Cruising Down the Nile

Mike and Kimberly planned most of the trip, so we have to give them credit for having the great idea of taking a Nile River cruise. It was a great idea because it allowed us to see many amazing temples and tombs that we probably wouldn't have seen if it wasn't for the cruise line planning the excursions. Plus, we were floating on the famous Nile!!! Before reaching the ship, we had to take a night train to Aswan. Nate and I had never taken a night train before, so we were excited for a new experience. However, as we learned the hard way, riding the Swiss trains did not prepare us for the Egyptian train experience.

It is very common to get sick in Egypt, so we were extra careful to not drink the tap water. We even were brushing our teeth with bottled water, but unfortunately, we all became ill at some point on the trip. Nate and Mike had their illness in Cairo and Kimberly had hers on our final day in Egypt. My body, however, had the worst timing. During the middle of the night, while riding the train, I woke up feeling very sick. It was already turning out to be one of the worst night's sleep because the bed was very uncomfortable and because the train was noisy and shaking as if it was going to fall apart, but I soon realized that these were the least of my worries. I tried to fight the urge to throw-up because I hate it more than anything, but I couldn't fight it any longer, so I had to run to the bathroom. To make matters worse, the bathroom was disgusting... I will spare you most of the details, but let's just say that I could see the tracks whizzing by below when I lifted the toilet lid. At the time, I was thinking this is one of the worst nights of my life because my sickness felt like it would never end and I just wanted to get off the train! So if you ever travel to Egypt, take my advice and don't take a night train!

The Cairo Train Station, where you realize you're not in Switzerland or America any more!

Traveling down the Nile was another surreal experience. It is the longest river in the world and goes through TEN countries. It really is an amazing source of life because it is surrounded by desert after desert. Oh yeah, it's also the river that Moses turned to blood!

It took us awhile to find our boat and we were all extremely tired after the sleepless night train, but the ship had already planned an excursion for that afternoon. Nate, Kimberly, and Mike went, but I was still feeling sick, so I stayed on the ship and slept. Nate will take over the commentary from here, since I was in bed when he took the next few pictures.

Hello blog readers, this is Nate. On our first excursion, we primarily focused on the Aswan Dam and the Temple of Isis at Philae. I didn't take any pictures of the Dam, because it's not very picturesque...it's just a really big dam. Actually, there are 2 dams at Aswan. The Low Dam was finished in 1902 and was the world's biggest dam, but soon they built the High Dam which is nearly 2 miles across and contains 18 times the amount of material used in the Great Pyramid and created the world's largest artificial lake. Because of the High Dam, the Temple of Isis would have been completely underwater, so the Temple was moved, stone by stone, to a new higher location and is now surrounded by a beautiful lake.

Wishing that my beautiful wife was with me...

Some cool-looking carvings inside the temple.

On the way back to the boat, I stood on the edge of the Sahara Desert. Maria was a little jealous! Okay, Maria says I have to stop typing now. Bye, thanks for reading!

I'm alive! And I was feeling much better in this picture. I'm standing in front of our cruise ship. It's on a completely different scale than, say, Royal Caribbean, but it was still really nice. Plus, there weren't too many people on the boat, so it felt like our personal ship.

Our first temple of our second day was called Kom Ombo.

I thought this was really interesting. This carving is a line of slaves that are tied together at their necks and their hands. And I find it odd that their faces are missing.
Kimberly, me, and Nate posing on the column ruins

We hopped back on the boat and cruised a little farther down the river. Our second temple of the day was the Temple of Horus at Edfu. Having escaped destruction from the Nile floods, it is the most completely restored Egyptian temple.

In this picture, you can see how high the structure is and how goofy Kimberly and I are... we liked to pose like the carvings. 200 years ago this temple was completely covered by sand and part of the city was actually stood over the temple roof!
Nate was very attentive when our guide spoke. I would get bored and start taking random pictures of Nate. (this is Nate's comment)

The columns at this temple were incredible...

