I don't remember if it was that day or the day following it that we built a giant human pyramid in the pool. Someone got it on video of their camera, I shall have to obtain a copy, but it was incredible. We had a small boy from Holland named Sylvester be the tippy top of the pyramid, but that afternoon we didn't quite make it. Anyways, it was fun, and a rather unifying, "team-spirit!", building experience. Haha. "Building." :) I am punny. After dinner, we went on the camel ride.

Oh the camel Ride. Many of you have heard tales about the camel ride, since I was quick to tell about it when I got home. I'm just going to take straight out of my journal what I said about the camel ride, (although I reserve the right to edit it and make it more interesting since I was falling asleep when I wrote it and it is not the best quality): "We took a falucca ride (a falucca is something akin to a small sailboat) across the Nile and our falucca...driver? Captain? was really cool. He put on Bob Marley music at someone in our group's request and we all had a dance party! I got my picture taken with him.


Brother Draper truly "got jiggy with it" and busted out some seriously amazing dance moves, hahaha. It was awesome. So we got to the western bank of the Nile & there were the camels waiting for us. It was so cool! I was very excited. I went over to my camel and my guide guy helped me get on.


He was very talkative and friendly... he said all the things that people trying to get money from you always say, like 'beautiful smile! Magical eyes!'etc... and so I was just quietly saying thank you and trying to shove off my uncomfortableness and enjoy the camel ride. He asked me if it was ok that we talked and of course I said yes, so he was talking to me as we got everybody on camels. Then my camel stood up, which was quite [an uplifting (haha I'm so funny)] experience. They get up with their back legs first which isn't what I was expecting, but it was really fun. Anyway, so Nathanael came over on his camel and said hi and I took a picture for him and my guide (he told me his name but unfortunately I can't remember it) asked if he was my boyfriend. I said no, that he was just a friend, but I think he misunderstood me, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise, and I decided early on to just let him think that, and you'll hear why later. So we went on the camel ride all around and it was beautiful country. There were banana trees and date trees ('Sugar Dates!!! Sugar dates and Pistachiooooosss!!!!' a gold star to whomever can name the movie!) and the sun was setting. As we were walking, my guide began to say things like 'you're happy with your boyfriend? You not want an Egyptian boyfriend? Boyfriend not need to know!' to which I would answer respectively (and truthfully when considering Michael, ;)) 'Yes, very happy! No, thank you. (*nervous laughter*) haha... I would know. No thanks.' At first jokingly saying it and I laughed nervously and tried to be as polite as I could, but it was awkward. Oh, and at the beginning, he had me promise that I would get a picture with him at the end, to which I politely, although begrudgingly, agreed. He also asked me where I was staying (I told him I wasn't allowed to tell him) and how old I was. He was/is 20. We kept going and every once in a while he'd pull my camel out of th eline and let a few more go past, until I was nearly at the end. It made me pretty nervous, but Mark and David were still behind me so I wasn't too panicked. Then things started to get really awkward. He told me he would massage my legs and asked me if it was ok, but I told him a very firm 'No' and after he said it many times, I told him it would make me very uncomfortable. He then asked me if my boyfriend and I lived together, and I said no, that we lived in separate houses (I didn't mention that it was several countries for the time being ;)) with our own families. He then proceeded to say [GRAPHIC WARNING TO YOUNGLINGS! haha] 'you come sleep with me tonight. Just one night, boyfriend not have to know.' He was dead serious too. I was freaked out, and I think he could tell, and then he said 'you will like. Egyptian men are strong' to which I strongly and boldy flat out said 'NO. No no no no no no no no no no.' Yikes. After that he asked if he made me mad, and I said no, I should've said yes, but I didn't want to hurt his feelings. He then offered me another leg massage and told me how he wants to go to America and how difficult it is in the Army (everyone in Egypt has to serve in the army for a certain period of time, it is not a choice). After that, he offered me a cigarette, and then some weed. When I declined both, he asked if I drank and I said no, then he went on some more about Egypt and how he really wants to go to America, and right then and there he asked me to marry him. (:| YIKES!) Not even jokingly. I was scared that I might misunderstand something that he said and accidentally agree to something horrible and get in huge trouble. I obviously declined, (I was highly disinclined to acquiesce to his request). Anyway, we were led through a village and everything was so delapidated and dirty, and people were asking us for money, but I only had the dollar we were to give to our guide as a tip. These people were so poor, but the children were so cute. I felt horrible riding through that village on a camel like it was such an even or place to witness. Ugh. *sigh*. ugh. ...Anyway... my guide and I continued to have really awkward snippets of conversation that I tried to kill as quickly as possible, and yet in the most polite way I could the rest of the way back. He offered me/ gave me a flower (which I promptly threw into the Nile after the ride). Oh, and he had me ride "Egyptian style" which was to put my feet on the camel's neck, and he used the rope to tie my feet up (semi-jokingly) but yeah, creepy. Anyway, after another offer to massage my 'very nice' legs, we were finished and I got off and got my picture with him as quickly as possible


