Only 7 days until I’m back in the States! In honor of the occasion, I’m making a list of all the things I miss back home:
Day 1
Spain, our last port, and a great way to end this amazing trip! We got in at 8am as usual and cleared the ship by 8:30am, which was pretty great! So Laura and I got off the ship in Cadiz to see what we could see. Our first stop was to a bank at the bus stop, to take our way too much money in Euros. The exchange rate here is a killer. Currently it’s a bout USD $1.50 = 1 Euro.
Ouch! We wandered around the little windy streets of Cadiz for the rest of the day. It reminded me a lot of Dubrovnik, with the paved roadways and little shops, it’s very European. The cathedral plaza was my favorite part, because it was just so pretty! The alleys opened up to this nice sunny plaza with a huge Catholic church on the left-hand side.
After lunch, Laura, Becky, and Jen all took off for Barcelona and I worked on homework for the rest of the afternoon in attempts to get ahead before I took off too.
Day 2
Jeff and I hung out in the morning, me doing homework and him doing I don’t know what. Then we took the train to Jarez to catch a plane to Barcelona. It was so exciting! It was my first flight that I booked myself and I’m so proud that it all worked out. We then met up with Caitlin and Chris to find out hostel. It was in a great location, right down town, about 2 blocks off Las Rambles, the main drag down by the waterfront. We had a lot of nice people staying with us from all over, London, Ireland, Australia, Brazil, Japan, it was really cool! After we’d checked in and dropped off our bags, we headed down to the football stadium to watch the game.
For th
ose not familiar, football (soccer) is the biggest sport in Europe, in pretty much the rest of the world. So when the opportunity came up for us to go to the FC Barcelona game, we jumped at it. Unfortunately, our plane was delayed so we didn’t get to the stadium until after halftime. We tried to get in, but they’d stopped selling tickets by the time got there. The security guard however, told us to come back during the last 15 minutes and maybe we could get in while other people were leaving. SO we went down to a pub nearby and watched the game there with all the locals. That was fun too. Barcelona scored 2 goals while we were there and got into a pretty big fight as well.
We went back to the stadium towards the end and got in while people were starting to leave. It was so cool to be there, and to see the players wayyyyy down on the field below us because the stadium was huge! And the best part was, FC Barcelona won! 3-0!
Afterwards we found a pizza place nearby so we wouldn’t have to brave the metro crowds too much to get to dinner. It was pretty good, and the sangria was good too!
Day 3
We woke up on the third day at our hostel around 9am. Jeff and I decided to go see the sights so we left and headed up to see Sagrada Familia. It’s this enormous church in Barcelona which was started by Gaudi in 1882. It’s still under construction and it’s been over 100 years! The outside of it is fantastic! I couldn’t stop staring. One one side of the church, the exterior was decorated with statues of the holy family and the annunciation and birth stories. The statues were beautiful. On the opposite side of the church were statues of the Stations of the Cross. Absolutely beautiful. I took lots and lots of pictures before we even went inside.
The inside of the church was wonderful too, the ceilings were vaulted up at least 3 stories,
maybe more and the stained glass windows were wonderful as well. They were still building inside, so we could only walk around the edges of the interior, but it was so worth it. After viewing the church, we went down into the museum underneath that had drawings and scale models and explained how the building was conceptualized and built, including biographies and work of all the architects that have worked on the church.
After seeing Sagrada Familia, we walked up Gaudi Avenue past all the little coffee shops up to a hospital. Its grounds were open to the public so we strolled around there and admired the architecture and thought about picking oranges off the trees. It was very tempting, but I don’t think they were ripe yet. Then we caught the metro into the middle of town for lunch. We ran into some other SASers that recommended a place to us so we went to eat at Sandwich & Friends. Good food.
Afterwards we strolled around until I found a Starbucks, which of course we had to stop at, and while there decided to go to the Art Museum based off of a drawing of it on Jeff’s new shot glass. It was a steep climb from the 
metro station, but the building was sooo pretty and the view from the top of the hill overlooking Barcelona was great.
Next we walked around the art museum and found the Olympic complex, purely by accident. There was a dirt bike show or something going on in one of the stadiums, but that didn’t stop us from really enjoying the view and hanging out with some other SAS kids that had found there way up there.
We went back to the hostel after that and hung out with the other people staying there. I had a great conversation with some of the girls there about all the different places we’d been and the comparisons and contrasts between them and where we were from. It was so interesting to talk to other people who had traveled and had some of the same experiences I’d had. I hope I can find that again when I get home.
We went out for a late dinner that night and walked Las Rambles for a bit to see all the funny street performers and got really lost until we finally found out way home and then turned in for the evening with Chris and Caitlin.
Day 4
Woke up around 9 again to the sound of Jeff’s cell phone ringing when Laura called to set up a meeting point. So we met her down at the Christopher Columbus statue at the end of Las Rambles and wandered down to the harbor to waste time before our flight back to Cadiz. It was really pretty down by the water and we found a nice little sandwich place again for lunch while we passed the time.
