Thanksgiving/Luxor weekend/Upper Egypt Adventures!!

The Thanksgiving sleepover 2009, I miss these girls so much

It's a strange thing being away from your country during a national holiday. I experienced this in Tanzania too when I had forgotten the date until I heard about red, white and blue fireworks lighting up the sky above the U.S. Embassy. 

Thanksgiving this year was just another day almost. Last year (and the year before) I spent the night before with my closest girlfriends from high school. We made it a big event, drew names for christmas gifts, ate a ton of food, sang together and talked until morning. Those nights I love so much. And then of course I found myself really missing my family. I still made a traditional hand turkey though. In the center is a extravagant stick figure drawing of my family (and Cleo), in the fingers some music notes, an airplane, an anch, a pyramid, a mosque, skype, a camera and a list of people. 

I find myself to be very very blessed this year =)

The day before Thanksgiving, the International Programs Office hosted a cute little turkey lunch for us. There were even a few decorations! No green bean casserole, but it's okay. Also.. there was an un-plucked feather left in my piece of turkey.. TIA.

We did have the day off though, hamdulilah! So for our short holiday, Margaux, Sophie, Alex and I decided to hop a train to Luxor and see what the rest of Egypt is all about. Simple enough!

Here's what I wrote in my notebook on the train home:

I'm sitting on a train following the Nile down from Luxor back to Cairo. Margaux, Sophie, Alex and I decided to take advantage of the long weekend and explore! 

The weekend has been awesome. We went to the Luxor Temple, Valley of the Queens, Hatchepsut's court, Valley of the Kings and the Karnak Temple. All in about a day and a half!

The weekend has also been insane. And I mean clinically. But hey, TIA. I feel pretty Egyptian now to say the least.

The four of us left from the Cairo train station at 11pm on wednesday. 

Because of an attack on the trains a few years ago, foreigners are no longer allowed to ride on the local trains, we have the only option of the $30 sleeper car (which had already left that night). I guess the powers that be want us all to be in one car so the Egyptians wont be in danger. Anyway. You don't have to buy tickets at the booth, you can just hop on, so the family and I avoided eye contact, tried to look inconspicuous (HAHA) and hopped the local train...

The local train was quite a treat. We rode first class, or it might have been second, I'm not sure. We saw third class and almost turned around to go back home. It was a real train car, standing room only... kind of looked like the holocaust... But don't worry, our car was... better. Most of the windows were either half open and broken to stay that way or just made of nicely half-shattered glass. We sat near the back where the door between cars kept flying open. The car seemed rickety on the track and it was too noisy from the wind and weird Egyptian ringtones to talk much... let alone sleep, it was too cold to sleep anyway though. 

- Here I should put a little disclaimer: I've never felt unsafe in Egypt. Ever. Only uncomfortable. Egyptian culture doesnt really have room for pick-pockets, and the men tend to be more talk then action, so you don't have to worry about people harming you. The train was sketchy, but the anxiety we felt was more about being uncomfortable then being scared.

We were the only women in the car, and of course the only foreigners, so we stuck out like sore thumbs. Every time I looked up I found a new pair of eyes watching me. There were also young men taking pictures of us, so most of the 16 hours, the girls and I sat curled up in a ball with our hoods covering our faces. The most warm and conservative thing to do and we learned quickly.

The train was filthy and freezing, I felt my immune system growing stronger by the minute. And I wont tell you about the "bathroom." 

We actually stayed in great spirits though. The four of us mesh so well. You learn a lot about yourself and about each other when you spend entire days with each other. The three of them are some of the best people I've ever met, I can't even tell you. I've found an awesome niche here. =)

So we made it. 16 hours and we were fine, dropped off right by our hostel in the warm Luxor daylight ready to start a new day. Not bad for 4 dollars!!

We freshened up at our hostel, which was really clean and cheap and had the most helpful guys at the front desk. A friend had referred it! It was perfect! 3 and a half bucks a night each =)

First we went to Luxor Temple! It was in walking distance from our hostel. We made it in time for sunset and listened to call to prayer as we watched the sun sink behind the huge statues of a New Kingdom pharaoh.

Around the back as the sun was setting

The front!
(This Obelisk has a twin, but some dumb Egyptian president
gave it as a present to France in exchange for a clock...)

I believe this is a Rameses but I'm not sure. The cone-shaped things
on the ground in between them is the crown for Upper Egypt 

Fun fact!: The Anch, the Egyptian symbol for life, is actually
a representation of Egypt! The circle is the delta, the middle is the Nile
 and the cross section represents the Eastern and Western deserts!
 (No it is not a Christian symbol.. everyone, go tell your friends) Also,
below it is a cartouche with the name of the king =) the end!

The Luxor Temple is a great collection of New Kingdom monuments. Just like Karnak, it has been built upon and built upon. Most of what is seen is attributed to Rameses II (the 11 Rameses liked to put their names on things that aren't theirs). Hatchepsut and Tutmoses II were the first to build at Luxor though and can be accredited to the first chapels and the pylons. Rameses II contributed the gorgeous obelisk and the entrance causeway. And during the Roman era, Alexander set up government in the fortress.

looking very fresh, rested and clean!

We ended that leg of the trip at a cafe down the street before realizing "Oh my gosh you guys, it's Thanksgiving!!" So for Thanksgiving 2010, my new little family and I ate McDonalds by the Nile in Upper Egypt. It was almost traditional! American food and the closest thing to family as you can get 6,000 miles away from home. We went around the table saying what we were thankful for this year (each other!) and talking about our families and home. It was really nice.

Then, exhausted and grimy, we headed to the most comfortable beds in all of Egypt.

