Monday morning bright and early, Andy (our professor), Mary-Elizabeth, and Isaac (roommate) walked me to the bus stop which would take me from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv.  It was surreal (again) walking along the Old City (Jerusalem) walls with my professor and friends to fly back to Kenya.

When the bus finally pulled up, a woman about my age walked up to the bus as well.  Stacey is from Indiana and has been teaching in Korea for the past year and half.  We started talking and discovered that we were both flying to Cairo and had layovers until 11 PM (we were arriving in Cairo at noon).

It was an interesting bus ride to Tel Aviv as we picked up several Jewish people with cool hats.  They had to take their hats off in the bus because they could not fit otherwise.

We arrived to the airport and had the joy of going through Israel security.  Not just Israel security, but Israel security a day after a ceasefire had been declared with Gaza.  So, it was a bit hairy.  It took me 2 and a half hours to get through security.  All of the inspectors were pretty grumpy as well.

When it came to searching my checked bags, luckily, I had a really nice women.  I had an entire bag of things that were donated from my seminary group which added to the interestingness.  The fun began when she pulled out 11 bags of M&Ms and 4 bags of Reeses.  Luckily, she was just jealous!

Then she came upon the feminine products I was bringing back to Kenya to donate.  Luckily (once again), she just found a small box of tampons...at first.  This is when it became fun for a second.  She looked up at me with a bewildered, worried face and said "um, why do you have tampons?"  I replied simply, "there is a project in Kenya, where I'm going, where we donate feminine products to women who otherwise would not have them."  This was a satisfactory answer and she carried on with her job which included taking about 5 more boxes/bags of feminine products out.  Fun times.

Thus ends the checked baggage search.  I was grumpy at this point, but they had a security guy take me over to the check-in desk and rush me through so I was less grumpy. 

I then found out why he rushed me through when I was blessed with the gift of going through "Line 1" of the carry-on security.  Here I got to take out everything electronic...which if you know me...was almost everything I had.  My Mac's power cord was what became my Achilles' Heal. 



As you can see I have duck taped my power cord's box because it sits on the floor in Kenya which is usually wet during the rainy seasons.  So, I duck taped it (logically).  Well, that wasn't a good enough answer so security...so I had 3 officials come and look at it.  Finally, they deduced that I was a not terrorist and I told them that I appreciated the sentiment.  I went to the gate and had a few minutes before the plane began to board.

We arrived to Cairo around noon.  Stacey had never been to Cairo, so she wanted to go see the Pyramids.  I had spent a week with them and wasn't so down with spending money, but decided that it would be fun and "you only live once."  Egypt Air has a tourist deal where rather than buying a visa to sit in their airport ($15) you can pay $20 and have a tour of the pyramids and a nice dinner.  I was very weary of accepting this offer, but we did it.  We hopped in the Egypt Air bus which took us to the Pyramids (20 minute drive).  On our way there we picked up our guide (we didn't know this was going to happen).  He was old and everybody knew him wherever we went which made me quite sure he was some sort of God Father Pyramid Man (you never know).  So, we saw the Pyramids.  It was just as impressive as the first time and cool to see them again through another angle with another presenter.

First Sighting of Pyramids Round II:


Looking at Pyramids in between the Sphinx and the Pyramids:


The Sphinx Round II:


The Nile:


Then we were taken to a perfume shop (part of the catch).  We sat through a short speal about perfume and smelled some.  It was funny because Stacey hates perfume, but was gracious and sat through it anyway.  At the end, I told him kindly that we were not interested and that was that.  I was relieved that we were pressured.

Then we went to New Cairo which is on the other side of Cairo by the airport.  It is a thriving area with nice apartments and a big outdoor food court.  There was a McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and many other chain restaurants.  We went to the one restaurant that was not a chain which I liked.  It was a very nice dinner which in the States would cost $15 at least and it was included in our $20 for the entire tour.  Not too shabby.

We then returned to the airport around 7 PM and hung out until my flight boarded at 10 PM.  It was great to be with Stacey for the day, a fellow traveling companion who was from the States.

Stacey and I after a long day:



I took some Tylenol PM once on board the plane for my 5 hour flight back to Nairobi.  I slept most of the way with our plane arriving early at about 3:30 AM.  I didn't want to call anybody and wake them up so I just sat down right outside the airport and fell asleep on my bags until Rodgers arrived to pick me at 5:30.  On the drive home I fell asleep again which is really hard for me to do usually.  And I was finally home, in my bed, after being in transit for almost 24 hours.

I like my bed.

Hello from the Sea of Galilee in Israel! I will write more about my experience in Israel later, but for now I want to tell you all about my time in Egypt.