The flight back was nice, we made it just in time to board along with about 20 other SAS kids, it really threw off some of the locals traveling with us that we’d all just show up at the airport separately and strike up conversations with raondom people. I think that’s what I’m going to miss the most about Semester at Sea. You can walk up to anyone in the street or talk to anyone on a plane or in a restaurant and know that they’re going to give you good advice or help you with directions or talk about what they did last night. No where else will you get this kind of easy friendship with 700 other people that were complete strangers less than 3 months ago. We’re all here to look out for each other.
Day 5
Laura and I hung out in the morning working on FDP papers for class before lunch, and then afterwards hit the streets of Cadiz once more. Our first mission was to find a post office. Finding things in Spain are somewhat difficult because most people here don’t speak English, and I mean no English. SO when you ask for help you usually have to know at least a few words of Spanish and every time I had to talk to someone in Spain I blessed my 7th grade Spanish teacher and Jill for using Spanish around the house the past few years. The few phrases I seemed to have retained were very useful this week. Anyways, we found the post office and then got ourselves lost in the twisty little alleys of Cadiz and somehow ended up at the other side of the peninsula by accident. It took us a while to find out way back, but luckily we had a map and figured that we’d get back eventually if we just followed along the water.
Later, I took my computer out to the Cathedral plaza, which had free WiFi. It probably looked really funny to people, seeing all these college kids camped out around the cathedral with their laptops in the middle of the day trying to send emails home and such. But I got my Croatia pictures loaded onto my blog (enjoy) and sent some notes around to various important people, as well as got to check my school information for the first time in weeks!
Dear Family and Friends,
Happy Thanksgiving! Tomorrow I’ll be in Spain, but today is another day on the seas of the Mediterranean. I’ve had 2 classes already today (I know, on Thanksgiving!) and I don’t think my dinner will be the traditional family style because my parents had to get off early in Spain yesterday because Jake injured himself falling down the stairs. Also, we’ll be having a lifeboat drill right at dinnertime, so it might take awhile for everyone to get food tonight. Sooo….. this is going to be an untraditional thanksgiving.
But I just wanted to let you all know how thankful I am to have all of you. This voyage has been a real adventure for me, but I never would have had the guts to come if many of you hadn’t encouraged me and pushed me to do it. I really appreciate all of that. I also am thankful for how much help you’ve been to me while I’m away, sending me letters from home, fixing my money crisis, just letting me know that you still care and that I’m missed a lot. You can’t imagine how that makes me feel.
There are only 15 days left in this trip, and while I can’t wait to see Spain and experience Europe, I can’t wait to come home, sleep in my own bed, and tell you all all the wonderful things I’ve seen and learned so that I can share this all with you.
I hope you all have a wonderful thanksgiving and enjoy the turkey!
Love, Kara
On the 4th day in Dubrovnik, Brian and I climbed Mt. Srd. It rises majestically behind the Old Town with a big cross at the top that’s lit up at night. Brian had heard there was a trail there, so we took the bus down to Old Town and started looking for it.
Since we started wayyy down at the bottom we just started walking upwards, through the rows 
and levels of houses. When we finally reached the highway, we were surprised to see the trail waiting for us right there. It seemed way to easy.
The trail was really nice and easy to follow. It had been paved with stones at one point and while it wasn’t flat, it was sturdy. The whole trail switch backed up the mountain, past the tree line and out into the open on the side of the mountain.
Once we’d passed the tree line, I was surprised to see the trail was dotted by crosses, spaced out
every few levels of the trail as it rose. After a passing a few of these, we realized they were markers for the Stations of the Cross, there being 14 crosses in all. Of course then I tried to remember them all, which I think I did a fairly good job of it, and explained their meanings to Brian since he’s not Catholic. It was pretty cool to see the trail though, and have some understanding of what it was for. I could totally understand why they put the trail on the side of the mountain too, hiking that mountain was hard work!
When we finally got to the top, it was totally worth it! The view was incredible, we could see the whole city of Dubrovnik, the beautiful ocean, nearby islands, and if we turned around Brian thought we could see Bosnia too! We could also see the big rain clouds coming our way from all directions! So we hid out up at the top in the old trolley station which had been bombed out during the Homeland War in the 1990s. It was kind of creepy being up there, a
nd sad too that the trolley didn’t work, because that would have been a really fun thing to do.
So today is my 4th day in Dubrovnik, Croatia. It’s a really pretty country, with its red tiled roofs and big rocky cliffs down to the water. It’s been a little chilly, but the biggest deterrent to going out has been the rain and the lack of activity because it’s the off-season for this touristy area.
