Egyptian excursions, exploits, explorations, excitement, exodus, and Elat. Part II...

Ok, back again. Just a warning that the stories may be shorter/this will be more basic because I have about a thousand things to do and about 4 days to do them. Anyway, Egypt:

So we got to Luxor about 10 in the morning on Sunday - Easter Sunday, which was weird because it was not at all like any Easter I have ever had. We crossed the Nile (it's an Egyptian pound per person every time, fortunately a pound is worth less than 20 cents, so it was no big deal) and found a hotel. It was a nice one, family owned, quiet (except for the flock of fighting birds that were in the bush outside my 3rd floor window the next morning) and clean - a big plus in Egypt. After settling in and catching our breath we crossed back over the Nile and walked around Luxor. We viewed the Luxor Temple from outside the gates, it sits right in the main area of town so you can see all of it. Then we walked the 3 kilometers to the Karnak Temple, which is pretty impressive. It has well over a hundred giant pillars and lots of etchings in the rocks and some painting and plenty of other cool things to look at. It was a hot day and we walked a lot, thus began our drinking of gallons of water per day. I would say that on the average day it was over 95 degrees and we sweated about 2 liters each, but it was well worth it.

After a mini-Resurrection day time of singing and reading the resurrection account on the roof of the hotel we went to bed and I slept solid for the first time in days. I used to think under 7 hours was bad news, that day it was glorious. So we went to the Valley of the Kings and perused three of the tombs, Walker and Jason almost lost their expensive cameras to some cranky guards and half of the tombs we preferred to see were closed. But it was cool. A few of us paid the extra 10 bucks to go to Tut's Tomb, viewing it as a one-time chance and something we would regret everytime we bought our friends coffee for 15 bucks back in the states. It was definitely not a large tomb, but the paintings were cool, the sarcophagus they left in there was impressive and his mummified self is still in there, waiting for the afterlife boats to take him away. The whole place is kind of sad because you realize the emptiness of the whole idea. Gold, holes in the ground, paintings... it's worth nothing in the end. Throw my body in a furnace and spread it in the mountains when I am gone for all I care, the glory of my eternity is not dependent on riches or fancy depictions of my accomplishments. Jesus Christ's work on the cross one day and 1,979 years before I walked into those tombs did the job for me. Baruch Hashem. (a Hebrew phrase, means blessed be the Name, similar to praise the Lord).

After the Valley of the Kings we sort of just frittered away the afternoon, relaxing, taking a felucca (sailboat) that rocked Bob Marley half the time up the Nile to Banana Island. Which is a place that we still are wondering if it is an island. The favorite video of our entire time in Egypt was made on Banana Island. I forget if I have explained that already so I will recap. Daniel and I decided to document funny stories with video recaps the whole time, Courtney was always a good source of ridiculousness so we enjoyed the production of our mockumentary of Egypt. We have been watching the videos and falling off our chairs laughing. Anyway, so after bananas on Banana Island we headed back to the hotel for a real Egyptian dinner (yum - and no one is dead or sick yet so we think it was good on all counts :). Then Daniel, Danae, Courtney and I split with our favorite group (that of Jason, Walker, Lily, and Heather) and boarded the train with Mikey, Seth, Stef, and Annie to go back to Cairo.

After not much sleep, but more than the first train trip, we got to Cairo, went to a hotel to check on Mikey's bus connection for our trans-Sinai trip. Thus began the sketchy-est day of them all.
First issue: Mikey's connection failed. First we had a bus, but then it had to come from Taba so it wouldn't get to Cairo til 4, which was no good. Then we had another that would be there in a half hour (= never Egyptian time) and then another that would be there at noon, so we left. We had gotten into town at about 8, killed time getting breakfast and getting ripped off, and then waited and got nothing so we headed back to the train station to find a mini bus. At this point Mikey was done. He had had enough and so Daniel and I decided to run the show. Except that bartering with taxi/bus guys with a confused group of 8 americans (actually 6 americans, a german and a guatemalan-american) is no good. So we dropped them at the train station, talked to the tourist people, got a connection and went outside. We were doing ok, getting close to a good deal and then mafia man of the mini-buses who had chosen to hate us 20 minutes before courtesy of the tired Mikey-big group combo came over and shoved them all away. Any mini-bus driver in Cairo who gave us a ride would probably wake up with a horse's head in their bed the next day. So we found a couple of taxi drivers, decided that despite the higher cost and pain of being separate and in cramped cars we should just get the heck out of dodge. So we did.

