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Every time I head into Athens I'm amazed by the fact that I'm really here... in Greece... eating gelato while staring up at the Acropolis. It's memories like this that will "haunt" my dreams till the day I die. A couple weekends ago ,was our "free-weekend". No one wanted to spend a fortune, having spent almost all our money in Egypt, so Athens was the obvious choice.
So Saturday afternoon, 8 other girls and myself headed into Athens. We arrived at the Metro and bought our tickets. Being savvy college students we realized that we could buy a student ticket and it would 30 Euro cents cheaper. So we stood there, debating the pros and cons and whether we actually qualify. Some piped up and said, "Colby said we could buy them." Which was quickly followed by, "Well if Colby said we could buy them, then lets go ahead.
We got onto the Metro and 2 stops later one of the girls said, "We need to get off". I looked at her kind-of funny and whispered, Why? This isn't our stop. She said... Just trust me. I looked over her shoulder and low and behold there is a man coming down the center of the train checking everyone's metro ticket. Fear and panic sliced through me because I had NO CLUE whether I could actually use my ticket or not. All I knew was that there's a large fine for breaking the rules. Unfortuantly some of our girls were a little too loud asking why we were getting off at the wrong stop so the man skipped all the other passangers and makes a beeline for our group. We handed him our tickets and he got a really mad look on his face. He started demanding to see our student cards so I pull mine out. I breathed a large sigh of relief when he nodded his head and handed back my ticket. Three of the girls in our group didn't end up so lucky. They didn't have their International Student IDs on them so the man wrote them a ticket for 48 euro. Thankfully they were able to avoid paying the fine by simply going to the main metro station and proving they had a student card. So we now have international felons in our group.
By this time we have missed our stop but as the saying goes 2 heads are better than 1 so 9 must be the the equivalent to a genius. Or not. But anyway the 9 of us manage to figure out how to get back to the mall and set in on the arduous task of picking out a movie to see. Mind you the titles are in Greek and the the times based on a 24 hour clock. We finally agreed on Journey to the Center of the Earth. Eagle Eye wasn't showing till 10 something and we had no clue where our hostel was so we decided THAT wasn't a good idea. Kung Fu Panda had shown on the plane ride over and the rest wasn't fit to watch. I'm guessing it's this way all over Europe but in Greece for certain you are assigned a movie seat. So for all of us to sit together we had to make one payment. As I handed over my debit card the woman looked at me incredulously and said, "You are a very brave woman."
I handed my ticket to the woman taking them and she says something to me in Greek. I look at her in confusion and said, "Huh?" She laughed, "Oh, Theater 2, all the way to the end, on your right." We made our way down to the theater and walked in. The man standing there handed everyone a pair of glasses. We looked at each other in confusion wondering if we had gotten the wrong theater. Nope. Turns out we had picked out a 3D movie. As we sat there watching the previews we were all silently praying the movie was in English. I definitely recommend going to see that movie in 3D though. It was great!
We finally made it to our hostel, after stopping a couple of places for directions. As we were checking in some of our guys, who were also staying in our hostel, walked in. I don't remember the last time when I was so glad to see someone. Once we got settled in we still had about an hour and a half till midnight so I did something quite out of character for me... I went out on the town to experience the Athens night life. Brenda, Kathleen, John, and I walked up out of Syntagma Station to the pounding sound of a Greek Rapper concert. We stayed there for a little bit then made our way towards our favorite gellato shop. There's no feeling like eating gellato while staring up at the Parthenon lighting the night sky.
The next day I say the Byzantine Art Museum, the Islamic Art Museum, a Greek Cemetery, and went shopping in the Plaka. Just a typical Sunday in Athens. I loved the content of the Islamic Museum. It was very unique and a welcome relief from all the greek sculptures I've been looking at over the past couple of months. The Byzantine Art Museum's presentation was much more impressive but the content was as interesting.
Overall... I had a wonderful time!

Since my free weekend I have paid a visit to the National Museum of Athens and taken a trip to the Southern Peloponnese. There isn't a lot to write about the Museum but I saw some amazing things in Southern Greece. I'm going to try my hardest to write about it before Sunday. Why Sunday you might ask... Well if I don't write about it soon I will forget exactly why these places were important. But more importantly I am leaving for ISRAEL on Sunday!

God Bless and you'll be hearing from me soon.