and gave him his tip (he wanted me to kiss him for the picture, but I said 'No way'). Then I grabbed Mark (the nearest JC male) who was very confused and had been oblivious to everything going on and told him to walk right next to me as I had a minor panic attack of creeped-outedness as we walked back to the falucca. Anyway, besides the creepiness, my camel ride was way cool. My camel's name was Alex." Wow. That was a long journal entry. I did it on the train the night afterwards, because the night before I fell asleep writing it. Anyways, looks like I only got one more day done for Egypt! I'm off to bed, seeing as I spent 2 hours on that, haha. I love you all so much though, and hopefully one of these days I'll get all caught up, though it is very doubtful. At least now all of you have an accurate account of my Camel Adventure. :) In splendidly wonderful news, I got a package from Sherri for my birthday! Looks like she loves me most. ;) I noticed that she carefully chose to include a large package of MIKE n' Ikes, haha. It made me laugh. Daniel and Bertha's wedding announcement was beautiful and very tastefully done as well! Thank you so much Killen family (also, Mike finally got an American companion! Hooray!)! Anyways, I really need to upload these pictures and get to bed, but I love and miss you all so much! Thank you for everything, I'll try to write again soon!

Egypt! Part 2

Okay everyone, sorry it has taken me so long to get back on here to finish updating about Egypt. It is truly a daunting task--there is so much to tell about! Not only is it daunting, but I find myself disappointed with the quality of descriptions that I have been able to give you thus far... rushed work is far from perfect. I also hope that all of you appreciate this entry a lot, since we had 2 finals today and one tomorrow and my brain is aching for some leisure time and half of my friends are watching Arrested Development in the room next door ;) So let me see... where did I leave off? The light show in Cairo...


that was fantastic. After the show, we were all far too exhausted to do anything else, so we simply went to bed (delightedly). :) The next day was a truly unprecedented day in the life of Chelsey.

The air in Cairo was thick and misty that morning, and although my romantic side would like to believe it was a mist rising from the Nile, the more practical side of me knew it was from the heavy pollution. I think I was expecting Cairo to be more... orange. Psychologically I seem to have associated the color orange with Egypt... probably from the sand and the pyramids. It really is more brown and grey, with a surprising amount of green close to the Nile. It was slightly less humid than Israel, slightly more humid than Utah. It was fascinating to see how abruptly the line of green stops and the desert begins. Anyways, back to the morning of Giza.

We stayed at the Oasis Pyramids Hotel in Cairo, where my roommate Katie and I enjoyed a cold morning in our hotel room. It had taken us several minutes the night before to figure out that our air conditioning was not, in fact, broken (we were both momentarily terrified when we got there and it didn't immediately work--as air conditioning is a precious and invaluable commodity) but all we had to do was stick our card in a slot and it began bursting out air that was as cold as it gets in Egypt in July. Anyways... The first few days I probably sanitized my hands upwards of about three times an hour. I had, regrettably, forgotten my toothbrush in my rush to leave the JC, so I made due by sanitizing my finger, putting toothpaste on it, brushing my teeth with it, rinsing with bottled water and sanitizing my finger again. It was a pain, though luckily, I was soon able to acquire a new toothbrush for the rest of the trip. We woke up early, as we did every day, in the hopes of avoiding the terrific, scourging heat that is Egypt, (it got to about 104 F in Cairo and 110-115 F in Luxor). We were each issued two 1.5 liter bottles of water and authoritatively, (almost threateningly!), instructed to "drink, drink, drink." (Yes, many-an-alcohol jokes were made about this among the less mature of our group...*cough*... myself included. You can't just leave yourself open like that! heehee.) But in all seriousness, apparently dehydration is a common problem for the students when they go to Egypt in this program.
We then traveled via bus (although it might have been faster to walk since the traffic in Cairo is so bad) to the pyramids at Giza. My friends and I referred to it as "Geeez-eh" all day because that was what the narrator voice in the sound and lights show the night before had called it. Our tour guide, Emad, told us for the first time: "Habibis! Please prepare your headsets!" ... a phrase which 96% of us came to loathe by the end of Egypt. Habibi is an Arabic term for something similar to "beloved one," a term of endearment if you will, although few of us felt that Emad was in any way "endeared" with us. Not that he didn't try. The lack of respect (if my perception was correct) ended up being rather mutual. We quickly became frustrated with him for redundantly repeating himself over and over again unceasingly with much repetitiveness as he told the same story again and again using even the same words over and over... redundantly. I know that I felt that this was a waste of my precious time at all the sites when I could have been looking at things and being more productive. I'll talk more about that when I get to the Valley of the Kings.
As the bus approached the pyramids, a gasp arose from the bus. Even though we'd all seen the pyramids the night before at the sound and lights show, their ominous presence pervaded us on that early morning as they became more and more clear through the ... mist. [smog]. I could only imagine what an ancient traveller must've thought when he saw those towering figures in the distance. Many of us couldn't help ourselves from taking pictures through the bus windows, even though we knew we'd get some far more amazing shots within the hour. Before we got off the bus, Emad graciously warned us of the people who wandered the tourism sites trying to sell things. He told us to not make eye contact and that if we showed any interest at all they would not leave us alone, and would waste much of our time at the sites. All of us tried our best, but several of us (including me) were cornered by individuals who wanted money to have our pictures taken with a real Egyptian at the pyramids. I found that the quickest way to dispel these peddlers was to simply tell them the truth. That I didn't have any money with me. (I had left it all on the bus). I only had to leave two or three disgruntled Egyptians behind in before the word must've spread that the girl in the white pants and hat was broke. :)
The Pyramids! The Pyramids!!! They are truly magnificent! Anything I could say to describe them would be a cliche. First of all, they are massive!