Our first day in port, Jeff and I went on an FDP trip of a walking tour of Old Town Dubrovnik and visits to the maritime museum and the aquarium. Dubrovnik is a unique city because it
used to be it’s own city state, so the whole old town is walled in by these huge thick walls. Inside the walls is a really lovely little town. The roads are paved with limestone (slippery with all the rain) and no cars are allowed inside the gates so it’s nice for walking. The sides streets are narrow and criss-cross all over the place and you can find some really nice little gift shops and cafes back in there. The museum was interesting, however they kicked us out early because the desk ladies wanted to go home. So we wandered around the city in the rain with our tour guide for a couple of hours. Jeff and I stopped at a café afterwards that had AMAZING hot chocolate! It was so thick; it was making a skin across the top of the cup. MMMmmmm
On day 2, Laura, Becky, and I wen
t to Old Town to walk to city walls. It’s the can’t miss thing to do here, and I’m so glad we caught a really nice afternoon to do it. It takes about 1.5-2 hours to walk the walls, depending on how many times you stop to take pictures, but everyone stops every few feet to take pictures because the view is so breathtaking. On one side, you’re between the city and the ocean, and on the other side, you’re facing the city and the ocean together and it’s just beautiful. Along the way, we ran into Brian, Greg, and Kate who had discovered a niche in the wall to climb into, which we promptly did as well. It was so cool to be up a good 50ft off the ground and to make all the Japanese tourists wandering around confused as to how we got there! After we came down, we stopped by the gelato shop for some absolutely amazing gelato! I got a giant scoop of caramel for 7 kona, which is about $1.50. One thing I can’t complain about is the food here. Everything I’ve had so far has been great! We stopped at an Internet café for a while as well where I sent out a few emails and Becky got on Scype to talk to friends back home.
On day 3, it was raining in the morning so Laura and I just hung out up in the piano lounge. I wrote 2 FDP papers and we talked to the guys manning the bar for a few hours. After lunch Laura, Becky, Jen, Ian and I decided to see more of the city and the surrounding area, so we bought a bus ticket and got on the first bus that drove past our stop. We rode the 3 Bus all the way around the city and up the hill for a great view. It was also neat just to sit there and watch the Croatian people ride the bus and listen to them talk. After we got dropped off at Old Town, we went to Barracuda Pizzeria for some nice Italian pizza and then wandered the city for a bit. It started to rain again so Laura and I came back to the ship to dry off and relax where it was warm and dry and the food was already paid for. I started up my lists today, things I still have to do before finals, what to pack when I got back to the Hurst, and inventorying the souvenirs I’ve gotten and who will get what. People keep making fun of me, but I need to stay organized if I’m going to pull off this big switch in December.
This morning it’s raining again, has been since about 6am. So we’re just hanging out again, maybe we’ll go out after lunch. While Dubrovnik is a really nice little place, most of what you can do here involves walking so rain becomes a big deterrent from going outside. Also, since this is such a seasonal touristy area, almost everything is closed down for the season. The people here are very nice, and used to tourists coming and going so they’re pretty patient when we get lost or confused. The bus system has been really easy to use and it takes us right to where we want to go.
Dear Readers and specifically Mrs. Torso from whom this question was posed,
Turkey has been much in the U.S. news; at least that’s what I’ve heard. First there was the Armenian genocide thing, and now there are all the troubles with the PKK and how Turkey is reacting to the terrorism as well as the Iraq war. I have been asked if Turkey is a safe country, and the only way I feel I can answer that question is to explain a little bit about the country, at least from my experiences and what I’ve learned, and then address the question with this background information.
Turkey as a state grew out of the remnants of the Ottoman Empire after WWI. It’s people are fiercely nationalistic and take pride in the fact they they were never colonized by the West like many of their neighbors. They are an island of democracy in the region, and they are proud of that history.
The people of Turkey are a veritable melting pot of nationalities, much like the United States. There really is no ethnic Turk nationalitiy, it’s people are Persian, Arab, Greek, Italian, Serb, Russia, Kuris
h, and many others. They all identify as Turk though because that is where they live. Everyone I have met in the country is nice, helpful, and very accepting of other cultures. They are, as I stated, very nationalistic. The Turkish flag is proudly flown in front of most businesses, in busses, on cars, and off the balcony of many apartments. They also love Ataturk, the founder of modern day Turkey. There are pictures of him everywhere, much like the flag, and his likeness is on every denomination of currency. English is spoken pretty prevalently in big cities like Istanbul, and in many of the tourist destinations like Tory where I went, but in less traveled areas it’s harder to find an English speaker. But you can still figure out how to communicate pretty easily.
Religion is an interesting topic in Turkey. More than 90% of the country is Sunni Muslim, with populations of Christians, Jews, Orthodox, and Shitte Muslim living within the borders as well. Turkey is a secular nation, which means that religion plays absolutely no part in government, education, or justice in the country, a legacy of Ataturk’s reforms. The citizens of Turkey are proud of this secularism and are very tolerant of diverse religions, it’s not even an issue, no one asks about it. I would encourage everyone though to go and visit a mosque or 2 if they ever get to Turkey, the buildings are absolutely beautiful.
