King Tut

As many of my long readers know, I spent the Summer of 2008 in The Holy Land. I'm so glad I was there before all the political turmoil in Egypt so I could fulfill one of my life long dreams of going to Egypt. And in going to Egypt I had three major goals:

1. See the pyramids. (Check, Check and Check)

2. Go to Karnak Temple. (Check and Check)

3. Go to the Valley of the Kings

But the Valley doesn't look like anything really. See?

Where are the tombs? How do you know where they are? It just looks like desert! But the tombs are hidden. They're scattered throughout the valley. The walls of most were elaborately painted after they were carved into the mountains. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside. It was really kind of tragic. (Google images.) I did however sneak a quick hand swipe to see what the carved paintings felt like. (Stone.) 

So what's the point of this post today other than showing you how much I love Ancient Egypt? To tell you that today Google is honoring Howard Carter on his 138th birthday. Mr. Carter is the man who discovered King Tut's tomb. The tomb that was really small and disappointing to go into because there was nothing in there besides his mummy, but a few days later when we went to the Cairo Museum and saw that half of a floor of that humongous museum was full of all the treasures found in King Tut's tomb. It was awesome. And that's why it was so great. No other ancient Egyptian leader's tomb ever had anything in them. Blasted grave robbers...

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is, the most exciting part of the Valley of the Kings is Tutankhamun's tomb and I'm glad Mr. Carter was born.

Stifling!

Today I had a flashback of Egypt while sitting on the metro.

Let me explain.

We went in the pyramid that's behind us in the picture. I was so excited. Seriously. I remember my sixth grade history teacher, Ms. Williams, tell us about going into the pyramids and I had wanted to go ever since. There's not a whole lot of room in the tunnel leading into the great chamber in the middle and you're walking hunched over and people are walking in the opposite direction directly next to you. There are dips and rises as you make your way to the chamber. And worst of all, it's hot. Stiflingly hot. So hot and humid in there that the walls are wet and sticky from the condensation of sweat. The hand rails are sticky and left our hands smelling like vinegar from touching them to keep balance. I thought the great chamber would provide some relief from the nastiness experienced from the tunnel, it didn't. Despite being in a dark space out of direct sunlight, it was worse. I wanted to explore the room, climb down into the area where the sarcophagus once rested but was disgusted when I felt the walls and they were wet. The walls were wet from the sweat of people. Ew. I was dripping sweat down my back, my arms were getting sweaty, my face and head were pouring sweat down my neck. And after taking in as much as I could, I booked it back outside, into the direct noon sunlight, the 100 degree weather and felt immense and immediate relief. I had never been so glad to be in 100 degree heat in my life. And that was the one and only time.

Today was a close second. I waited for the metro to come after work. It was pretty hot and it had been all day. I had cut lunch short that afternoon because it was just somewhat miserable even in the shade. So, I waited for the metro on the un-air-conditioned platform for the train to come. I was anxious for the train to come because my shirt would show sweat when wet and I didn't want it to show. So, when I stepped onto the train and realized immediately that I had walked into a sauna I was really disappointed. My face must have reflected the pain my lungs were feeling as they breathed in the stale hot air because someone said jokingly, "Welcome to Hell." I sat in an empty seat and was soon feeling nauseous thanks to the horrendous heat I couldn't wait to get off. In fact, I was practically willing the driver to go faster, and silently praying that there would be no delays.

I thought of Egypt and coming out of that pyramid and knew I would be just as happy getting off that train.

I think I'm going to start having to pray for air conditioned metro cars to come my way. That's not too much to ask is it?

Richeys

We Richey's think we're pretty funny.

Check out Emma's latest post from Jerusalem/Egypt HERE.

Some moments I'd like to relive

While Facebook stalking today I saw pictures posted of someone's sibling's recent return home from a mission. It made me realize I think I'd like to relive that moment too. So, here are some exciting moments in my life I would like to relive (and in no particular order).

1. Opening my mission call. It was excitement, fear and extreme emotion all wrapped into one. We waited about 30 minutes for my dad to finish up surgery and get home so that he could see me open it in person. I cried when I saw Poland Warsaw after saying incredulously, "Oh. my. gosh."
2. Getting home from my mission. My family had a banner, saying "Welcome Home Lauren!" spread out across the entrance into the Eugene Airport. Since I was the first one off the plane I ran through it like I was finishing a race. My mom hugged me so tight. And I'm pretty sure my dad cried.
   