Truly an engineering feat beyond anything I would've thought capable. Even if we had made them today with all our modern technology I would've been utterly astounded. If nothing else, they are surely a monument to the ingenuity, innovation and enterprise of mankind, and yet, I felt as I approached the great pyramid of Khufu, a reminder of our nothingness. I thought of how their vast presence was filled with hollowness. They are simply stone monuments, and while they have lasted thousands of years, they will not last through the eternities. The Egyptians were obsessed with obtaining eternal life, (and probably came the closest to their goals as anyone could have expected), however, mummies lay desecrated and the great pyramids once lined with beautiful white limestone could be destroyed far more easily than they were erected. Once I got over the initial shock of seeing the actual pyramids, the thought that struck me (surprisingly) was this: that these people didn't build these pyramids simply for some scam religion or superstition that they hoped would save them in the afterlife. The people of Egypt must have truly believed and had a deep and powerful commitment to their religion, probably similar to the one that I feel to mine. Human blood must've gone into erecting those monumental towers whose purpose was not only to allow its inhabiter a path into the next life--but also to frame him forever in this world. It served to me another stark and almost bleak reminder of how many things can seem to work out for us in this life, but will do little or nothing for us in the life to come.
Anyway, enough of my philosophizing, I'll tell you the touristy stuff! People are no longer allowed to climb the pyramids. This was a terrible tragedy to me, but once I got over being mildly devastated, I was quite pleased to simply be able to touch it. After I finished my "being in awe" stage, I ran full-force towards the pyramid of Khufu and put my fingers to stone that was laid there approximately 4500 years ago!

I took Brother Seely's advice to "touch everything...when they're not looking" for the whole trip. :D I love Brother Seely. He is our Ancient Near Eastern Studies teacher, and besides being overwhelmingly knowledgeable (like all the staff here) he is incredibly entertaining and adventurous. Oh and don't worry, I always sanitized after I touched anything. :). Anyways, we sat on the bottom few ledges where they will still let you climb, took pictures,



were harassed by salesmen, and managed to stay hydrated through the first hour of our day, despite the fact that each of us was already sweating in our middle-eastern/JC approved garb. Despite being hot, I'm grateful that I was clothed as modestly as I was. I definitely think it made a difference when it came to the Arab men, and I found that sunglasses do a great job of helping me keep from making unwanted eye-contact.
After the first pyramid, we piled onto the bus again to be carted off to the 2nd pyramid, the Pyramid of Khafre. This pyramid was slightly smaller than Khufu's, and belonged to his son. It didn't look too much smaller since the tippy-top of the other pyramid was dismantled [some number which I don't know] years back. Anyways, the tippy top of Khafre's pyramid still has some of the limestone which originally encased the ancient structures. (It's really cool-looking, and I can only imagine what it must've looked like with all of it!) Apparently after Egypt was conquered, the conquerers mined the ready-cut limestone to build their own buildings.
We got to go inside Khafre's pyramid! I was so excited, going inside a pyramid has been a dream of mine since at least fifth grade that I can remember. We all lined up with 2 girls between each boy (for security reasons) and slowly began to make our way down a small tunnel into the heart of the pyramid. It is Hot inside the pyramids. If you are expecting it to be cool because it is out of the sun, you are incredibly mistaken my friend. Perhaps it would be cooler without the body heat of thousands of tourists being emitted in it every day... but all I know is that I was sweating more profusely inside the pyramid than at any point in the sun on the Egypt trip. Not only is it hot, but as I stooped down to enter the pyramid, something assaulted my senses which can only be described as the reeking body odor of a hundred thousand tourists who have never heard of deodorant, or who purposely did not put any on the day they went to the pyramid of Khafre, simply to leave their own lasting mark on tourists who marveled at the pyramids. (Keep in mind, I am still thinking this whole business of going inside the pyramids is absolutely fabulous, and I wouldn't have traded it for anything :)). One thing that fascinated me about the tunnel that led to the tomb, was that ... well... that was it. A tunnel. There were no hieroglyphics on the walls, and there were a few break-off points that I'm sure were filled to the brim with all manner of precious metals and gems at one time... but it was a simple stone tunnel. It proceeded down from the entrance for a while, and then up for another while, so by the time we reached the burial chamber or tomb, we were truly in the heart of the pyramid. It opened up into a rather small room, probably a little smaller (narrower definitely) than the "New Room" in our bountiful house. It was shaped like a 3-d version of the shape I'd draw in 1st grade when I wanted to depict a "house". A rectangle with a triangle roof. As we exited the tunnel, we turned to the right and saw the outermost granite casing where the sarcophagus once was. Everything was empty and there were no decorations or hieroglyphics (again, astonishing to me). I did, however, stand inside the granite casing, but jumped out rather quickly because it felt eerie. :) Nevertheless it was fun. As fascinating as it was to be inside the pyramid, I can't say I wasn't happy to reach the "fresh" air of Cairo when I exited it. Again, we took more pictures, and a few of my friends and I decided to walk around the entire pyramid. So now I can say that I've walked around the pyramid of Khafre, and stick my tongue out at the rest of you and say "neener neener neener!!!" Although you all know that I would never do such a thing ;). heehee.
The third, and smallest of the 3 pyramids of Geeezeh, the Pyramid of Menkaure, was closed to tourists, so we got to see it from a distance at our next lookout point. I was disappointed for a while, but then it got really hot outside... so my disappointment at being inside an air conditioned bus rather than right next to the little baby pyramid in the torridity was slightly abated. We got some great shots of all three pyramids (and a good depiction of just how mucky-gucky the air is there) as well.


