Once Upon a Time in Egypt

Our trip started early Sunday morning. We ate a quick breakfast, loaded up our luggage, and set off for Egypt! There are 81 students in the program here, so half went in each bus. We were all really excited! It would have been a very long bus ride if it weren’t for a ll the pit stops along the way. We went to places like Beersheba and Avdat. Most of the sites had ruins that we go to explore. It really cool how similar religious architecture is across religions! But I’ll talk more about that later when I get to my description of the Karnak and Luxor temples!
One of my favorite stops was late rin the evening when we stopped at a Kibbutz. A Kibbutz is an Israeli communal society. They started as part of the settlement movement with the idea to create independent settlements where everyone works for the sake of the group. In fact, at most of them, the children would live together in a building separate from their parents. This is no longer the case in most Kibbutzes, but there still is a larger emphasis on the community than the family. Kibbutzes are also widely known for the technology they have developed for agriculture. Water is a very precious resource here, and most Kibbutzes have learned how to make every drop count!
So, with that in mind, we were able to tour a Kibbutz. It was really cool to see what crops they grow and how they set up their system. I think the most interesting part was when we had a question and answer session with our tour guide. He discussed some of the problems facing the kibbutz, and how many Kibbutz are becoming privatized. It was also very interesting to hear how extreme the selection process is to join a kibbutz. Overall, it seemed like the Kibbutz system is not as successful as it use to be when Israel was first being founded. These places were sort of set –up like a Utopian society with a lot of Marxist undertones in these communities, but they have been more successful with this ideology than most countries because of how localized the system is. It was really thought provoking, and dinner that night was great as we discussed the ideas behind such a community.
After dinner and our tour of the kibbutz, we drove to another Kibbutz where we stayed the night. It was only around 8 o’clock when we arrived, so we started playing games as a group. We played missionary tag, spin and tackle, big booty, the knot game, etc. We else started warming up our human pyramid building skills so that we could build a really tall one in front of the Pyramids!
The next morning it was back on the bus! We saw the Red Sea (And across it we saw Jordan and Saudi Arabia! In fact at one point we could see four different countries!) After the crossing it was back on the bus! We had some lovely pit stops, involving the most disgusting restrooms I’ve ever seen, but we laughed it off, used lots of hand-sanitizer, and got back on the bus! I do have to say the bus rides were hilarious! I was sitting in the back of the bus, and we had a good time! When we weren’t sleeping, we were playing ridiculous games. The best was where we picked random paragraphs from our fieldtrip manual and read them in different voices, like drill sergeant, Latin soap-opera, etc. We laughed so hard, that the back of the bus was quickly labeled as the party zone!
So anyways, after a long drive, we finally arrived in Egypt! The interstate was madness. People ignore the lanes, will go backwords if necessary, and we even passed some donkey-pulled carts! The madness was exciting, and helped set the mood for our first view of the pyramids! When we saw them a collective sigh went through the bus. Deep down we were all afraid that we had set our expectations to high, and that they wouldn’t be a great as we hoped. Well, they completely exceeded our expectations!
We then checked into our hotel (it was a five-star hotel! We really stayed in some nice hotels in Egypt!) After dinner, it was off to the pyramid sound and light show! It was kind of a corny show, but that was ok because it was on the pyramids! Afterwards it was back to the hotel. We played a couple more games, and then off to bed! The next day we were going to the PYRAMIDS!
Ok, so I intended to eventually come back and update what all I did in Egypt, and I still might, one day. But for now, I’ll just go through my favorite parts so I can start posting more regularly about life in Jerusalem!

It was really exciting to see the pyramids. We took a ton of funny pictures, and we actually got to go inside one of them! It was so hot and humid inside that the moment you stepped in you were immediately drenched in sweat! It was really claustrophobic inside, and I almost turned around a couple times, but I’m glad I didn’t because it was cool to get to where they found the sarcophagus! I still can’t believe how many tons of weight was on top of me! It really is amazing!
That night we flew to Luxor. I love Luxor; it is one of the best cities in the world! While we were there we got to go to the Valley of the Kings and several ancient Egyptian temples. The temple at Karnak was my favorite. It took a while to take in every view inside it. First, you notice the beautiful architecture, like the colonnade palisade, the columns in and of themselves were huge and beautiful, but if you stop for a moment and look at the hieroglyphics you realize how much more there is to each column. I can’t really describe it, I’ll have to show you pictures when I get back.
Another really exciting part about Luxor was our Faluka and camel rides! A Faluka is a boat. We took one down the Nile. I’ll always remember watching the sun set as I glided down the Nile on a little boat! After we sailed around a while and crossed the river, we took a camel ride through a local community. It was cool to get off the beaten tourist path and really see Egypt! I loved seeing all the little children, and I think they liked seeing us to. Parents would go into their house, come out with their children and point us out. It was really cute. It really showed how you can be happy no matter what sort of conditions you live in. It was also really cool to see the preparations to break the Ramadan feast. We weren’t able to go out in the Palestinian areas during Ramadan to see the celebrations, so it was really cool to see them in Egypt.

Oh, there’s so much more to say about our train ride, and additional days in Cairo, haggling at a bazaar, being offered half of Luxor to marry someone, and our hike to Mt. Sinai. Plus since we’ve gotten back we’ve celebrated a ton of Jewish Holidays, survived midterms, cleaned up the streets with local Palestinian children, welcomed in the Shabbat at the Western Wall, done Israeli folk dancing at a local synagogue, and I was even engaged for a couple days… I guess that is just a glance of what is to come. I‘ll try to get to a semi-caught up point. Oh, and next week we go to Jordan! So, I’ll have more stories to tell then! So, till next time! Shalom, Shalom Kol tuv!