And it was crazy. Our driver went between 15 and 140 kilometers per hour the whole time while slowpoke mcgee, the driver of the other car went a solid 80 at the fastest. Our driver also enjoyed driving halfway in the other lane or halfway in the shoulder. Now all Egyptians drive bad and make up their own lanes, but our guy must have been the daredevil of Cairo in that realm. By the grace of God and thousands of angels acting as bowling bumpers we made it across the great and terrifying wilderness. Once at Taba we had some paying issues with the taxi fiends, a story best left til I get home it is so long and good.

We went through the border, they stopped me and one of our gals and swabbed everything in our pockets, which means that the traces of drugs that covered the hands of the 30+ egyptians who handled my passport are now on the Israeli swab that has my name on it. Oh joy... Apparently young american guys who haven't shaved in 5 days and have been to Israel twice are pretty suspect. I will have to be more careful from here on.

Then we walked the 6 miles from the border to Elat because we were in stingy egypt mode and didn't pay the 2 bucks a person to save our feet and stay out of the sandstorm, but hey it was an experience to write about. Then the blissful relaxation of two days in Elat began. We slept. We ate. We slept on the beach. We ate on the beach. We got more sun. We drank enough slushies to keep 17 dentists employed full time and loved it. The original plan to go to Jordan/Petra was nixed due to group consent that a. Egypt was satisfying for Arab country travel. b. the cost-value ratio was not good (100 bucks for the day if we were lucky). c. the border crossing issue had potential for disaster having "been in Israel too long" at first, going to Egypt, the next day going to Jordan for just a day (sketchy drug deal possibilities you know) and then coming back to egypt to "continue touring" after three months of doing "only" that. All in all we were totally fine with our decision, enjoying the relaxation and friendship of two days in the sun. Then we bused back up to Jerusalem on Friday morning and our adventure was complete. Well worth it, tiring, fun, hot, crazy, unsafe, near-death, awesome, etc. That was Egypt.

Now I have to joy and privilege of doing a big project (aka 20-ish page paper or project-style equivalent) and read about 1,763 pages - give or take 2 or 3 hundred :)
So I am busy out of my socks and I we are done in 11 days. How does time go so fast?

That being the case, I have some prayer requests that are pressing hard on my heart. I need to finish strong and I am tired and have a ton of stuff on my mind. Being excited to be home, sad to leave Israel, pumped to travel with my brother in Europe, not wanting to leave my good friends here, wanting to rest, having to do a ton of stuff and all the while not wanting to waste a single moment of the last 11 days of IBEX is giving my heart a workout like you wouldn't believe. Pray that I relax and enjoy, that I give it ALL to the Lord and just take one thing at a time. My heart is heavy today friends, real heavy, but in a bunch of good ways and some just confusing ones, so if you don't mind too much I would love some prayer. And pray that I will pray too, it's hard in busy times like this.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Egyptian excursions, exploits, explorations, excitement, exodus, and Elat. Part I

Some say that Egypt is gross and no fun and hot and nasty, others say it is amazing and they loved every minute of being there, and still others have come to the conclusion that traveling in Egypt is a really cool experience, but have checked it off the list of places to visit. If it's not obvious, I am in the third category. Going to Egypt was a blast, we just got back yesterday and were quite tired and sweaty and tanned and filled with great stories.

I'll give you the rough sketch of the trip and fill in with good stories, though most will have to wait until I see you because there are so many good ones.

We left at 5 am on Friday from the Moshav and headed for the Israeli-Egyptian border down on the Sinai Peninsula, it's called Taba and is a few hours too far away, stupid Gaza means we can't just drive a couple hours and be done with it... oh well. There were a bunch of us that went so we had two mini buses of IBEXers, but ours was better because it wasn't packed full, which meant leg room, oh yeah. Then we went through all the checkpoint things at the border, which is a pain and expensive. To backtrack sort of, all of us that went together are actually smaller groups, mostly 4 people per group. My roommate Daniel and I and our friends Courtney and Danae were a team for the week, but we hung out with other groups most of the time. Ok, so border crossing... oh yes, story: Courtney was one of the first ones to go through and let's just say she is not a pro at concealing the fact that we are students using tourist visa. So having been labeled a student tourist and having the Israeli personnel hate us, we moved on... thanks a lot Courtney for putting IBEX in jeopardy :) We learned that Courtney only talks after we do at any checkpoint and says as little as possible, she's still figuring that out though...