The sphinx, which we saw next, was also fantastic, although we didn't get to go too close to it. Many of the girls in my group got some good pictures of each other "kissing the sphinx."



It was pretty fun. After the sphinx, we hit the papyrus factory where I got a lovely papyrus depicting the 3 facsimiles of the Pearl of Great Price (how wonderful that they've learned to cater to the Mormons!) We then ate lunch (I had a wonderful "Lamb kabob") Then we hit Saccara and by that afternoon we were off to the airport to go to Luxor! Oh, metal detectors. Oh! And armed guards. OH! And Arabic words!
Ok, ASIDE TIME, before I forget: There are metal detectors EVERYWHERE in Egypt. You think I'm joking, but I'm not. They're like churches in Provo...possibly even more. *pauses for gasp.* I know. Crazy. Anyways, the funny thing about these metal detectors, is that, when in Egypt, you do as the Egyptians and simply walk through them without removing anything. And the Egyptian metal-detector-dudes sit there and watch you go through as the metal detector bleeps and blares its protest at your watches and belt buckles and cameras, and they don't even flinch. I honestly think you are more likely to be stopped if you are NOT wearing metal than if you are. :) It's fantastically humorous. Another part of this aside is the armed guards. Everywhere we went in Egypt we had, for our bus of 40, two armed guards that were like... not regular "security guards" but like... full-on CIA material, in suits, with the guns hidden, watching everything armed guards. All they needed were the ear-pieces. I wanted to get a picture with them, but I was nervous to at first and by the end I had forgotten. Blast!!! According to one of our travel agents, Sharif, we receive all this special treatment because we're Americans. When we all gave him rather baffled looks, he looked at us like we were crazy for not immediately understanding what he was talking about. We are Americans. We are the elite of the world, apparently. We have everything at our fingertips, and so we get "special treatment" in Egypt (at least at the security checkpoints that our busses had to go through when crossing the Sinai). This was mind-boggling to me. I still have a hard time with that concept because I feel like people are people no matter which nationality or how wealthy or poor they are, and should all be treated equally. However, maybe I am only willing to say that because I've been incredibly blessed and only lived on the high-class side of things when it comes to the world. Anyways, that was probably the first eye-opening experience where I had a brush with true poverty--where I was faced dramatically with the reality of what money means in a world where it is scarce by comparison.
This is probably the longest blog ever in the history of Chelsey, so I think I'm going to cut it off there for the night. I don't want to overwhelm all of you with my novel of Egypt tonight. I can't believe that only covered one day! I will have to finish Luxor, Arabic and the rest of Cairo and the train and everything when I get time again! Now I also have to add Hezekiah's tunnel, and the terror that was my day of finals (today), and possibly even Jordan if I get that backed up! We leave for Jordan on my birthday, so I won't be able to call home, but know that I love and miss you all!
Anyways, Jeff, it was fantastic to hear about EFY, Kim and Kristen, I hope school and/or work is going well, Mom and Roger, keep watering those tomatoes ;), I'm sorry about waterskiing, but maybe that will teach you all to try to go without me! mwahaha. Dad and Melyn, I hope you're not wearing yourselves out too much with all the traveling and missing me that you are doing ;). Hehe. FABULOUS NEWS!!!: I got 2 letters and a post card from Michael!!!!!!!! *squeal* :D :D :D and I also got a card from Mom. Thank you so much everyone! hehe. I love you all so much, and thank you for those of you who powered through this gigantic blog! I appreciate it, and I'll try to simplify the next ones and omit needless words. :)
With all my love, I miss you all!
~Chelsey

