Looks like recovery is going to take longer than I expected...

The doctor told me to spend another week eating yogurt and Pepto Bismal.
*sigh*

Ah well. Might as well kill time by posting some more pictures.

The Pyramids:

Mount Sinai:







The Red Sea:

Still in Recovery Mode...

So I've been back in America for almost a week now and am still pretty sick. What I thought was probably just my stomach re-adjusting to American food has turned into me not really being able to eat much of anything. It's frustrating because I want to get my summer in the states rolling, but haven't felt well enough to leave my house much. I'm going to the doctor today though, and hopefully they'll give me some sort of super-sonic antibiotic, or at least something that will make eating a lightly buttered piece of toast more enjoyable.

Reasons why I should get better really soon?

- Camp Hope is in two weeks (my camp name this year is "Papyrus." Watch Lauren become obsessed with all things Egyptian...)
- My band (Original Sound Trash - the non-metal one) has a show in July and needs to practice! (We're rockin Portland's Ash Street Saloon, I'm stoked!)
- My band also has a new drummer on the horizon that needs to be debriefed/examined
- Unofficial rumor has it that I will be returning to my old job at the Boring fruit stand soon (hey, as the Egyptians say, "No money no honey no money no funny!")
- My dad is a brilliant cook and it's killing me to be in a house full of really good food and only eat strawberry yogurt

And that's just the short list.

Ah well. I'm sure I'll be better soon enough. I guess I should have known that 3 weeks in a country with few health and safety regulations would catch up to me.

Don't get me wrong, I loved Egypt, but it's kinda gross how stray cats just hang out in the restaurants and occasionally try to jump on you...

No wonder I'm sick.

Pictures: Temple Time! (And an Arabic-speaking Cheeseburger)

Philae Temple!






More Temples:




The High Priests used to sneak into this room and project their voices to the people praying in the next room so that they would think god was telling them to give money to the temple...


Hieroglyphic Calender


Arabic-speaking Cheeseburger

Pictures: The First Few Days

Weird Times in Amsterdam:

Mosque of Mohammad Ali


Neon Jesus and a Cool Alleyway:


Giant chicken that was delicious (but made everyone sick):

The market in Cairo!

Traditional Egyptian Breakfast on the Train (Bread, Bread, Bread, and...more Bread!):

Abu Simbel!

The Nubian Village We Visited:



"I will play music and you will dance!"


This kid latched onto our boat and sang "Hey Macarena" until we gave him money




Will upload more pictures soon :)

The Journey Home, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Lamps that Look Like Bombs

So I got back from Egypt Tuesday night and have been in recovery mode ever since. Apparently there IS such a thing as too much hummus. I think this morning is the first time I've really had an appetite since I've been back.

Yes, it is before 9 am and I've been up for a couple of hours. Still not quite used to this time zone yet. In Egypt, it's almost 11 at night right now.

The last day in Cairo was very memorable. We visited an orphanage in "garbage city," which was kind of overwhelming. I held a little girl the whole time we were there. I say I don't really like little kids, but she was adorable, and it broke my heart when I had to leave and she started crying.

We went to a big church in garbage city that was carved into the side of a mountain. It was beautiful. A limping Egyptian man gave us a tour, speaking in Arabic that was translated by the wonderful Niyar. "There are three words that are the same in every language," he says. "Amen, Hallelujah, and...does anyone know the third one?" We don't. He smiles. "Coca cola!" He says. We laugh. It's true. Everyone knows how to say "coca cola."

The last night in Cairo was bittersweet. We sailed on the Nile in little falucca boats (see picture), watching the sunset over the city and mentally preparing ourselves for our oncoming return to reality. After the boat ride, we had an amazing dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. We had been there on the first day to eat hummus and kofta, but this time they actually let us order hamburgers. I lived on the edge and ate a tomato on mine (tomatos are on the list of things you aren't supposed to eat in Egypt). It seemed like every American tourist in Cairo was at Hard Rock. It was a lot of fun. Our waiter even pulled me up on stage to do some stupid chereographed dance with a bunch of other people (seems to be an unfortunate reoccuring theme in the trip...I blame my hair...oh well, I had fun).