Currently, Turks aren’t fans of America. And when I say American, please read this as “American government and foreign policy.” They understand that there is a difference between the tourist visiting Istanbul and Condelezza Rice. They are frusterated because Turkey shares a border with Iraq, which has lately been the staging point for many PKK attacks on Turkish outposts and the United States hasn’t done anything to aid one of their major allies in the war. The Armenians genocide bill that was recently killed in Congress also caused some major upsets throughout the country, understandably.
Now, how safe is Turkey?
Turkey is probably one of the safest countries I’ve been to so far. I have felt really comfortable walking around, trying new foods, and talking to the people. Public transportation is cheap and easy to use, the people are extremely helpful and don’t mind answering questions or pointing you in the right direction.
If you travel to Istanbul, or other major cities, just use your head. Think of it like New York City. I wouldn’t recommend walking around alone until you’re comfortable with the city, and even then, don’t go out alone later in the evening. When you’re in a bar or something, watch your drink and make sure you try the local tea! It is considered proper to not show a lot of skin in this country, t-shirts and capris are probably acceptable; it was rather chilly in November so I spent my time in jeans and sweatshirts. Guys do have a tendency to harass foreign girls, especially in the markets, but most of it is just in good fun and if it makes you uncomfortable, just ignore it, they don’t follow you.
It’s always good, before going to a country, to check out the U.S. State department warnings, which can be found online. Those will tell you where there has been unrest and which areas of the country not to travel too. Obviously now would not be the time to travel down towards the Iraqi border. But there is so much more to see of the country, there’s no good reason to go down there anyways. Take Pepto Bismol, it’s better to prepare your stomach for foods its not used to rather than to be sick for a week afterwards.
If you have any other questions about the area, there’s so much I left out of this, only because I thought I was getting long winded about it. If there was any country I will definitely be back to on this trip, Turkey is it. I absolutely love it here and I feel like there is so much more to see and learn about this wonderful country. If Lauren needs a travel partner to Turkey next May, let me know!
We started our day off by a trip to the Starbucks near the ship. I got the most amazing carmel hot chocolate, which totally made up for the car splashing us when it went through a huge puddle on the road beforehand. We caught the metro down to the river to buy our tickets, only
to find out we’d gone to the wrong spot and had no time to correct the error before the last ferry pulled out. So instead we bought out tickets to take a ferry up the Bosphorus River round trip.
That was probably the best idea we’d had the entire time we were in Turkey. If any of you ever goes to Istanbul, take this boat ride! We traveled up the river stopping at little ports along the way in little picturesque towns hugging the coast and edging up the hills. The Turk
ish countryside is the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever seen, and it was so nice to just float along and get to see so much of it. We say lots of lovely houses and boats and passed some castle ruins and not a few mosques with minarets piercing the skyline.
When the boat got to it’s last stop on the route, a little town that I still don’t know the name of, and we got off and walked around. Becky had heard there was a castle ruin up at the top of the hill, so we made our way up the steep, steep hill on this blustery day to see what we could see.
It was totally worth it. The ruins were really cool, some old castle, I couldn’t even tell you how old it might have been. We had a lot of fun wandering around, and got some other American tourists to take our picture there. We kept commenting that it didn’t seem to fit into the Istanbul picture; Leah kept saying it felt Ireland up on the hill.
On the way down we ran into Rochelle and we all wandered into town for some food. We ended up eating pizza and kabobs, and the others had some baklava, but I passed.
We wandered around the little shops then, and Becky and Leah bought rings that were really cool. Then we caught the ferry back to Istanbul and got into town around 5:00pm. What a great way to see Turkey!
For my 2-4th days in Turkey, I signed up for a 3-day bus trip to see Gallipoli, Troy, Bursa, and Iznik. It was a really nice time, and I learned a lot about WWI and the history of Troy in it’s many stages, as well as how to make Iznik tiles!
Day 1
We left the ship at 8:30am on a packed coach bus to Gallipoli. We were supposed to have 2 busses, but enough kids dropped out of the trip that we could fit into one, although every seat was full though. The trip to Gallipoli was a 5-hour bus ride, but we went through some beautiful Turkish countryside to get to the ocean where town is situated. Gallipoli is known as th
e battlefield during WWI where the Allies (Britain, Australia, and New Zealand in this situation) were repulsed off Turkish soil after 9 months of trench fighting along the coast to control the Dardinelles. We visited several cemeteries of both sides of the fighting, as well as monuments and got to see some of the actual trenches left over from the war. Most of the trenches were less than 50 yards apart. They probably could have heard each other talking between the lulls in the fighting. The cemeteries were beautiful and peaceful, my favorite was right along the seashore with a view over the bay.