Traveling to Egypt- part 1

Ok, so now I'm going to tell all of you all about my trip to Egypt, and hopefully it will be preserved forever so I don't forget it :). I can't think of any clever way to start it other than... we had to wake up REALLY early the day we left. Breakfast was yummy, I had French toast as usual. We picked up our sack lunches and went out to the buses. We were all very tired and groggy, but we pulled away from the center in record time (this soon became a habit with our group, apparently the 2008 summer term group is one of the most prompt and efficient groups they've had in a long time). So the day we left Jerusalem we went on several field trip stops. We traveled through the "Negev" which in Hebrew means "dry." And it is very, very, very dry. It was very hot and we were all very tired. We went to a tel at Ber Sheba (a "tel" is a city that is built on a whole bunch of other old cities that had been destroyed previously and it is now like a big plateau. Archaeologists love them for some reason. Brother Seely can't seem to get enough, haha). Anyways, so we went to that tel, and it was pretty cool. It had a neat little water system with nice and cool caves inside... we also went to a lookout point for the wilderness of Zin (actually spelled with an "S" according to Brother Draper, but we had to memorize it for our maps and it was spelled with a Z so I'm just going to spell it that way cause that's how I'm used to spelling it) which was where the Israelites camped for about 38 years after escaping from Egypt. If I tell about all the places we went on our way down though, I'll never get through it. Let's just say it was hot and dry and we saw a lot of biblical and important places... and it was hot. The heat increased exponentially (hope you liked that kim ;)) throughout the day as we headed farther south and the sun rose higher into the sky. I wish had time to write more beautifully or descriptively, but unfortunately, I don't have time and I wouldn't get it all in. If I was getting paid per word, however, I could be a very wealthy woman. ANYWAY... we eventually made it to a Kibbutz. A Kibbutz (pronounced "Kih-boots") is a ... well... I'm too tired to think of a better word than "communist"... although they're like the nicest people ever... zionist? socialist? Anyways, they share everything. Everybody works hard and gets paid the same. It takes a long time and it's really hard to become a member of the Kibbutz, there are tough requirements. The ones we were at ranged from between 150-400 members if I remember correctly. The Kibbutz where we had dinner was really fun, we had a tour of a milk factory and saw their date farms and they taught us some songs and we had dinner, and then we had another dance party to Jewish music using the styles and techniques that were shown to us by our Jewish brothers and sisters at the Western wall, and it was hilarious. The lady said that the building we were in had never seen such partying. It was fantastic and tons of fun. Anybody who has never had a serious dance party to Jewish chanting and singing is totally missing out. After dinner there, both groups (Draper and Ostler) left to different Kibbutzim (plural of Kibbutz) for the night. All 80 of us at one would've probably overwhelmed just one, so we separated. Our Kibbutz ended up being way better though, because they kept the pool open for us until 10:15 so about 20 of us got in some serious pool playing time, in which we played a game called "prisoner" which was very much like pool dodge-ball, but with some tweaks. It was SO fun. I loved being in the pool at the kibbutz, mostly because I wasn't afraid to open my eyes there like I was when we were in Egypt--but I'll get to that later. So we spent the night at the Kibbutz, and Jenni and Katie and I were roommates, which was a blast. Although we're all always so tired by the time we go to bed that it leaves no time for any kind of slumber party/ sleepover discussions...but it was still fun anyway. The next morning, we ate breakfast at the kibbutz and picked up our sack lunches for after the border crossing. The border crossing went fine, but it took a really long time. My roommate Caryn got held up there though because she's from South Africa and they were suspicious because the rest of us were from the United States... although Mark's passport is Japanese, so I don't know why that worked out, but anyways, moving on... then we had a really really really long bus ride to Cairo, and I had my first ever view of the Pyramids at Giza. We drove past them and then got all checked into our hotel and had dinner and then we went to a really cheesy but cute sound and lights show at the pyramids with lasers and lights and it told the history of Egypt. It was really cute, and I liked it a lot. I got some good pictures of it to share when I get home. :D Anyways, I spent way too long writing this and now I have to go finish homework and get to bed, so I'll be sure to write more as soon as I have time and tell you more about Egypt! I love you all, goodnight!!!!

SO MUCH TO SAY! so little time to say it!