After Hard Rock, my friend Shereen and I rushed back to the hotel to get ready for a night at the discoteque. Sadly, the one night we were actually awake enough to go to the discoteque, it was closed. So we had our own personal packing/dancing party in our hotel room (after blowing the last of our Egyptian pounds in the hotel's gift shop, of course) and met the rest of the group in the lobby at 1 am. The time to go to the airport was upon us.

Niyar was all dressed up for the occasion. I am going to miss that man. He had us all crying with his "You guys are family now and I hope to get Visa and come to Amrika someday" speech on the bus.

Getting into the airport was thrilling. We had to put our bags through security scanners first thing, and the infamous lamp I bought in Dahab was packed in my carry-on. I had put it in there without even thinking about the fact that it's small, round, wirey, and looks exactly like a bomb. So that was awkward. The security guy pulled my bag aside and started yelling at me in Arabic. Niyar saw what was happening and came over to help me immediately, which was awesome. I might still be in Cairo if it weren't for him. The security guard had to careful inspect my lamp while everyone waited. He argued with Niyar in Arabic for a few minutes, then Niyar told me to put the lamp in my luggage that I was going to check. Of course, my luggage was stuffed full, so I had to do some frantic shuffling/repacking. Like I said, it was thrilling.

We got on the plane around 3am. I made the mistake of giving the man next to me a piece of gum when he asked for one and ended up getting to hear his whole life story while everyone else slept (I'm kidding about it being a mistake - it was quite the hilarious conversation and will probably make it into a screenplay someday). He was Egyptian/Dutch and was attempting to figure out what astrological sign I am by telling me he is "ze balance scale!" It was past 4 in the morning at that point and I was beyond confused. Then came the screenplay worthy part of the conversation:

Him: Do you smoke?
Me: No.
Him: Good.
Me: Do you smoke?
Him: Yes. I like Egyptian water pipe.

I give him a courtesy laugh and there is an awkward pause before he smiles and fires his next question.

Him: You have boyfriend?
Me: Yes!
Egyptian man: Does he smoke?
Me: No.
Egyptian man: Good.

I put on my headphones before he can ask if I've ever been to a Turkish prison. I fall asleep listening to a Sash album they had available in the in-flight music library.

Woke up in Amsterdam (which, according to my little Egyptian balance scale friend, is "freedom and paradise"...sketch). Paid too much for a little cup of coffee and got on another plane. Soon I would be back in the states. Back where there are stoplights, flushing toilets, clean water, edible fruit, and animal control. Back where you can walk into a store, touch everything that's for sale, and be completely ignored. Back where being red-head is normal and not a reason for people to treat you like a celebrity. Back in "Amrika."

It's nice to be back, but I loved Egypt more than I ever thought I would. And hopefully, someday, I'll be able to go back there.