We left from Gallipoli to cross the Dardinelles by ferry around 5pm. That was probably the coolest ferry ride I’ll ever take, because as we crossed the strait, we also crossed from Europe to Asia!
That night we stayed in a nice hotel in Canakkale. Carey and I went on a walk down by the water that evening to see what was up. We got to see the Trojan Horse used in the movie Troy, which had been given to the city by the directors of the movie! Then we went and had cotton candy from a man on the street making it with fire, not electtricity, his little cotton candy stand looked like Trojan Horse too! Then we stopped by a little cafe on the water to get some tea. IT was pretty funny sitting in there because most of the occupants were guys, and they were all watching the soccer game in the next cafe through the glass wall seperating the two shops. I've never seen so many fans in my life! It was nice to get to sleep after the long bus ride, only the room was freezing! We couldn’t figure out how to turn up the heat at all!
Day 2
We left around 8:30pm from the hotel to get to Troy, about a 30-minute drive. Troy, as in
Helen of Troy, as in Homor’s The Illiad. I was sooo excited to see the city had been fought over and so many had searched for for centuries. The first thing we saw there was a giant replication of the Trojan horse. Prety funny to think that the Trojans would fall for it, but according to legend they did. What a smart guy Odysseus was! Anyways, then we walked down to the ruins. And the ruins were everywhere! Troy is a series of 9 cities that have been built on top of each other throughout the centuries. It was incredible to see walls from 100 BC right next to walls from 2500 BC next to Roman walls from 5AD. We got to see Shliemann’s trench, the original dig of the discover
er of Troy, as well as many really interesting parts of the site. There were large pieces of the Temple of Artimus, gaurds houses, wells, a road built over the city wall, and a temple that still had much of it’s distinguishing features such as the sacrificial alter intact. I can’t believe I got to see it all!
We then drove to Bursa, stopping in a nice little town for lunch. Carey and I ventured into this nice little café for lunch where the people didn’t speak any English. It was great! I got chicken with rice, amazing rice. Then they served us apple tea, an amazing drink that everyone should try sometime. We traveled on to Bursa, where we went to the bazaar and stayed at another nice, warm hotel.
Day 3
We woke up early in Bursa to go to see the Green Mosque. It was really pretty, and really old. While we were there, it turned 9:05am. On the 10th of November at 9:05am, Ataturk died, so all of Turkey stops for 2 minutes at that time to commemorate his death. It’s the strangest thing in the world. Everyone stops what they’re doing, people stop their cars and get out and stand, sirens go off and all the mosques ring the bells as well. I’m glad we were in town to see it.
Our next stop was Iznik, or the old Nicea. Birthplace of Christianity as we know it. It was so cool to be there and know the history of the place! It was the capital of the Byzantine Empire for a while when Emperor Constantine was forced out of Constantinople. While there, we got to go see a tile-making factory. The people there make tile by hand, and it takes 2 months from mixing the clay to firing the tiles in the kiln. They were absolutely gorgeous tiles, but very expensive. A little 10 centimeter square tile cost $40. So I couldn’t afford them, but they were nice to look at.
Our last stop in Iznik was to see the ruins of St. Sophia. It was once the largest and grandest
Christian church, because Nicea was where Christianity was founded. It was built in the Byzantine style, with the domes and such that are reminiscent of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. I really loved it to see it all, too bad it is in ruins now. But it’s beautiful to see.
We’re in Turkey!!!! It’s the most beautiful city I’ve ever been to! Istanbul is a fascinating city that not only spans Europe and Asia, it spans centuries of architecture, religions, empires, and politics. There’s just so much to see and do, I just don’t have enough time! It’s nice and cool here, close to 50 degrees, and just pretty. I don’t think I’ll ever come home!
We got into port about 7:30am this morning. Our port is right downtown, much better than our ports in Thailand or China by far. We could walk right outside our ship and be right in the banking district. Perfect for getting cash to go to the bazaar.
Which is what we did first. Laura, Becky, Mark, Brian, Greg, and I started our day off by heading down to the Grand Bazaar. It’s the biggest bazaar in country, if not the world. One of the oldest bazaars as well, it’s all enclosed and they’ve got everything. Jewelry, Bags, scarves, rugs, blankets, shirts, pottery, spices, tea, lights, hookahs, Turkish Delight, coffee, I can’t even tell you all of it. We spent a good bit of time there, just admiring all the things, and buying only a little, because lets face it, none of us can afford a $300 Turkish rug.
We then wandered through the rain and chill to go see the Hagia Sofia. On the way there, we ran into a Starbucks! The best caramel hot chocolate I’ve had in so long!! Becky and I got a free drink too because they didn’t have the correct change, which made it even better! Hagia Sofia museum of an ancient mosque that was originally a Christian church during the Byzantine Empire! It was taken over by Sultan Mehmed during the Ottoman Empire who turned it into a mosque. It’s crazy to see it though, it’s HUGE on the inside, and the artwork is just beautiful too. Its so odd to see the wall facing Mecca on the inside with a tiling of Mary and Jesus above it.