Wednesday

The other 31 people in our group arrived very early in the morning after experiencing a nice unexpected 12-hour layover in Germany. Yep, that’s no fun. So, they spent the morning trying to sleep. When they had rested, I got to see everyone which was really nice. When Andy (our Professor) introduced me to the group everyone cheered and I felt all warm and fuzzy inside and missed seminary and the community there. Furthermore, my seminary neighbor, Mary-Elizabeth, brought me some things I wanted from the States and asked everyone else on the trip to bring me essentials from the States (M&Ms, Reeses, and Head & Shoulders). So, it was good to see everyone on multiple levels. We then met our tour guide, Heba, and traveled to the city of Memphis.   Memphis has mostly been covered by another city being built on top of it repeatedly, but they do have an open air museum with a sphinx and a Statue of Ramses II (questionably) which was used in the 10 Commandments movie.

Statue of Ramses II at Memphis:


Afterwards, we went and visited the Step Pyramid (Pyramid of Djoser) and another Pyramid (Tomb of King Titi) which looks just like a sand hill, but we all went inside of it and it had incredibly beautiful hieroglyphics everywhere.  Who'd a thunk it?

Tomb of King Titi:


Step Pyramid and I:


Thursday

Thursday morning we headed to the Giza pyramids bright and early which are right by our hotel. The Pyramids are different than I thought they would be because the Great Pyramid is not in the middle, but is the bigger one on a side.

A short video standing on the Great Pyramid:


Isaac and I standing on the Great Pyramid:


The Pyramid in the middle was just built on higher ground and still has its shell at the tip top. It's actually amusing because the middle Pyramid was built by the Great Pyramid builder's son.  So, rather than build a bigger pyramid than his dad he just built it on higher ground.  The Giza Pyramids were very impressive and something I have wanted to see since the 6th grade and thought I would have to wait until I was retired to see, but the opportunity arose at 25.  Take that world!

The group drove to get a good view of all 3 which was also where we all had a camel ride which was amazing.

A view of the 3: (the Great is on the left)


A view of the 3 with me:


When a camel stands up it is very awkward and unusual. My camel's name was Bartholomew or that was what I called him. It was very surreal to see all 32 of us riding along on camels with the Giza Pyramids in the background.

A video of the camel ride:


A picture of me and Bartholomew:


Then we all went to see a boat that was buried with the Pharaoh of the Great Pyramid (Great idea!). My seminary neighbor, Mary-Elizabeth, and I left early because we were the only ones that wanted to go inside the Giza Pyramids. So, we got to go inside the middle Pyramid. I found that walking backwards down the very short passage was easier and less strenuous on my back so that ‘s what I did. We went down for a while then level for a while and then up for a while. Then we arrived in the tomb which was unreal.

Video of inside Pyramid:


It was very humid. On our way out I was walking down the short passage and once we came to a place where I could stand up, so I did and there was a very long line of Asians who laughed at me each one in turn as I passed them because I am too tall to be walking around in Pyramids.

We then drove to the other side of town to see a Mosque, called the Citadel.



Afterward, we had lunch at a boat on the Nile and the meal was very nice. We finally made our way to the Egyptian Museum. I was very excited about this because I distinctly remember in 6th grade learning about Egyptian History.  Even more precisely I remember how captivated I was with the discovery of King Tut’s Tomb. I remember staring at the large picture of King Tut’s face in our textbooks.



So, when I actually got to see the 28 pound solid gold mask of King Tut and saw my reflection in the protective glass I could visualize the 6th grade me staring at the picture of it at my desk in Broken Arrow, OK. It was a surreal moment.

While at the museum, we also went to see the Mummies. The coolest was Ramses II. It was really crazy to see this 5,000 year old Pharaoh with hair, finger nails, and skin. He was very well preserved, lived to be possibly 100, and had 80 or so children or so the legend goes. Thursday was a very full day.

Pic of Ramses mummy.

Friday

Friday, we drove north halfway to Alexandria to visit a Coptic monastery in Wadi Natrun. We had a very interesting monk show us around who had a wizard beard. He was very knowledgeable and shared his views with us about the Coptic church and theology. It was a good visit.



Saturday

Saturday, we journeyed to Coptic Cairo, the Ben Ezra Synagogue, which is tradition ridden with Biblical history. The tradition is that this location is one of the possibilities of where Moses was found by Pharaoh's daughter on River Nile, also where Jeremiah came when he was exiled, and where the exiled Holy Family came when Joseph and Mary had to flee to Egypt with Jesus because Herod was killing everyone 2 and under. So, it is traditionally a very historic place. When I say “traditionally” it means that there is no archaeological proof, but it is believed/this is an option where it might have happened.



We then visited the Presbterian seminary in Cairo, the Evangelical Theological Seminary of Cairo (ETSC).  An APTS graduate is working at the seminary and we were invited over to meet with other seminarians.  It was a good last night in Cairo and it was nice to interact with other seminary students from another country.

Goodbye Egypt!