Osama the Bus Driver

Oh Cairo. I think I just lived through a comedy routine trying to find my hotel room in the hotel we just checked into. My friend and I thought it was a good idea to take a "secret elevator" to get to our room faster and ended up wandering around with our giant bags, a lamp, and a couple pieces of chocolate cake. Once we figured out we were lost, we piled everything into the elevator, and I got in it just in time for the door to close. Egyptian elevators don't open back up right away when you tell them to, so I rode it down a few floors, with about 5 bags, and I could hear my friend yelling at me to come back the whole way. Hilarious.
Okay, maybe it's not that funny, but I spent 9 hours on a bus today to get from Siwa to Cairo. Everything is funny.
Siwa was yet another highlight of my trip. It's a small town built around an oasis in the middle of the desert, and is beautiful (despite the cockroaches). Yesterday was one of my favourite days ever. Got up early and went on a bike ride to the natural spring of Cleopatra and swam a little. Egyptian pizza for lunch (which isn't really like American pizza but is amazing), then onto jeeps for an epic six hour safari through the sand dunes. It was like a roller coaster ride, but scarier. Occasionally a jeep would get stuck in the sand and the drivers would run out with shovels and dig them out. It was unlike anything I've ever done before.
We stopped at multiple natural lakes and springs to swim, then stopped on the top of a big dune to drink tea and watch the sunset. It was great. After sunset, we drove over to a small camp where we ate yet another meal of chicken, rice, and potatoes (though this one was especially good) and sat around a bon fire looking at the stars, dancing, and listening to some Egyptian men playing drums. That was really fun. Our bus driver, Osama, wanted to dance but no one would dance with him. He got down on his knees and begged me to dance, and so I danced barefoot around the fire with our old, hairy bus driver named Osama (and he was wearing his pants like Steve Urcle). Hahahaha
Tommorrow is my last day in Egypt. Though I look forward to showing off my tan at home, I'm going to miss this country a lot.

So much has happened since my last post

Snorkeled in the Red Sea in Dehab - amazing

Had a couple of hysterical moments in the market - shopping with my friend Shareen, attempting to buy a lamp from a cartoony Egyptian man with terrible English who tried to sell me a bulb in a box with a string of uncut wire. Shareen yelled at him so he went in the back and tried to fix the bulb onto the wire. We thought he was going to electricute himself.
Then I went jewelry shopping with Niyar, our awesome tour guide. That was fun. He would take me to a shop, I would look around, then point to what I wanted and he would take it to the store owner and yell about the price in Arabic for about 5 minutes, then calmly look at me and say, in broken English, "You need the necklace? It is __ pounds for you." Like I said, it was fun.

Now I am in Alexandria (after several loooong bus rides). It's a very European city, but still Egyptian to the core. Women are very conservative here, and men hit on me left and right because I have no head covering, it's awkward.

Today I ate fish that still had it's head attached (it didn't wear a sweater, it didn't play drums...)
Then I went to Starbucks!

Overall, I'm still having a great time here in Egypt :)
Sadly, my Internet time is ticking
till next time

- Lauren of Arabia

Mount Sinai

So this can't be a long post, but I just feel the need to inform everyone that I rode a camel/climbed to the top of Mount Sinai today. In the dark. I had to get up at 1:30 am. Made it to the top in time for the sunrise and made it down before 8. It was amazing. But probably the scariest thing I've ever done. There were a couple of times where I thought I was going to fall off a cliff. And the kid guiding my camel was about 10 years old and didn't speak any English. Terrifying.
My legs were shaking for a long time when I finally made it down, but I felt so accomplished. I climbed Mount Sinai!!