The rain had stopped by then, so we trooped over to the Blue Mosque tha
t is the fixture of Islam in Istanbul. It’s really beautiful to see, and it sits up on the hill so that you can see it from all around the river valley in the city. It was odd that it had 6 minarets instead of the 4 that the typical mosque has. I love hearing the calls to prayer 5 times a day. It’s just a musical sound calling the community to worship.
We took lots of pictures at the mosques since it was close to sunset and the sky was perfect for pictures. Becky tried a silly jumping picture, but it didn’t turn out. We bought some roasted chestnuts from a street vendor, nice and warm and delicious on the chilly day.
We tried to get into the Tapkia Palace that evening as well, but it was closed before we got there. So we passed the time by hanging out at an internet café and then heading back to the ship for dinner.
Tomorrow I head out on a trip to go see Troy, Gallipoli, Bursa, and Iznik. I can’t wait to see the rest of Turkey!
There are so many parts of Egypt that I love. And want to share but didn’t know how to fit it into the last few posts.
Egypt is busy. Super busy, because everyone lives in a very concentrated area around the Nile. Cairo is probably the busiest city we’ve been to yet, and the tourist locations get really crowded if you’re there later in the day. Luckily, we got there early in the morning and missed most of it.
The people in Egypt are some of the friendliest I’ve met so far. We had some trouble on the last day in port trying to mail some things home, and a man in the post office spent about an hour with us helping figure everything out and even bribing some of the postal workers for us because it’s easier for a native to do such things. Plus, he took us out to tea with his girlfriend, as our last day in port was Egypt’s Valentine’s Day.
Everyone told us that Egypt was a predominantly Muslim country and that we would need to cover up a lot as women and maybe even wear a headscarf at times. I never found myself to feel out of place though just wearing jeans and a t-shirt. I was really surprised at some of the other tourist groups from Europe and how revealingly some of the women dressed, but I guess they didn’t have the luxury of getting a Cultural Preport before each country. I never found myself having to cover my hair either. Egyptians are very accepting people I’ve found, of other cultures and understand that we’re not Muslim so they don’t think it’s odd that foreigners don’t cover their heads.
I found that girls would get heckled, especially in the markets, but most of that was good natured flattery in the hopes of you buying stuff. Most people I met at sites would come up and ask my name and where I was from and then want to introduce themselves to me. These exchanges usually ended in a “Welcome to Egypt!” Only once or twice did I feel uncomfortable with the conversation. A few times at the pyramids when vendors followed us for a while, and once waiting outside the post office when a man asked to see Meghan and I again the next day and asked for out hotel. He didn’t believe that we were leaving that night.
Egypt is beautiful and has so much culture and history. The country is predominantly Muslim, although the ethnic Egyptians are Coptic Christians. They have beautiful churches. Egyptians are pretty tolerant of religion, although we did hear a bit of anti-Semitic from some people while discussing Israel and Palestine. Egyptians are a little touchy about the subject since they have lost 2 wars to Israel in recent history. I haven’t seen any of my Jewish friends actually uncomfortable though.
I can’t wait to come back!In order to make sure I saw as much as I could in Cairo, I booked myself onto the Cairo Extended Trip through SAS. It was a 3-day/2-night stay in the heart of Cairo.
Day 1
We left the ship at 8am on the 1st of November to drive 3 hours from Alexandria to Cairo. Probably the bumpiest highway I’ve been on so far, but not totally awful. As we got closer to Cairo, it was cool to see the Desert change to more green around the Nile and see the apartment houses surrounding the city center. Our tour guide, Abira, was fantastic. She has a PhD in Egyptology, so she really knows her stuff about everything we were seeing on our trip and knew exactly what we were looking at.
We went first to Sakkara where the first pyramids were built. Most people have heard of Zozer’s step pyramid, the oldest stone structure there is. It was so cool! I couldn’t believe t
hat I actually go to see the things I’ve read about in textbooks for so long. We also got to go into a mastaba (tomb) of a high official on the same plain. It was sooo cool! We got to see the hieroglyphics covering the walls. That was really interesting; they were scenes of everyday life like of the guy’s kids playing ball or him hunting. Some of the scenes were pretty funny too, like of a hippo attacking an alligator, but then there was an alligator on the other side attacking the hippo. You could still see some of the paint on the walls! Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures in the mastaba. While we were at Zozer’s pyramid, I ran into a woman from Erie, PA! It was so weird, but I was wearing a Mercyhurst T-shirt and she went “Mercyhurst! I lived near there!” It’s crazy who you meet while traveling. I’ve heard stories from other kids about meeting family members in random airports too, crazy!