Then we joined with our friends Walker, Jason, Lily and Heather and took a mini bus across the Sinai peninsula, which contains lots of dirt, rocks, hotness and Egyptian checkpoints and sketchy stretches of road. Six or so hours later we got to the train station in Cairo, bought our tickets for the next evening (To Luxor) and proceeded to walk around forever in downtown dirty Cairo looking for the hotels they had picked out. Side note, our group did very little planning, like we had a general idea of where we were going and that was all. So God really took care of us and let us hang out with groups who had a much more fine-tuned plan, it was wonderful. So we finally found the Egyptian equivalent of that sketchy roadside hotel that you only ever dread staying in, which is like a three star in downtown Cairo... but hey it was a bed and it was 9 bucks.

After dinner we collapsed into bed, slept til 5 am and then grabbed a taxi to the pyramids. We left early so that we could be sure to get tickets into the Great Pyramid, they apparently go fast. So our taxi driver took us to the back entrance and the camel ride business of his third cousin twice removed on his half sister's side. We learned that everyone you meet in Egypt is related to no less than half of the country and they are all in cahoots in business. We walked away from that little set-up and walked about a mile to the front entrance, which was good, because it killed time and the pyramids don't open til 8 anyway, thus began two themes of our trip: not sleeping very much and walking a whole lot.

Once on the right side of the pyramids, we killed more time in a really really fancy hotel, where we pretended to be interested in a room so we could use bathrooms that were less scary and sit in air conditioned comfort. Then we went up to the pyramids, thanked the Lord for our student ID cards for the first of many times where paid half what the average tourist pays. It was wonderful. Then we walked all around the Great pyramid and took pictures and made another video clip (side story: following Courtney's student-tourist fiasco, we made a video, so we decided to document our excursion whenever possible, so now we have a whole lot of random video clips that help us remember all the funny little things that happened). We got to go into the great pyramid (which cost just as much as getting into the pyramids to begin with). It was really cool, except that it actually was really really hot and stuffy and you came out weighing a couple pounds less and really thirsty. Well worth the cost, it was fun. Not a lot of decoration (none actually) but a really long tunnel and a cool chamber with cool acoustics. So we left the pyramids, walking by the Sphinx on the way, which is smaller than we imagine, but still very cool. The pyramids are pretty amazing, they are as big as you imagine, really old, and a good reminder that even though the stones last the people who made them are long gone and mean nothing. An interesting contrast to what we see in Israel that points us to the God who is forever.

Then we got a taxi to the Cairo Museum and continued our perusal of ancient stuff. But first we were really hungry, so we went to Pizza Hut. Oh it has never tasted so good. Non-kosher and cheap (Daniel and I split a pizza and some cheesebread and it was 4 bucks each (like 20 some Eqyptian pounds) We tend to imagine the Cairo museum as something like the Smithsonian only with just Egypt stuff. Well it is not. It was weird, it's sort of like a big warehouse with the occasional label on things. It is more or less laid out with stuff from the same time period together, but there is so much stuff that it is just there, not much explanation. It was cool for sure, but disorganized by our standards of museums. But then again, everything in Egypt is disorganized, but it is cool. After that we had nothing else we wanted to see and time to kill before our night train, so we went to the Nile and took a ride on a felucca (sail boat) for an hour, it was so nice to just hang out on a boat on the Nile river and take a break from walking and breathing the street air. It has been decided that Cairo air quality fails without even checking, It's like chain smoking, plus the amount of times you almost get by a car is no less than 10 times greater than the times you don't get hit by one. It's a miracle we are alive in all reality...