First of all, there are no words. I don't think I'll be able to catch everything up in just a short while, so it may end up taking several blog posts to describe everything that has happened since the fourth of July. :) So, I updated right before dinner on that shabbat when we went to the Western wall. That was such an incredible experience!!! Let me just say, I really with that Mormons would get as excited about the sabbath as Jews ;). I learned a true lesson in appreciation for having a day of rest from the Lord, a day when we can worship him and be free to do nothing but simply think about all our blessings and everything the Lord has done for us and be grateful and happy to be alive and be able to worship Him. We walked down into the Old city of Jerusalem in our groups (Draper and Ostler) in the late late afternoon, just before sunset. I always love walking through the old city with Brother Draper (My religion teacher), cause he's brilliant and loves to answer all my questions (there are a lot) and I think he thinks I'm kinda funny because I'll just ask anything that I'm wondering about and I'm always delighted with his lengthy and articulate answers. I love Brother Draper! He's fantastic. Anyways, so we walked down to the Western Wall to welcome in Shabbat. We couldn't take our cameras or JC (Jerusalem Center)-issued-cell-phones because the Jewish law states that no work shall be done on the Sabbath and so since they used to count like, lighting candles and stuff, they think the use of electricity falls under that law (unless it is already in use before the sun goes down... it's kind of confusing, I'll ask Brother Draper to clarify it a little bit better for me next time I remember to ask him.) Anyways, so I don't have any pictures from the Western Wall, but it was kind of nice to not have to worry about it so I could just enjoy the experience. Shabbat was a good idea. :) The wall is separated on Shabbat, so the men go on one side and the women go on the other side (I noticed slightly begrudgingly that the women's side was much smaller... but I got over it, haha). I walked up to the wall and was (miraculously) able to find a little nook to stick a tiny little prayer into. I felt a little bad taking up the space next to the wall for a few seconds because I'm not Jewish, but then I figured it was okay because part of my prayer prayed for peace in the middle east... (highly original, I know). When my friends and I were done with our time right next to the wall, we followed the custom of backing away from it while facing it (apparently you're not supposed to turn your back to the wall). It was fun until I wasn't sure how far the rule applied and I felt bad turning my back to it 100 feet away... haha. Anyways, it was cool to be over there with all the Jewish women. They worship in a really interesting way. They are always moving when they worship--rocking back and forth or singing little songs. And then the young girls, (about Young Womens age) were WAY fun. They all dance in big circles and link arms and sing songs in Hebrew. We watched for a little while until a few of us brave souls decided to see if we could join in, and we were welcomed quite graciously! Eventually, most of the girls from the JC were dancing in a big circle with all these Jewish girls, and it was so fun! Something that Kim is definitely right about is that Jews know how to party, no question about it. After singing and dancing for a little while, my friend Jenni and I decided to go see what was going on with some bookshelves that they had set up. We grabbed a couple of copies of the Torah, and after asking my other friend Janelle if it was right side up, we tried to recognize any symbols that we had learned in class (unfortunately we didn't but it was still fun to be reading a Torah... even if it was pretending to read.) I felt a lot like the pirate in the 2nd pirates of the caribbean when he was sitting in the dingy boat pretending to read the Bible, and his buddy said to him, "You know you can't read! What are you doing?" and the pirate says "It's the bible, you get credit for trying!" and then the other pirate says "Pretending to read the bible is a crime against... *points upwards*!" Anyways, sorry about that tangent. So we looked at the Torah a little before going back behind the barriers (where they separated men and women) to watch all of our guy friends dancing around wearing their little kippahs/yarmulkas (they had to wear them to be respectful, although some decided to wear cowboy hats that they had purchased earlier in the week. I personally would've chosen to wear a kippah, but that's just me. :) ). Anyways, we walked back to the center feeling quite happy. On our way back to the center, a few of us were singing some fun fourth of July songs, (as many of you know it is my favorite holiday, so I was one of them for sure... perhaps even started it, I don't know.) And THEN!!!!! Some Muslims in the Holy Land decided to get married, and there were FIREWORKS!!!!!!!!!!! It was a miracle and I was utterly ecstatic (as many of you could probably imagine me jumping up and down with excitement.) It seemed like Muslims were getting married all night long because there were sporadic fireworks throughout the evening. After we got back to the center, me and a few of my friends decided to go outside and play with my glow-sticks. It was really fun, and my friend Nathanael got the bright idea to have one person toss them in the air while the rest of the group laid on the lawn looking up at the sky, so we all took turns doing that for a while, which was hilarious and seemed surprisingly like fireworks. Then we organized a game of capture the flag on the center grounds, which turned out to be really fun (despite the fact that I spent most of the time in Jail with my friends Paul and Jon, talking to Kate and Caroline who were our guards). My friend Jenni said it was probably her favoirte fourth of July ever, and I think I'd have to agree that even without the traditional steak and watermelon and corn on the cob and fireworks and mosquitoes, that it was really cool. I have to go eat lunch now, but i'll be back later to write more about our trip down to the Kibbutz and Egypt! But for my 4th of July I was quite happy. :D Bye!