After lunch, we got to go see the Cairo Museum. The place is HUGE! And it’s completely filled with relics of the pyramids and the ancient Egyptians. There are huge heavy stone sarcophagi, statues that I can’t even imagine how they got them in, rooms full of papyrus scrolls, displays of ancient jewelry and furniture. Brett and I spent most of the time there just staring out over the balcony down at the statues and marveling how huge and old it all was. It’s really intimidating. We got to go see King Tut’s mask and sarcophagi! It was really pretty! All gold and blue enamel and the sarcophagus was beautiful too with the inlays and the etchings. Hard to believe the guy was only 19 when he died. Kind of unfortunate, because he looks like he was a good-looking guy.
That night, we had
dinner on a riverboat cruise on the Nile. It was so pretty to be floating along the water at 9pm, because that’s when Egyptians eat dinner. The food was pretty good and the entertainment was certainly entertaining. First there was a “band” that switched between popular Western tunes and local music. Most of it was a guy just singing a long to a tape though, so not really a band. The girl he was singing with kept trying to get people to get up and dance with them. After that, there was a Swirling Dervish dancer. That was really cool! He never stopped spinning around as he danced with scarves and huge disks of fabric. I was really impressed. Then they had a group of folk dancers come and dance for us and lead some of the willing in dance. Lastly, there was a belly dancer, who was not good, and seemed like her main goal was to get others to dance with her so we wouldn’t see her dance.
Day 2
After crashing at about 11pm the night before, we were woken up at 4am to go see the Great Pyramids at Giza at dawn. Cold as it was out there, and as tired as we were, it was still incredible to be there and to see the sun come up and reveal the pyramids through the mist. It was definitely worth the early morning. We also were given the chance to ride camels for $20 a camel, or $10 each if we doubled up. Jen and I decided we couldn’t pass it up, and I had to ride one in Egypt since I told everyone I would. We got to ride a lovely camel named Ali Babba to the pyramids. Our handler was cool, although he kept trying to get us to take a longer trip so that we’d have to pay more. By the way, riding a camel is tough! The scariest part is when the camel gets up, because it straightens it’s hind legs first and you feel like you’re going to fall off as the handler yells, “lean back! lean back!” Once the camel is up, then it’s a rolly ride, not as easy as a horse. We went down a hill and I thought we were going to fall off again. It was great though, and I can’t believe still that I was at the pyramids riding camels at 6am!
After everyone had safely disembarked from their camels, we drove over to the great pyramids and hung out there for
an hour and a half or so. Some people got tickets and went into the pyramids to see the burial chambers, but I had been told it was claustrophobic in there so I stayed outside and just stood there amazed for about 20 minutes at how big they were. I TOUCHED a PYRAMID! In EGYPT!!!! My life is pretty much complete. It’s amazing how big they are when you get close. I mean, you know they’re big, the pictures always show that they are, and you can see them on the other side of Cairo so they must be big, but it’s not the same. They’re HUGE! A block of stone comes up to my waist, and one stone weighs up to 20 tons! And there was no mortar or anything holding it all together, just the sheer weight of it all and the design has helped them to stand the test of time and several earthquakes.
Brett and I also had a lot of fun talking to the vendors there selling postcards and Bedouin head scarves. Brett was offered a camel by a 15 year old if she’d marry him. I was told to dump my boyfriend for an Egyptian one. We got a lot of that sort of talk, but I’ll get to that later.
We then drove down to the Sphinx, which guards the plateau that the pyramids sit on. He’s huge too! We walked through this temple area where they did the mummification stuff and some of the guys were walking around listing off things that were younger than the pyramids. The conversation went something like “This is older than iPods, this is older than computers, this is older than my grandma, this is older than America…” Some were cheesy, but it kind of hit me a bout just how OLD this stuff was that we were looking at. The pyramids and all were built way before Christ. Like 5000 years ago. I’m 20. Wow.
Before we went to lunch, we stopped at the Citadel of Saladin and the Alabaster Mosque in Cairo. The mosque is beautiful, and since it’s the first mosque I’ve been to, I was pretty curious. We got there just before the noon call to prayer, so we couldn’t stay long, but it was co
ol to take off our shoes and walk around in side for a few minutes, to see the wall where everyone prays facing Mecca, the tower that the preacher person speaks his sermon, the huge chandelier hanging from the ceiling. We got some time to walk around outside afterwards inside the citadel, which was the capital of the area for some time after Saliadin. As it was Friday, and the Islamic weekend is Friday and Saturday, there were school kids everywhere in big groups. Jen and I were approached by a group of school girls, about 12ish who got really excited to talk to us and have us talk to them. They loved asking us our names and ages and then introducing themselves as well. We got some pictures with the kids and they tried to get us to play “football” with them, although they were too excited to do that really. We were then dragged off to meet their teacher, a nice guy who asked us about what we had seen and how we liked Egypt before a tourist policeman came over and broke it up, we think because he thought we were being harassed. We’ve learned though not to ask a lot of questions and just comply, because it’s too much of a hassle otherwise. It was so nice to talk to the kids though and be excited with them about meeting someone from another country.