3. The moment Ewa said she would be baptized. I could hardly believe that what I was hearing was true. I think I asked a couple times to make sure I wasn't getting my Polish mixed up. After she left the chapel my companion and I hugged and kind of jumped up and down. There was probably a bit a squealing in there.
4. Seeing the Pyramids for the first time*.I teared up. Everyone on the bus was screaming because they were RIGHT THERE. I have never wanted to see anything so bad my whole life. (Perhaps when I make it to Greece and the other places I posted in the previous post I'll have the same reaction.)
5. Finishing my very last paper in college. It was a mixture of sadness and extreme happiness as I walked out of the JFSB on BYU's campus knowing that I would never be an undergrad again and at the same time wishing I had a whole 'nother semester. (Maybe because I wanted to take Bookbinding yet again.)
6. Walking into the Celestial Room at the Portland Oregon Temple for the first time. Both sets of grandparents and my parents were in there waiting for me with big smiles. It was akin to coming home after being gone for a long time.
7. Holding our new puppy all the way home from her breeders. When we got Lizzie (our first dog, who passed away a few years ago), we picked her up on Christmas Eve because she was a surprise for my youngest sister Rachel. I got to hold Lizzie the whole way home. She was so cute and little. I remember asking my mom for a dog in Kindergarten. We didn't finally get one until 14 years later when I was already in college, but I was still really excited.
8. Standing at the top of Nevada Falls and realizing I did it. Last summer my mom, Rachel and I hiked Nevada Falls at Yosemite. I didn't want to do it but my mom talked us into going on that part of the hike instead of going half way up to just Vernal Falls. I wasn't totally physically up to the hike but I was glad I did it because it was really pretty.
9. Impromptu talent show at our grandparent's house in Orem. My uncle apparently had a bright pink cape (made by my grandma), a flamboyant suit, top hat and sunglasses that he wore to a church dance once and performed to Shining Star. He redid the dance for us and no one has ever seen it since. (Not even his kids who weren't there.) The grandkids sang, danced and played musical instruments too, but Uncle Craig's Shining Star dance surpassed everything and has now just become a legend.
10. Passing around treats in the car. I love treats. I think most people that know me know that. My family loves treats. We share them. And by sharing them that means we will buy anywhere from one to ten treats and pass them around the car, each person taking a bite and passing. Maybe you're a germ-a-phobe and this grosses you out. Well, we're obviously not, and we want to try all the treats. It's perfect.
    

In an effort to keep this post from being 20 pages long, I'm going to keep it at ten...for now. These are a few moments that I thought of this morning while I kept myself busy at work.

*Thanks to Peter I actually have some documentation of that. Not the crying, but the excitement. Go HERE. (I hope you can see it!)

Scarab Power

At Karnak Temple in Luxor Egypt there's a giant scarab that apparently brings marriage if you walk around it enough times, fertility if you walk around it an extra. (Unfortunately I can't remember the exact numbers.)

So, of course we walked around it! Here's Mandi, me and Tricia showing off that we'll soon be engaged.

Before going to Egypt we were given strict instructions to always have a male present in our group. When we went to the market they wanted each small group to have two males. One in the lead and one in the rear. This was to help us be protected from gropers. One night we went to Pizza Hut. Yep, Pizza Hut. There's something about Pizza Hut in a foriegn country that is just so goooood. So, we take a taxi to the Pizza Hut. Oh yeah, and if we were going to take a taxi the male was supposed to be the last one out of the taxi. So, we pull up to the restaurant. I'm sliding across the back seat of the car and the guy in the front seat starts to get out. I'm a rule follower so I start getting nervous and in the 15 seconds it takes me to keep sliding across my seat and keep my skirt down modestly I have a million senarios of the taxi pulling away with me still in the car, the door flapping wildly as we drive down the road. My underwear on display as I'm thrown wildly about the backseat. That's about as far as my imagination got before I was at the door and getting out of the car.

Here's where the story gets good.

As I'm getting out of the car, a man runs up to me asking for money. I feel something touch my boob. (Yep I just wrote boob.) I look down and just see the guy's stump of an arm near my chest before two friends wisk me away and into the restaurant. I don't really know what happened. It all happened too fast for me to have felt truely violated. But as we get up to the Pizza Hut there are people from our group already there and it is announced that I was "nubbed".

Nubbed?

Yep, nubbed.

Everybody wants to know how I'm feeling. They want to know if I'm feeling violated or embarassed etc. Honestly, it happened so fast I didn't hardly notice. I doubted that the nubbing was an intentional act, but witnesses swear that the nubbing was on purpose.

What does this story have to do with Scarab Power you want to know? Well. A month or so ago Tricia, Mandi and I had the following Facebook conversation about the Scarab:

Tricia: "How is it that we are all still unmarried... So much for the Scarab"

Lauren: "Maybe it only works if you're going to marry an Egyptian. I got TONS of proposals while there. I guess it does work...

Mandi: "Well here's the thing...I don't know if you remember but we got really sweaty while we were gone, maybe we sweat out all the wedding luck. Just a theory."