The next morning we woke up early for a guided tour after we had breakfast on the roof. The hostel set up the whole thing. Transportation and an Egyptologist to guide us, all included for something in the area of 25 dollars. It was awesome! Our guide, Aladdin, was dorky and excited and overly educated on the subjects having studied in Egypt, England and Maryland. He also reads and writes hieroglyphics, go figure. Our group was cool too, we had some English, Danish, Filipino and Kiwis!

Our first stop was the Colossi of Memnon, two gigantic statues of Amenhotep III, but called Memnon after the war hero slain by Achilles during the Trojan War who ruled Ethiopia... yeah I don't get it either... 

Our next stop was the Valley of the Queens where we saw the tomb of Queen Titi, primary wife of a Rameses and the tomb of her son who died at age 7. Inside the prince's tomb is a skeleton of a miscarried baby (this is why you don't mary your brother). Both tombs are in really good condition, still with brilliant brilliant colors. It almost looked fresh! I especially loved the prince's tomb, on the walls were paintings of his father introducing him to all the gods. It was really nice. 

(No pictures allowed in the valleys)

Next we went to Hatchepsut's court, which was built solely for her mummification. The entire West bank of the Nile in the Luxor area is considered the city of the dead, so it's all funerary complexes. The East bank (Luxor and Karnak for example) is all cult temples and worship areas. 

I reaaaaally like Hatchepsut. She was the acting regent for Tutmoses III in the beginning of his reign when he was too young to usurp his father's throne. Hatchepsut was his aunt and step-mother. She stole the throne when her father died and called herself "King" of Egypt. None of this queen nonsense, she meant business. She had much more and much grander building projects then her ancestors, and she was proud of it no doubt. Unfortunately there are not many pictures of her in the temple, when Tutmoses III took the throne he removed them all. It still is an incredible complex though. A lot of it is reconstructed because there was an earth quake, but it's mostly the floors and support beams. There are still original sculptures lining the causeways and original wall art. One of my favorite things was a depiction of the army, some of the soldiers are carrying surf boards!!!

Team TINA takes Hatchepsut's court! 

Surfin' safari!!

What would have been a mural of Hatchepsut making an offering to Amun

After Hatchepsut we went to the Valley of the Kings (again, no pictures unfortunately). 

I was so ecstatically happy inside the valley!! The historical significance alone is too much to wrap your head around. Valley of the Kings and reading about Carter's excavation of King Tut's tomb was what first sparked my interest in Egypt when I was in elementary school. It's one of Egypt's most well-known areas (thanks Tut!) It was just incredible to be there.

We went into three tombs there, two of them belonging to one Rameses or another. And we saw the entrance of King Tut's tomb, hidden under the tomb of Neferteri (one of only two queens buried there). She saved Tut! The only reason he was never robbed was because the thieves got their fill in Neferteri's tomb and stopped looking. Tut's tomb is now empty though and spread all over the France, Italy, Cairo and the states. 

There's a greek king list that names 200 kings buried in the valley, so there are still over 100 just waiting to be found somewhere in there! Help me find them?

I'm not sure how the four of us survived the morning considering how exhausted we were, but it turned out to be an awesome day. And after some Egyptian food and a great view of Luxor, we hopped a minibus to Karnak, explored the grounds and watched the sunset there. (Team TINA has a thing for sunsets I think. And we LOVE call to prayer). 

Karnak's entrance

Taken from the very back of the complex
(Did you know there are only 6 obelisks in Egypt!!!
 And there are 9 in Rome, and 1 in Turkey and 1 in France??!!

Karnak is gorgeous! It's huuuuuge, for one thing. And has been worked on by 30 different pharaohs! Rulers built in, on, around it from the Middle Kingdom until the Roman era when it was called Thebes. (You know Thebes, that's where Hercules goes to fight his first monster in the Disney version, hahaa)

My favorite thing in the complex is on the seventh pylon of the Temple of Amun where there's a huge depiction of Tutmoses III smiting a group of foreigners. I like it so much because it's what I've studied in class. He's in the classic Old Kingdom pose even though he is from the New Kingdom! 

Its just so cool to see these things in real life. Yeah, you learn about them in school, but in class it doesn't seem real. It's just some huge building I'll never get a chance to see... It all changes when it's in front of your face!

After that we had a delicious fancy Egyptian meal and retired early again. Then, we woke up bright and early, inhaled some breakfast and ran to the train station to head home.

The second train ride was 100,000,000,000 times better than the last, but no less eventful. 

We started in second class, a 10 dollar ticket (still not the train foreigners are allowed on, but that's only a problem at the ticket office, they don't care when you're actually on the train).

Well, because we bought tickets on the train itself, we had no seat numbers, so we kept getting kicked around. The train was really full that day. We started in second and slept for a while before someone came for my seat and from for the next 8 hours or so we bounced around. From a comfy chair in first class my journal reads "Insha'Allah this can be our spot for a while, we have two seats and we're switching around. Margaux is sitting on a newspaper on the floor right now. But its ok. This train only takes 10 hours. Insha'Allah." Hahaha.

Before that we had been standing in between cars on the area where they hook together. That was kind of fun. Then we sat for a while near the "bar" area where the guys were heating up tea.

After that, we were moved again, but managed to stay in first class. Margaux and I shared a chair, I would just sit on the arm rest and drape my legs over her. There was a hilarious group of football player sized Egyptian guys doing the same thing, it was pretty entertaining. And I slept! And read a book! And did homework! So, it was still productive!

arabic homework!

All in all, I had an amazing weekend. I feel really really blessed to have made such great friends here. I don't feel like I could have made that trip with very many other people. I've been so blessed. 

Baaa, ram, ewe! Baa, ram, ewe!

Oh, and I'll never complain about a 2 hour drive over the Grapevine again!! =P

Loooooove, 

 Kj