So after the boat ride we walked to the Hard Rock Cafe so Courtney could get a shirt and so we could say we went. We just took pictures and waited, no ordering of expensive food for us poor folk. Then we wasted more time at McDonalds for dinner (with free wi-fi, how nice) and went to the train station. There we met every group from IBEX that had even considered going up to Luxor, it was a weird reunion, but cool to see everyone. There were already some great stories and we had only been in country for like 40 hours. So we got on the train, told some stories and then tried to sleep. I think I slept the least of our group, Daniel can sleep anywhere without too much trouble, he lays down and he's out, not so for me... oh well. Anyway, the train ride was a couple hours longer than we thought, but it was ok, we were in Luxor now, the next stage of our adventure was about to begin.

But I will leave it at that for now because I need to take a nap, read a lot and work on a few papers. Funny thing about leaving, coming back means you still have lots of stuff to do, just a week less to do it. And it is basically dead week. IBEX is over in 2 weeks, sheesh...
Anyway, I will pick up the adventure in the next day or two, enjoy...

I'm like a real football fan or something!

Alas, I have broken my 2 week running record of updates. But you will get over it, it's not like most of you check this on Superbowl Sunday anyway.

Speaking of Sunday, I went on a hike. It was so nice to be outside doing something, even if it did do a little raining throughout the day. We walked west and northwest down the ridge that we sit on. The route we took was actually a route way back in the day, the Kiriat Jearim Ridge Route (we learned about it today). 8 guys went, which meant that there were several instances of ridiculous behavior and many more instances of climbing on stuff. At a high point on the ridge there were ruins of an old Roman fortress and further down the road (it's a road/trail that Israel's Nature Society has developed) there were a bunch of Roman mile markers, big pillar-like things that we climbed on. Certainly a beautiful day in the Holy Land.

After doing homework, eating, doing homework, etc. I went to bed. But only for about an hour and half. You know why? No? Well let me 'splain to you.

Unlike the decent hour at which you all viewed the Cardinals vs. Steelers Super Bowl extravaganza, with all of your chips and dip and non-kosher pizza, over here it was another story. You see, over here we live most of the day before you even get up (even you Cathy, who gets up about the same time most Farrar boys go to bed :). So that means that the Super Bowl started at 1 am. Yes, 1 am. But don't you worry, I was up at midnight, one of our friends here was sick/homesick/her family has the biggest Super Bowl shindig known to east-central California, so we had a little party for her and then watched the game.

Now I am not crazy. Maybe close, but not all the way. So I went to bed around 2, meaning I watched the first quarter, but the weirdos who watched the whole thing stayed up until about 5:30! a.m.! What a waste of sleep. Fortunately we had class at 10:30 instead of 8, but still, I choose sleep.

So there you go, I got up in the middle of the night to watch football. Who would have thought it? But there was pizza (cheese, with this Amazing salt-spice stuff, yum).

As for today... I felt good, even on 7 1/2 hours of broken sleep. Classes were, as usual, wonderful. I can't even explain how easy it is to stay focused during a 2 hour class session. I love it. Pray that it sticks.

Here's a good part of the day: after class (about 3:30) I was going to do homework or play soccer and then do homework before dinner. Instead I took a nap. The plan was for an hour. It was two :)

I feel great, plus I have discovered the unique and wonderful feeling of a sauna. Four or five of the guys and I went, I think this will become a routine behavior. Naps, food, sauna, not doing homework, ahh... what a life.

Sidenote times 2:
First thing, some of you asked about food. Stay tuned for my upcoming issue entitled "Filafels: Food In the Land And Food Eli LikeS"

Second, You probably knew before I did that Israel has resumed firing/rocketing/etc. on Gaza. I could hear planes yesterday, but didn't know what they were. I can hear planes right now and throughout the day we heard planes and a few far off "Boom!'s" But never fear, we are far away, feeling good, and fine. Hamas is good at breaking cease-fires, Israel is good at military things, and the profs here are good at taking care of us. If you want a good idea of how safe we are, check this out: Wednesday is our field study day. This time we are going to areas of Benjamin (this is the tribal allotment stuff you always skim in the book of Joshua). The ancient territory of Benjamin includes Jerusalem, Gibeah, Ramah, Geba, Mizpah, Jericho, Gezer, etc. Anyway, today much of that territory is in a little area we fondly refer to as "the West Bank." And to qualm all of your fears, we're going there. So don't worry about us. We're fine over here.

If I see any shrapnel I'll box it up and send it home as a souvenir.

Quick! While it's still Saturday!

