Egypt (part 2)

I am now finally writing the rest of my trip to Egypt, but first the craziness that was this week: So last Saturday, we got back from Egypt. Sunday we had class, Monday we had class and free time for the afternoon. I went to the Holocaust museum here. Tuesday was a hike around Hezekiah's tunnel and Wednesday was big studying, Thursday and Friday were finals, and then Friday night we went to Synagogue and today I had to give a talk in church. So it was an incredibly busy week. Today I went to the Dormition Abbey and the Garden of Gethsemane.

Here is my favorite picture from the Abbey:

This is an a dome directly over the supposed tomb of Mary. I liked that it is all women from the bible. Some of them are from the Apocrypha, and we couldn't figure out who one of them was, but we decided that it is, Eve, Esther, Ruth, Jael, Judith, and we weren't sure who the last one was, maybe Miriam. Judith is the one holding the head (she cut off the head of some war guy, and Jael drove a spike through the temple of a military leader).

So back to Egypt. After flying to Luxor we went swimming that night because it was so hot. I have never been somewhere where I'm sweating at night standing outside because it is so hot. I knew I was going to be in trouble for the next day. Here are the highlights of my time in Luxor:

We went to The Valley of the Kings and saw the tombs of Tutankhamen, Ramses IV and a couple other pharaohs whose names I can't remember. I don't know what I was expecting when we got there, but it was a lot more developed than I was expecting. The tombs were so cool though. I loved Ramses IV's tomb. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures inside so I don't have one. But here is what the valley looks like:

That first day we also went on a camel ride. The guy who led my camel was so funny. He kept giving me the reigns of the camel and whenever his boss came he would take them back. I felt like a spoiled rich tourist sitting on my camel going through really cool but very poor area of town.

This is our group. There were 40 people riding the camels!

Here is my guide and his friend. Unfortunately for them I wasn't
looking for an Egyptian husband.

Here's me on my camel!

The temples we went to were also really cool. Here are some of the pictures of the temples we went to. I thought they were really cool too. The best part were the sheer size of the temples. I loved the lotus columns at the Karnak temple, and the Luxor temple. It was so cool.

Karnak

Luxor

We finished up Egypt with a visit to a mosque and some shopping. The mosque was really cool and was a smaller version of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.

Tomorrow we're going to Jordan. We will have structured free time (meaning we aren't allowed to go anywhere the teachers say we can't), because of the shooting that happened yesterday. We will not be going to the gladiator and chariot place because that's where the shooting happened. I know that the center wouldn't let us go if there was any danger. I'm excited. When I get back I will write about our field trip to Hezekiah's tunnel this week.