Independence Day in the Holy Land

Well, the past few days have been extremely busy and amazing. Every day is practically amazing here. They're all completely full of activities, I never have any time to simply sit and think. I wish I did have a little time when I could just do that, because sometimes I feel like I am so busy with other things I forget to stop and marvel at the fact that I am in the Holy Land, or take the time to sit and comprehend feelings that I have about being here. I don't even have time to do that right now because I only have a few minutes in which to write this email before I have to go to dinner... but it's all good. I wish I could describe everything, but I'm certain that I will leave out important stories or forget to tell you all something that I keep meaning to say.

Tonight we are celebrating the fourth of July by going down to the Wailing/Western Wall to welcome in Shabbat. I'm sad there will be no fireworks, (I made sure to bring some red, white and blue glow-sticks for my own personal celebration tonight, but it just won't be the same...) but at the same time I can't think of a better way to spend my favorite holiday.

I'm sure many of you heard about the tractor/bus incident down at Jaffa Gate a few days ago, fortunately we were all safe because we were far away down in the Shephelah, on an all-day field trip, slinging stones in the Elah valley where David slew Goliath, testing our bodies in the humid heat and scorching sun to see just how much we can prespire, and climbing through some incredible caves. I feel like I'm name-dropping... maybe I am "place-dropping," haha. Oh well. All of you should be jealous, so there :P. hehe. Anyways, I think i'll go into some more detail about our field trip on Wednesday.

So our field trip consisted of traveling all around the region of Israel known as "the Shephelah." In Hebrew, the word "Shephelah" means "Low lands," and it served as a buffer zone between the Israelites and the Philistines back in the day. We saw the valley of Gath, where Goliath lived, we learned about where Solomon grew up, and what I think was the coolest was that we saw the very field where the battle between David and Goliath took place. My favorite part of the field trip, however (this may sound biblically shallow of me) but it was all the caves that we got to explore. We all knew that we were in for a treat when we received an email a couple of days before telling the girls to wear pants and not skirts and to make sure that we all brought our "torches" (that's what they call flashlights here). We went in all kinds of underground establishments, such as tombs and caves and tunnels and tiny little nooks and crannies whithin which to explore and uncomfortably smoosh ourselves in order to take pictures. It was phenominally cool!

We went into at least 2 sets of caves and several other tomb-like structures, and a cave where they used to house doves... I can't quite remember why at the moment but it'll come to me as soon as this is over.

Anyways, I don't think I can write much more because it's dinner time and I have so much homework to do, but today we had a quiz and a midterm and let me tell you, school over here is HARD! but I'm loving it still. Anyways, I gotta go, but i'll write again soon. Probably not until after Egypt though! EGYPT!! Jeff, i hope you had fun at EFY, you'll have to email me about it. I love you all so much! thanks!

Hooray!

Today was a glorious victory for the students at the Jerusalem Center! They changed the blocking settings so that we are able to get on Route Y (they BYU website) and blogspot. :D (*cheer*). Although, I still had quite a bit of difficulty navigating my way to the point where I could actually write this because everything on this is in Hebrew. I'm quite proud of myself, although now I think I may have more empathy for those who are illiterate.Thank you so much, Kristen, for your help in updating for me while I was unable to!

Anyways, it is now 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday night here in the Holy Land. I spent a wonderfully boring day yesterday studying furiously trying to catch up on all the stuff that I missed. Today we had three 2-hour classes, it was really intense. It was a good thing I did so much homework yesterday, i never seem to be able to catch up. The schoolwork load here is insane on top of all the field trips, plus all the time we want to spend in the city (this is, after all, a once-in-a-lifetime chance) or socialize. Socializing is way fun considering all the people here are awesome. I've decided it's really hard to study in a foreign country when there is so much other stuff I'd rather do that is still highly productive!

Nevertheless, yesterday was spent indoors studying with hardly any fun at all except when a few of us decided to venture out to a palestinian store located just down the street from the center to buy some ice cream. I happened upon a "hazlenut" kit-kat bar and tried a rather delectable cherry ice cream creamsicle covered in chocolate. Mmmm. I am starting to see how people could gain weight on the study abroad program here. We are fed regular, huge, "as much as you can eat" meals here 2-3 times a day, and have plentiful opportunities to acquire candy and snacks in between. We do exercise and sweat a lot though. Man do we sweat. Especially me. I don't think i've ever known a girl who sweats as much as I do!