Tricia: "Scarab power---->nubbing"

Mandi: "Hahaha NUBBING! Wow. Sorry you wasted that power on the nub."

Lauren: "I could have used some of that scarab power now that I'm in the big bad world. Why me? All ruined on some stupid nub. And it wasn't even a real good nub, just a sort of nub..."

Maybe you don't think that's funny. I do. I was nubbed. I wasted all my husband getting luck on a stupid nubbing from a guys nub of an arm. So tragic really! But, good to know that the scarab power does work right??

(On a side note, I have pictures to post from Halloween. My roommates and I went as characters from the Wizard of Oz. We looked great!)

** Picture curtesy of Tricia's Facebook Album

Poladroid

There is a program you can download online that turns your pictures into Polaroid looking pictures. (Redundant) Anyway I have now seen it on two different unrelated people's blogs and decided I needed to check it out for myself. I love it. I love the way it makes my pictures look. I decided to turn a few from Egypt into Polaroids. I like the way it distorts the colors slightly and blurs the edges. The only part missing is the actual shaking of the picture. I always liked doing that. But here you go, for your viewing enjoyment:

At the pyramids. (Duh)

On the Nile.

Me on a Camel! How exciting!

In front of King Tut's tomb.

Here we are walking around the giant stone scarab eight times to ensure that we get married.

Temple at Karnak columns. I was amazed.

Oh how I miss my summer days. My next big adventure is figuring out my life. I think I'll be working on that for the next 50 years though. Who knows what I'll be doing next summer though? Hopefully something fun and relatively exciting. Writing my missionaries (my sisters, duh)? Probably.

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.

Egypt (part 1)

We rolled back into Jerusalem last night around 11:30 after our six-day excursion to the hellish heat of Egypt. Despite that, the trip was absolutely wonderful! I loved it. Here are my highlights, pictures included:

We started our trip last Sunday around 6 am and headed down to hit up some Old Testament sites before spending the night at a Kibbutz. The best places were an old fortress which I unfortunately cannot remember the name of and I don't have my notebook with me, but there was an old Byzantine era ruined church there that I really liked. It was totally ruined, so I don’t know why I liked it so much but I thought it was really cool.

This is me with Sister Thomas, the doctor's wife in the chapel.

We also went to Ben Guron's grave where there was a great overlook of the wilderness that the Israelites had to wander in for 40 years. It was desolate and nothing. I don't think I could have handled it.

The Kibbutz was cool. The idea of Kibbutzin stems from socialism. In the 50's groups of Jewish people moved down to Israel and formed communities that a pretty self sufficient. We took a tour of one and had dinner that night there. Their main products are dates and chocolate milk. Here is a picture of the date trees. I thought they were really pretty:

The drive across the Sinai was super long and I just kept thinking about having to traipse around that for 40 years. It did not sound appealing to me in the slightest. We stopped a few times driving across. I tried to do homework, I tried to sleep but the bus ride was so bouncy I couldn't really do anything. We learned that the bus driver was driving about 50 kilometers above the speed limit which helped us make the best time across the desert that the teachers had ever made. We all got really excited whenever we saw camels too.

As we pulled up into Cairo, our hotel was in Giza (which is where the Pyramids are) and I was so excited to see the Pyramids in the distance when we came into the city. Apparently Cairo has 18 million people living there and there are estimated 2 million cars. The most entertaining part was the cars weaving in and out all over. Our tour guide told us that the lines in the middle of the road are more decoration than actual traffic lines. There were people all over. That night we went to a sound and light show at the Pyramids that was entirely overrated and over priced. I was skeptical to go remembering the Malbork show in Poland of last summer, but there were only three or four people not going so I went. The show was pretty bad and I ended up talking to my "date" Meg the entire time. But we got our date picture:

Yes that's the Sphinx right above Meg's head.

The next day we went to the pyramids. It was unbearably hot by 8:00 and I'm pretty sure I have never sweated so profusely in my entire life, until I went inside the pyramid (the one on the left of this picture) and I felt like I had just dowsed my body in wet. The inside smelled and was thick with humidity (humidity from everyone's body heat) and it was not entirely pleasant. It was so hot and disgusting inside that when I got outside it felt cool. My back was covered with sweat and I had it dripping off my earrings it was so gross. It was really cool to be there though. I was surprised at how big the stones were and I just wanted to climb up the Pyramid.

I took a sweet Sphinx picture that everyone thought was so great, but I couldn't take credit for the idea since Cami had done it months ago, but it was the most clever picture so I did it too.

After the Pyramids we went to the Step Pyramid of Zoser which was the precursor to the pyramids now.

By the end of the day, we were so hot and miserable and had to go get on a plane to go down to Luxor for a few days, which I will write about later.