Love, Rebeca

3:30 AM wake-up call and a 3 hour bus ride later I was at Abu Simbel. You see pictures of the pyramids and these temples, especially this one but it never really hits home just how large they are until you are there.
At the front of the temple there are 4 GIANT statues of Ramses II. As I write these I keep having to double check to see which Pharaoh it was because Ramses II seems to have statues of himself ALL over the place. Talk about ego-centric and self-enamored. I no longer can claim that award. I actually got to see his mummy in the Cairo Museum. He had RED HAIR! Whether it was real or residual dye from the mummification process I have no clue but it’s pretty sweet just the same.
The other temple at Abu-Simbel was for Ramses II wife. He actually had 3 wives but he really loved this one and she is almost always the wife depicted with him.
What really floored me about this place is that this isn’t the original location. It was under water so the entire thing had to be moved. Once you look at the pictures I think you might understand why I’m so flabbergasted. I don’t understand how they moved the entire thing. It’s HUGE! I know I keep saying that but even now it still blows my mind.
When we got back we boarded the cruise boat for the first time. Let me just say I will vacation on the Nile ANY time. We walked into our bedroom and Emily and my jaws dropped. The room was about the size of a hotel room and you could actually walk around in the bathroom. We went to lunch a little skeptical, remembering the food we had been eating for the past several days, but it was amazing! I have to find a recipe for Beef Wellington and Pumpkin soup. Mom—I’m making a list of all the foods I would like when I get back. First thing I want after I get back to the airport is a Route 44 Sonic drink and cheese sticks. I know, weird request, but I’m really craving some American food right now.
We laid around all afternoon on the top deck, swimming, enjoying the sun, and marveling at the sights we saw as we floated down the Nile. While I’m thinking about it here are some interesting things I learned on this trip that I never heard in Sunday school.
1) The Pyramids were seen by Abraham, Moses, Joseph, and Jesus
2) There are 3 temples that are almost exact replicas of Solomon’s Temple
3) Christians picked up using pagan symbols on purpose
4) The golden calf the Israelites built was most likely in honor of the Goddess Hathor
I’m sure I’ll think of more as I go along but those were the ones that are standing out to me at the time.
It gets dark early in Egypt so when we got off to see the temple of Kom-Ombo it was dark. There was a mass-exodus off the boats and everyone was trying to get into the temple. There is NO concept of lines over here so we got separated for a little while and almost trampled by Asian tourists, who believe it or not are VERY vicious.
Kom-Ombo was used as a hospital or a pharmacy. The temples on the east side of the river were used for more for worship, schools, and secular purposes. Anything on the west side of the river was used for the mummification process or something relating to death. At this temple, archeologists found the largest number of mummified crocodiles ever. They’re pretty wild looking! The other major reason this temple is important is that it holds the oldest Egyptian calendar which helped to date Egypt’s history and in turn the bible. We almost missed the boat because we didn’t know what time departure was so they had to back it back up for us.
Side note: Emily and I had an interesting porter. We had a towel animal everyday and one day he left us flowers.

Day 6… We only did 1 thing today because apparently tomorrow is supposed to be a KILLER! We got up early again and set out for the temple of Et-Fu. This temple was dedicated to the falcon god, Horace. It took over 25 years to build and 160 to decorate. When the temple is begun, Egyptians would place a master plan of how they wanted to look years from then when it was completed. I think I may have to create one of these for my house someday.
One of the most important things we saw here was the ark they used to carry the statue of Horace on. Apparently the Ark of the Covenant we read about in the Bible would have looked similar to this. I’m always forgetting that Moses spent 40 years of his life in Egypt as a prince, and the Israelites even longer, so it would have had a HUGE impact on their architecture, art, etc.
We finally got to do some shopping on our way out of the temple. Osman hadn’t let us really do any shopping up until this point because he wanted us to feel completely safe. As we walked by the shops the owners would yell—No touchy, no hustle. I bought 3 scarfs and my Egyptian Dress. I am on a huge scarf kick right now! You have to barter because they’re all trying to rip you off. I’m slightly concerned about walking into a store back home, and saying, “I don’t like this price. I’m paying in cash, will you take 13 dollars?” I got from dress down from over 50 euros to 10. I told them how much I would pay and then kept trying to walk off until I got it for 10. It was kind-of fun!
We got back to the boat and had church services. I’m thinking about making a list… Strangest places I’ve ever had church. The Nile would definitely rank up there. Then Osman held a hieroglyphics class. I can’t wait to get back to one of the temples so I can look at the walls and identify some of the glyphs.
I spent the rest of the day laying on the top deck, enjoying the sun, and reading my book. Finally that evening was Egyptian Night. I’ve been looking forward to this night since we got to Egypt. Since we didn’t get to try on our dresses before hand they were too big on some of the girls. So I spent most of my time altering and pinning dresses. When I finally got to myself I had about 20 minutes to get ready. Emily did an AMAZING job on my hair is a grand total of 6 minutes.
Towards the end of dinner the staff was playing music and one of our guys Frank starts dancing around the dining room. So we all joined in, to everyone else’s amusement, dancing in a konga-line around the dining room. We headed the party upstairs and did what I call Jewish-style dancing. (Girls on one side and guys on the other.) It was all very G-Rated since we are Church of Christ and have NO clue how to dance.