Oh, and by the way, just to clear things up, it looks like my Palestinian teacher, Dr. Adnan Musallam, is NOT in fact Muslim, but is a Christian, who just happens to be an expert on Islam, particularly radical Islam. His class is very interesting, and I like him a lot. Brother Draper and Brother Seely are my favorite though. I had all three of their classes today. I'd love to update more, but I have a field trip early tomorrow morning and I was distracted by people in the computer lab while I was trying to write this and took a lot longer than I meant to. Tomorrow we are going on our field trip to Shephaela, which will be incredible. :) I'll update soon! I love you all so much and I'll talk to you soon! Be good. :) <3

Love,
Chelsey

Blog Update

Well hello from the Holy Land everyone! Shalom! I, fortunately, have an incredible sister who is willing to post all the emails I send her on the blog so that all of you can see them, even though I can't update it myself. The security on these computers is really tight, they have blocked a lot of sites. I was honestly quite surprised to find that facebook was blocked, considering I had seen previous students get on it during even the spring semester! But that's okay. I don't really mind because I'll spend a lot more time getting to know new people rather than trying to stay connected to people i've known already for a while. Ok, so I'm looking at this keyboard and it's ridiculously cool because it has Hebrew letters on the keys as well as English. :D! I can't figure out how to get it to type that though...

Anyways, today is sunday for all of you. You will all have to go to church and stuff and I get to have my MNE 2 class which is taught by a Muslim Palistinian guy... I can't remember his name. Please excuse the way I introduced him, it wasn't meant to be rude or disrespectful or anything. So after class today I am planning on going with a bunch of people to the Old city to explore and do fun stuff. I'm going to get my money changed to sheckles (hooray!) and buy some more skirts to wear in Egypt, because it turns out, as much as I hate skirts, they tend to be much cooler than pants. Go figure. ;) haha. And in 120 degree heat, that is very important.

Yesterday I went to a fireside given by a teacher at UVU named Blair Vandyke. He was AMAZING, and totally reminded me of the character of Wilson on the TV show House. Sorry Kristen, he is married and has 7 kids ;). I thought of you though before I found out he was married. Actually, he married the girl he sat next to on the plane coming to the Jerusalem center when he came here! Freaky, haha. It was a cute story. Anyways, he told us all about 7 particular places in the Holy Land that have particular significance to LDS history, many of these were places where the Holy Land has been dedicated. It's been dedicated a total of 11 times! Wow. It must really be an important place. We had the firieside in the incredible auditorium where they hold concerts with the gorgeous organ and huge windows facing west towards the city. I had a hard time paying attention becasue I kept getting distracted by the sunset reflecting off the gold roof of the Dome of the Rock... (maybe that spelling is inacurate, I'll figure it out eventually though).

Everything here is amazing! I was glad I finally got to talk to mom on the phone last night, Mom, I hope you and Roger had fun at the Cabin and didn't get eaten by bears. Jeff, I hope mom told you about why I think about you all the time here. If not, write me an email and I'll respond to you with a personal one telling you all about it. I'll respond to you either way if you write me an email, but you particularly would LOVE it here. Dad, you'd better start saving up your money so that Jeff can come too! :) I will be so jealous. Oh Jeff, also, i told Katy Seely that you said hi, and she told me to say hi back. She's adorable.

So yesterday we ("The Chicago 20" as we have been so fondly dubbed [excuse the split infinitive, the other way sounded too weird to me]) went on our "orientation tour" of the Old city. Dr. Seely took my group of 10 and Dr. Draper took the other group. Dr. Seely was so amazing and funny, and I loved being with him. He kept taking us places and showing us things by saying "Now, I really shouldn't be doing this, but..." It was great. Even though it was Shabbat, I got to try my very first Fallafel! (I have no idea how to spell that). It was SO good, and kind of unexpected. When I first heard the word "fallafel" I thought it would be something sweet, or desserty, kind of like a "waffle". I was surprised when it ended up being something totally different, but still quite tasty. It's hard to explain kind of. They take a pita bread thing and slice it open, and then proceed to shove into it all kinds of vegitables, plus some squished up beans or something that have been squished into balls and deep-fried and then they shove a bunch of french fries and on top of it all they put some kind of sauce or something (i think maybe hummice? again, another word i can't spell). We even got to go inside the church of the Holy Sepulcher, which was amazing, and the bells were ringing and we even saw a procession of priests that Dr. Seely thought were Greek Orthadox, and one of them was oh his cell phone and it was funny. It's fun to have such close proximity to people who know so much about the Holy Land and you can just ask them anything and they'll tell you!

The culture here is so different from anything in the United States. It's really hard to try to break the habbit of looking people in the eye, when i've been taught to do it for so long. And the men here have no qualms about looking at women, long and hard. It is very creepy. Especially the teenage boys. They just stare at you and I think a lot of the times they stare right at your eyes hoping that you'll make eye contact with them so that they can have an excuse to do something. It's pretty scary, but i'm glad that we go everywhere in groups and the guys are so nice and willing to go with us and i'm sure they'd protect us if they needed to. Anyways, I'd best be off cause I have class in a little while, but the rest of my day will be pretty full and exciting! I miss and love you all and hope everything is going well on your side of the world! I love you!!! I'll try to update again soon. :)