In the afternoon, we went to the Khan El Khalily Bazaar. It was HUGE! And really crowded! I got to brush up on some of my bargaining skills as well as toughen up my skin for the street vendors there. Some were nice and if you struck up a conversation with them, they were pretty cool. Others just tried to make comments to see what would unsettle you, which wasn’t hard when they start talking about your pretty eyes and if you have a boyfriend back home. Mostly Ashley and I stuck with either John the camera guy or Nick, because then we didn’t get so many of the comments, they were all directed at the guys. John got comments like “2 wives? Lucky man!” and we got a lot of “I’ll give you 25 million camels for her!” My favorite was ‘I kill my wife for you.” We got some cool stuff though, so it was worth it.
Day 3
Not much happened on the last day. We had breakfast in the morning and then I hung out at the hotel for 2 hours we had before we headed back to Alex. The hotel was sooooo nice, with a beautiful balcony and wonderful soft beds with down comforters and pillows. And they had Disney Channel and MTV and CNN, which was nice to just tune into the rest of the world again after being out of it for so long. It’s nice to be back in Alex though. Cairo is a great city, and there is sooo much to do there, but sometimes I felt like we were seeing a lot of dead monuments. I guess that’s appropriate since they were monuments for the dead, but with the brown sand and the brown statues, it could get depressing after a while. Alexandria is a port city with a lot of life in it, and I was anxious to get back to that to see what else there was to see.
My first day in Egypt, I took a day trip to El Alamein to see the battlefields, museum, and cemeteries. For those not up on their history, El Alamein was the focal point of the WW2 battle for Egypt and the Suez Canal. The Italians and Germans were attacking Egypt to try to gain access to the Suez and cut off the Allie’s supply and oil shipments. They were repulsed back to Libya by the Egyptians, Brits, Kiwis, and Aussies in 1942.
El Alamein is a really pretty area about 2 hours out of Alexandria. The road to it ran along the Mediterranean Sea where there were huge developments of condos and suburb type compounds. The other side of the road was Bedouin homes and military camps.
The museum was cool, they had lots of stuff that had been left behind after the battles and a large map so you could see how the fighting moved.
I think the m
ost interesting part for me though was the cemeteries in the middle of the Egyptian Desert. Our first stop was the Ally Cemetery. It was so peaceful, just rows of tombs and a beautiful cross and memorial at the back. It was really nice. The hard part was looking at the headstones though and seeing names and ages that were close to ours. A lot of the boys who fought there were 23-28 years old. A lot of people on this boat are about 23 years old. I can’t even imagine these people fighting a war. Does that sort of setting make you grow up fast? Does it give you a sense of purpose and honor that doesn’t come from college and work?
We went next to the German mausoleum, which
was a mini fortress for the soldiers. It was also really nice. It thought it was interesting that at the gates of this one there was a sign that explained the history and significance and said at the end, “the soldiers within admonish for peace.” The prayer engraved inside the building also ended with a prayer for peace. Funny how hindsight is.
Lastly, we went to see the Italian mausoleum. It was beautiful, a big white building with the whole inside m
ade of while marble. I think the hardest part of looking at war cemeteries is seeing the stones that say “Unknown.” Someone knew them. Seems to me like they should at least put someone’s name on the grave, or acknowledge those who they know died but can’t identify somehow. Unknown just seems so impersonal, and it’s easy to forget them.
Later that afternoon I met up with some friends and we caught a cab to the Library of Alexandria. In the time of Cleopetra, the Library of Alexandria was a center for thought and learning throughout the ancient world. It housed documents from the early Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and so much more. It was kind of like a university in some respects. Unfortunately, there was great fire that destroyed the building and all the incredible knowledge it housed. It’s been called one of the greatest tragedies of all time. The building I went to was not the original library, but a library they built more recently in the hopes that it will become what the old Library once was, a center for learning and knowledge.
I don’t know how else to explain it other than to say it’s HUGE! It’s like 11 stories tall, but they aren’t stacked on top of each other, they’re tiered, so you can see all the way from the 10th floor down to the 1st. It’s so cool! And they have such interesting books. We were walking around pulling some out. For instance, we found this book called “A world guide to organizations of Islamic Activities” which was basically a phone book of Islamic organizations. Mailing addresses included. I was pretty tempted to copy some down and write to them just to see what would happen. It also had an antiquities museum, a rare books collection that was unfortunately closed when we got there, planetarium, children’s section, and more. It was pretty amazing.
We got to be pretty good friends with our cabbie. He was a cool guy, took us all around and had dinner with us. It was interesting to talk to him, and learn some of the Islamic customs. For instance, we didn't really understand the call to prayer that echoes around the city 5 times a day. And he explained the Egyptian Muslim's view of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict to us. We really enjoyed his company and learned so much!