pianos, pizza, and pyramids

I had to wake up at 4:30 this morning. I was on a train that was about to reach it's destination and I did not want to get up. "Lauren, wake up!" says my friend. "Today is pyramids and pizza!"
That got me out of bed.
And it was a very, very good day to get out of bed. This might be one of the best days I've had over here. We got up, got into Cairo, checked into the hotel. We had an hour to kill so I found a deserted piano in a back corner of the lobby and played it. Cooks came out of the kitchen nearby to listen/clap and a lot of tourists crowded around. Meena and Niyar, our tour guides, got coffee and listened. I was in the midst of an instrumental version of "Join the Army of The Living Dead" when a guy in a suit came out and started yelling at Meena in Arabic. Apparently pianos in Egypt are for decoration only, but Meena told me he was talking nonsense, that my playing was beautiful and that I should play again when the guy wasn't around. I didn't though, because Meena left us this afternoon and I'm not a fan of getting yelled at in Arabic.
We visited the great pyramids today, along with the Spinx, Memphis, and Saqqara. I got to go inside the Great Pyramid of Giza (as mentioned in my earlier ecstatic blogpost). It was a steep climb up a claustrophobicy tunnel up to the main burial chamber, but it was way worth it. Definitely one of the most amazing things I have ever done. The pyramids were unbelievable. I think part of what makes them so cool is that no one actually knows how the Egyptians managed to build them. The Spinx was pretty sweet too. There were a million tourists there, all from around the world and all doing some ridiculous Egyptian-esque pose in front of it. It was great.
Here's a moment that no one on the group could really appreciate but I know a lot of you guys will: I was walking down some steps to get a better look at the Saqqara step pyramid and a hoard of European tourists passed me. There was a man wearing headphones and singing along with the song. When he passed me, all I heard was "Istanbul, not Constantinople." Hehehe. It was the cherry on top of an already brilliant day.
The whip cream on top of the cherry was going to Pizza Hut for dinner. Though I've acquired a taste for lamb shish kabobs and baba ganoosh, nothing sounded better than pizza today. I don't think I've ever looked forward to eating at Pizza Hut that much ever. It was good too. I had this fear that it wouldn't be right, like when I got a milkshake from McDonalds (and a chicken burger that had unprocessed pieces of chicken in it...*barfs*). But it was legit pizza. And they were playing Etype inside the restaurant, which made me giddy.
Tommorrow is a day of travelling. We go on a long long bus ride, crash at a hotel, then get up at about 2am to get on camels and ride up Mount Sinai. I am so excited about that. We're going to sit at the top and watch the sunrise.
I probably won't have internet for at least a few days. I might not have it till I get back in Cairo next weekend. It's honestly really nice to go without Internet (though whenever I get on it I seem to want to use it three times as long as everyone else...). I don't even have a phone or ipod over here. All my technology is left in the states, along with my stress. This is the most un-stressed out I've been in a long time. Hopefully I can just stay that way when I get back. But I don't have to think about that for about two more weeks. :)

!!!

Today I visited the pyramids of Giza. More specifically, I got to go inside the Great Pyramid. Oh. My. Gosh. Crazy. Amazing. Scary. So cool.

That is all.

how many camels for the pretty girl?

Hello everyone! I've been in Egypt for about a week now and it's been one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had. The week went by super fast. We were on a cruise down the Nile for a few days, which was so awesome. We just got off the boat today and are now in Luxor. It is so hot here. I didn't get burnt until yesterday when I was laying in the pool on the top deck of the ship during cocktail hour.

We got up early this morning to beat the heat and go to the Valley of the Kings. It was really hot, even at 8am, and I think I got burned more, even though I was wearing SPF 55, but it was incredible. There, out in the middle of nowhere, are all these ancient royal Egyptian tombs (including King Tut's tomb!). I got a chance to go in 3 of them. The craziest one was Tutmosis the Third. You had to go up all these rickety stairs that took you up into the middle of the mountain, then go down all these scary/cramped/hot stairways until you got to the bottom, which was right in the heart of the mountain. It kinda smelled disgusting but was really cool. The sarcoffigus (coffin) (I think I butchered the spelling) was there and there were crazy cool hierglifics everywhere.

That's only one of the many many awesome experiences I've had in the past week. The big ancient temples and monuments are really cool, but so is just going to an Egyptian market or taking a small boat down the Nile. The markets here are crazy. The venders are so agressive and bartaring is expected. I thought I was getting good at bartaring, but after several pretty good deals I managed to get really ripped off by a creepy Nubian man who kept saying things like "How many camels???" (Which, by the way, is the classic Egyptian pick-up line). I got stuck in his shop and he talked fast and took advantage of the fact that I'm confused by the currency. In my attempt to get out of there really fast, I ended up paying way too much for a purse that I am too embarrassed to wear yet because I don't want to tell other people on the trip how much I got it for. I made up for it the next day though, when I bought new shoes for what would be the equivalent of about 5 American dollars. So I'm back on my bartaring game.