That’s all for now!
Love, Rebecca

Day 5 & 6 Pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2004571&l=507d8&id=1523040053

Egyptian Night:
Album 1-http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2004572&l=cfffd&id=1523040053
Album 2- http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2004573&l=e2f82&id=1523040053

Day 4: Aswan
So I started off my morning at 5. Emily’s alarm clock was still set for Athens time so rather than fixing it to Egyptian time she simply tries to calculate when she should set it for in her head. Well turns out she went the wrong way. I didn’t even look at my watch until I accidentally hit my button calling my porter and he pokes he head in wanting to know why we’re up because there’s still 4 more hours to Aswan. I turned to face her as she was braiding my hair and glared. However a glare is never very effective when you’re about to fall off the bed laughing. So 5 hours later we finally got off the train and set off to the Temple of Philae.
This temple is dedicated to Isis and is the most similar to the Temple of Solomon. This was the last pagan temple in use during the Christianity period of the Roman empire. So it was used for both pagan and Christians. The Gods on the left side of the temple (the side the Christians used) were defaced but the ones on the Pagan side were untouched. In 1960 when the Aswan Dam was built it made a lake and covered the temple up. So in 1972 they started making plans to move the temple. They started moving it in 1974 and the process was complete in 1980. I’m floored that they move temples over here. Because they’re HUGE! It didn’t even look like it had been moved.
We made a stop off at the High Dam and the Aswan Dam. Could have done with out these but I guess it’s all part of the complete “Egypt Experience.”
Then came my favorite part of the day…. We took a skiff boat down the Nile into Nubia! I understand why the people who go to Africa come back obsessed about it. This place is really legit. As we went down the river there were people fishing in their boats, birds everywhere, and a cool breeze blowing. As we went down the river young boys in canoes or on something that resembled a surfboard would hang onto the edge of the boat and sing for us. They could sing in several different languages. Of course one of m favorites was when the one on our side of the boat broke out singing the Macarena.
We finally got to shore and are you ready for this? I got to ride a camel! It took a couple tries to get on the silly thing because even sitting down they are massive! Sitting on a camel while it’s getting up and sitting down is an experience that I will never forget. My camel’s name was Ricky Martin. There were a bunch named Rambo. Right as we set out my camera battery died. I was really upset! So I didn’t get pictures of the Nubian Village but if I find some from someone else I’ll go ahead and put them up so you can get the full effect of Egypt. There are only 3 Nubian Villages left in the world. When we reached the Nubian Village we dismounted and went to see a Nubian house. While there we had Hibiscus Tea, shopped, and got to pet baby crocodiles. The Nubians catch them and/or raise them from birth and make them into pets. The guy was bringing it around so everyone could touch it and I reached out my head when all of the sudden he puts it up against my neck. I can’t remember the last time I was that scared. Not so much of the crocodile but out of pure shock. I went outside and simply stepped back to watch the people as they went about their daily lives. They are very poor and work hard but they are SO happy! They truly know what it means to build relationships and to KNOW people. As I watched one of my fellow students play “soccer” with some of the children using a coke can, it struck me how easy it was to see the love of God in that village. It’s surprising how clearly it shines through when it’s not being clouded by all the things the prosperity of our nation affords us. Finally when it was time to go we headed back to the skiff. On the return trip we got to ride on top! There are some things you do in life where you say… That was fun, but I don’t think I want to do that again. Floating down the Nile is definitely going on my list to do again! As I started up at the stars, listening to the motor churning the waters of the Nile, I felt more at peace than I have in a long time. I mean honestly… I just finished a camel ride, through the desert went to a Nubian village, and at that moment was cruising down the Nile on top of a skiff. Personally I don’t think that at that moment life could have gotten much better.
When I walked into my room on the boat my jaw dropped! The room is about the size of a hotel room and the bathrooms… You can actually WALK and MOVE around in them! It’s amazing what you begin to appreciate, isn’t it? The food has been out of this WORLD! I love beef Wellington and every soup I’ve had has been AMAZING! My favorite by far though was the pumpkin soup. I need to find a recipe for it.
Well I should wrap this entry up because I have to be up at 3:30 in the morning. Yes that is AM. We’re leaving for Abu Simbel. Not many groups get to go there so I’m really excited! Well minus the time I have to wake up but I can catch up on sleep later. I’m in EGYPT! Crusin’ the Nile. It’s weird to think that this is the VERY same river that Moses turned into blood. This trip has been worth every cent and so much more. So thanks Mom and Dad!

Goodnight everyone!

Love, Rebecca

Day 4 Pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2004568&l=42067&id=1523040053