So I have to type real fast because its almost Sunday and I want to keep the streak alive.

Today in a nutshel: Sleep in (Yes!) Church, Old City - where I had an absolutely delicious filafel for dinner, then a nap (yes!) and then the culmination of the day: the Battle of the Sexes.

Every Saturday night we have "Saturday Night Live" (SNL) a game night or hang-out time planned by our profs. It's a ton of fun. Last week we played Mad-Gab and some other things. This week we had a series of games, boys vs. girls. Boys won 32-25. We played a little charades, a roommate game (how well do you know your roomie sort of thing), we ate cake because it was someone's birthday, we played some other cool games, I had to use my Hebrew skills (ick).

All in all a fun day. Tomorrow I am being rebellious and going on a hike for most of the day... homework shall be the bane of my existence tomorrow night I fear.

Ah! It's 11:59. bye

A Speedy Shabbat

Here's the quicker version of today, since I talk too much anyway and I have to go in a little bit - there is fun to be had in the bomb shelter.

Today is the Sabbath (Shabbat), well, actually, it's over now since it's dark outside, but you get the idea. (The typical Shabbat will go something like I will describe in the next few paragraphs, exceptions will be noted.)

First things first: I got to sleep in, which is my idea of a day of rest! "Church," here referred to as Assembly or something similar, is at 11 so I got a semi-leisurely morning, not like I accomplished much, but I think that's the point. Right before the service we had to vote on our "wing leaders." This I have not mentioned before, so I will briefly explain. A wing leader is basically an RA, they get to make sure people sign up to clean the bathroom and then actually do it, they take care of other such things, they get to be keeper of the wing's cell phone :) and maybe the best part: they get to meet once a week with Abner Chou. The smartest 26-year-old teacher I have heard of and a super cool, super nice guy. Most of the wings here have about 10 people in them. Our wing has 4. And we are probably some of the most similar and most laid back guys here. I like it. So we talked about our "vote" before we actually went in, majority suggestion was that I get it. Mom, I have a confession, I'm committing to something extra-curricular, please don't worry that I am doing too much. This means that I get to be an RA again, who would have thought? Eli, the ex-RA has now been promoted to being an RA in a foreign country! It should be cool, especially the part where I don't have to ask someone else to use the phone and the part where I get to meet with Abner every week. I look forward to it.

That being explained, let's move on. Assembly: pretty much the majority of the people here at the Moshav go to church here. We get to sing in Hebrew, fortunately, the English version is on the powerpoint too. Now when I say English version I mean the Hebrew words are written in English letters, so we stumble through them and hope for the best. It was so cool though, we sang a couple Hebrew songs, but then we sang a couple of English songs. Come Thou Fount in Hebrew sounds pretty much amazing. It was a good day.

After Assembly we ate lunch (better food than normal since a group was here for the weekend. It's sort of like when the Board comes to Corban, or like Corban Experience :). Then we killed time until the bus came to take us to the Old City. We were there for a little over three hours, cruising the streets, perusing the wares, having a good Saturday afternoon, etc.

We stopped at our friend Shabaan's and in typical Arab fashion he gave us some mint tea. I was more along for the ride than anything. I had nothing I wanted to buy just yet and it was nice to get out and burn off some of that pita bread. Then we headed for home, going straight into dinner.

Dinner tonight was amazing! But not because of the food.

Tonight the food was pretty much normal. But the conversation was incredible. Four of us, my roommate Daniel, a guy named Tyler, and a gal named Jessi, had a really good conversation. I will briefly share it with you because it was so good. It started by talking about The Office (tv show) and Jessi was sharing how she didn't think Believers should really watch it because it contains so much crude and vulgar stuff (we like her line of thinking). From there the conversation exploded into the best conversation I have had here to date. We talked about all sort of things that pertain to true Christian living. Particularly how so often we will have a conversation like this and then go and do nothing with it. The question of the hour was this, "so now what are we going to do with this conversation?" -- So often we talk about great and challenging and convicting things and then do nothing about it. Our goal is to do something with it, to take it to the Lord and let those things that were discussed and those things which are on our heart sink in. It was just great.

I need to run now, time for our Saturday night shindig in the miklat.
Enjoy the weekend, may our great God bring Himself into your attention and may you buck the system of society and live unabashedly for Him.