I think my favorite thing so far though was the Nubian village that we visited. After a long ride in a small boat down the Nile, we came to this village where people walked their camels down the street and everyone had pet crocodiles. We were able to spend time with one family that showed us their house and gave us all henna tattoos. They didn't really speak English, but they were nice and had cute kids who could say "Hello!" and "Coca Cola!" So we sat in their colorful, mudbrick house, drinking Coca Cola, holding crocodiles, and dancing to this old dude playing some sort of guitar-esque instrument. It was beautiful. The old guy said something in Arabic and our guide translated it as "I am here to play music and you have to dance." So we had a dance party. I think it's one of the best dance parties I've ever had.

Haha, not all dancing related experiences on this trip have been positive. There was this awful, jiggly, creepy belly dancing lady on the cruise ship one night. I sat in the wrong spot during the show and ended up getting pulled up onstage by her. There was no way to escape and I had to dance with her and a bunch of old stiff European men while my entire group (including my profs) watched. Awk-ward.

Speaking of awkward - Internet cafes in Egypt are not that glamourous. I mean, everyone smokes everywhere anyway so everything kinda smells like cigarette smoke or hooka, but since Internet cafes tend to be small, they are super stinky. *coughs*
That being said, I should probably give the little guy at the counter his 10 pounds now and go get in a pool at the hotel. :)

Thanks for reading if you've made it this far! I'll probably be able to update this again soon now that I'm in Luxor.

Toto, I don't believe we're in Kansas anymore...

So, after over 24 hours of crazy travelling, I made it to Cairo! I am sitting in an internet cafe right now. It's crazy. Egypt is awesome! So, so different, but I think I like it. I wish I didn't look so "American" though. People see me and automatically try to sell me singing camels and papyrus, saying things like "Aloha" and "Yankee Doodle" (which are totally essential elements of American culture...).
I don't have a ton of time to type, but I have tons of stories about the plane rides, Amsterdam, and the short time I've spent in Cairo already. There were three flights total. The first one was a bit rough (think: "The Exorcist" re-enacted). No one wanted to sit by me on the second flight because of that I think (don't blame them...) so I ended up spending 7 hours next to this funny little Peruvian woman who lived in Barcelona and had spent her honeymoon in Egypt. We discussed Cairo, alpacas, and the ever-changing status of Brangelina.
After that flight, we hung out in Amsterdam for a bit - long enough to royally tick off a man in a bat man statue, eat some gloriously fattening pastries, and drink really strong coffee in a room full of drunken Dutchmen (don't ask).
Finally we got on our last flight, which took us here - to Cairo!
We were greeted at the airport by a million people in swine flu masks. That was kinda freaky. But I haven't seen anyone in a mask outside of that airport.
We checked into our hotel (which is a REALLY nice hotel) around 3 am-ish. Got up, had breakfast this morning, and checked out churches/synagogues/mosques in the area. It was enlightening.
Then I spent an hour and a half looking for an internet cafe with some of my new bffs. It was a thrilling experience. People kept giving us awful directions and trying to sell us papyrus.
Anyway, the guy that runs the cafe is glaring at me, so I should rap it up. I should grab a nap before dinner, because I plan on going to the hotel's discotechque! Huzzah!

Tuesday is the day!

Hello, and welcome to my new blog! I'll be updating it from some Internet cafes in Cairo (and will probably continue to update it throughout the summer as I have various adventures).
It is very early Sunday morning. On Tuesday, I will be getting on the plane that takes me to Minnesota, where I will hop on another plane that will take me to Amsterdam. After spending some quality time in Amsterdam (about eight hours, to be exact), I'll be on yet another plane, and this one's going to EGYPT! And then I'll be in Egypt for three weeks! Whoa!
I am so excited. I can't believe I am actually going to Egypt.

(Let's not talk about Lauren's general dislike of airplanes...)