dear luxor- i miss you.

 We stopped off at were the Ptolemaic temples which is what Luther has been studying for over 5 years.  To put it in simple terms, its when the Egyptians and the Greeks met and began to merge their cultures together. (There are A LOT of similarites between Greek gods and Egyptian gods and the temples exhibit a cool mixing of Greek and Egyptian painting, sculpture and architecture)  It was hard to peel him away from these places as we only had a small time slot to meet back up with the rest of the tour group.  We were always the last ones at the meeting point. :P  Luckily we know how, where and when to go back to these places so next time we visit we can allow more time.  Some people can easily walk through these places and ignore all the carvings and painting on the walls but it’s so awesome to have someone explain all the stories and myths and legends and rituals.

We were also informed that because most people cruise down the Nile and stay in their boats, the hotels in Aswan, Edfu and Luxor (main sites for ruins) are SUPER cheap.

The next day we woke up on Easter Sunday morning with a view of a bunch of holes in a mountain.  These were Noble Nubian Tombs! (No, there were no resurrections to be seen.)

For breakfast the boat had prepared many types of eggs and Mediterranean easter bread (sweet bread with an egg baked into it) as well as chocolate easter eggs for dessert. J 

Another negative for the boat was that it was docked REEEAAALLLLY far from luxor, which made us have to cater to the tour buses schedule.  On the last night we finally decided to pay for a cab to the city of luxor and try to catch the temples at sunset.  Now i realize the benefits of staying in luxor for a few nights- what a beautiful city!!  We found a really cool hotel/restaurant that had a rooftop patio overlooking EVERYTHING and enjoyed chicken shawerma, mollecheyyia (this goopy egyptian soup luther likes) and tahini. :)  PLUS for luxor.

( The 'Nerfertiti' hotel was unknowingly the same hotel and restaurant that my fellow staff members stayed at and RAVED about.

 

So, all in all, please come visit us and we will take you to luxor :)

The entrance to the nerfertiti hotel

rooftop patio shawerma time :)

 

valley of the kings. and heat.

Valley of the kings is interesting.  It is much more secure and organized than many of the sites i've visited.  Basically, you pay a ton of money to see a bunch of holes in the desert.  If you wish to see whats INSIDE the holes, you pay extra.  If you wish to see whats inside of IMPORTANT holes- you pay a little extra.  If you want to see the most IMPORTANT hole (king tut) you pay 10 bux american (65 LE. ALOT 'extra')

Of course, we did.

So i can say it.  I saw King tut.  He looked..well. shrivelly.  Remarkably good for being thousands of years old.  Kinda crispy.

look ma! luxor!

After that we visited Hatshepsuts temple which was amazing and cool and something i have always wanted to visit because its on every single 'egypt' themed calendar.

puurrrrdy.and bloody hot.

 

meanwhile...down the nile...

We got home from school/work on Thursday evening and quickly packed as our flight was at 5-something AM.  From cairo to luxor its only an hour so when we arrived in luxor we stayed on the boat until the ‘welcome dinner’ at 8.

The cruise itself was great.  Its not ‘Carnvial Cruise Line’ but it was super awesome for 2 people who have never set foot on a cruise boat before.  It was called the ‘Nile Goddess’ and was all-inclusive with a fancy looking interior, spacious cabins, a “pool” (small but good enough for most) and evening entertainment on 2 nights of the 3.  The majority of the time was spent sight-seeing and tanning on the sundeck J.  We were blessed with temperatures over 36 each day.  The heat isn’t unbearable as some people might think.  The only time it got really bad was the day we went to Valley of the Kings.  Its in the middle of the desert and we had spent a full day touring the day before so everyone was kinda zombie-ish already.

crying over comfort

 

 

 

BEST PART ABOUT BOAT: The luxury ‘titanic’ feel of it and the belly dancing shows!  Also, the breakfast buffets were awesome with every breakfast food you can imagine.  My go-to was fresh fruit with Kaiser-sesame sweet buns. The staff was also amazing.



whirling dirvish

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WORST PART ABOUT BOAT: This is what I DISLIKE about cruise ships.  We didn’t have much freedom.  Our boat was docked quite far from the cities so we found ourselves waiting around quite a bit for tours to start.  When we were finally on the tours, we only were out for a short amount of time before heading back to the boat.  So, Luther and I would love to explore the sites and cities on our own next time. 

breakfast buffet

bliss

 

The only time we “ditched” the boat was our last night in Luxor when we decided to just pay for the long cab ride into the city.  Probably the best idea EVER- I’ll explain more later.

The boat was filled with many interesting people as well.  It was mostly older people (40s-50s).There were TONS of Italians and Spanish people that gave life to the ship in the evenings.  A few Canadians living abroad and even an expat family originally from Winnipeg . J

So that was the boat.

KRISTOS-VOSKRES!

 

Happy Easter! Happy Spring Break (#1)!!!

 So, my posts have been lacking as of late because:

1.)    I’ve been so tired I don’t even have the energy to type

2.)    I am using my week off to recover from being so tired that I am too busy to type

 Right now, I have just spent my first day back in cairo after enjoying a cruise down the nile river for 4 days. (AMAZING)  And now, I am off to catch a quick cab ride (about 3 minutes) to ‘road nine’- the Osborne village of cairo- to meet up with luther and grab some pizza.  He did not have the pleasure of sleeping in today because he had a field trip to an archeological site with the AUC.  Our flight from luxor to cairo was quite late so we didn’t get to bed until 2:30am and he was up for 6am.  YEEK.

Apparently, the reason the flight was delayed was because cairo decided to 'dim' its electricity in order to conserve it.  This genius idea caused many problems in homes, retail stores, restaurants, anything with an internet connection and- airports.

Anyway, according to a text I received, he found something on the dig. More details after pizza.  J

Naturally, while in Luxor which is SO close to the holy lands, i kept the meaning of easter in my mind.
For your seasonal pleasure:

JEEEEEEEESAAAAAAAAHHHHHHSSSS!

my best 'carl anderson staring pentively into the sunset from tour bus' impression