Horus, the falcon we are standing in front of, was one of the most significant deities in the ancient Egyptian religion.

We spent the rest of the afternoon cruising down the Nile, laying out, and swimming in the pool...
The scenery is a lot different than what we're used to... but it was so cool to see wildlife, men & women working, and kids playing...

There were many beautiful sunsets. Sometimes Kimberly and I would go get ready for dinner around the same time as the sun would set, so Nate and Mike would stay to watch it and take pictures. Kimberly and I would tease them that they watched sunsets together. :)

Day 3 of the Nile cruise/tour was my favorite. This day took place in the city of Luxor and the surrounding region. We saw some really neat sights such as these guys, the Colossi of Memnon. They are really old, because back in the day, these were popular with tourists from Greece and Rome!

The Valley of the Kings. All of the famous Pharoahs were buried here including Ramses and Tut. The Valley is really in the middle of the wilderness, several miles from the Nile and Luxor. We were able to walk through several tombs, but they unfortunately didn't allow picture taking.

This was my favorite temple and it was right next to the Valley of the Kings, the Temple of Hatshepsut. I had no idea, but I learned that Hatshepsut was a female Pharoah.

It almost looks modern... and the cliffs behind it make it look picture perfect.

Trying to pose like this guy and not laugh...

After exploring the West Bank in the morning, we headed over to the East Bank of Luxor in the afternoon. It was miserably hot, almost unbearable. Our first stop of the afternoon was the Temple of Karnak, which is a huge complex over two square kilometers.

As we were walking through Karnak, our guide casually mentioned that she saw them filming the new Transformers movie just a few pillars away from where Nate is standing in this picture. Since many of the things our Egyption guides told us were a little unbelievable, none of us believed her. When Nate and I returned to Basel, we watched the movie's trailer and were shocked to find out that she was actually telling the truth. So, if you want to see what we saw in Egypt, just go see the movie!
Posing with pillars at the Luxor Temple...

The Luxor Temple lit up at night. This was our last night on the cruise and then we headed to the Red Sea the next morning, but thankfully by plane and not train!

The Pyramids of Giza!

It was so surreal to visit the Sphinx and the Pyramids. The Pyramids were built over 4,500 years ago and the Great Pyramid is the only one of the seven wonders of the ancient world still standing! It is hard to imagine how they were built and even harder to imagine how they are still standing today.

Now I know why they call this one the "Great" Pyramid... because it is massive! The guy riding the camel in this picture actually offered Nate 1,000 camels for me. I was very thankful that Nate decided to decline his generous offer.

Climbing the pyramid with Nate...
And Kimberly too! This gives you a little perspective of how big the blocks are that make up the pyramid. You can also see how when standing below at the bottom, you can't see the top!

The Pyramid of Khafre
In many pictures, this pyramid looks the largest, but it's actually smaller than the Great Pyramid. It's on a small plateau, so it only appears larger. This pyramid is famous for it's limestone cap. It's the only one with original limestone left. Imagine all of the pyramids covered in white limestone when they were first built... must have been beautiful!
This is the only picture we got of all four of us there... I'm glad we have one to remember the friends we shared this experience with!
Admiring the view...

The Sphinx, Nate, and I look like we are all posing together!

The ultimate highlight of the trip was riding a camel!! I was so excited when I got on... obviously!
Nate rode a camel too! After his camel ride, he told me that he was starting to have second thoughts about that guy's offer, because they were so much fun. I did not find this amusing.

I thought my camel was sooo cute...

Until he opened his mouth to yawn... yuck. Not so cute anymore.

As we walked back to the Great Pyramid, Mike took this awesome picture of us. It looks like we are stranded in the desert, well sort of... minus the obviously landmark behind us. I love this picture Mike!

I never thought I would see the pyramids... and I really never thought I would go inside one. But the rest of the group convinced me to do it even though I wasn't too thrilled about the tight tunnels. You had to duck your head the whole time in this tunnel because it was only 2.5 feet high and it was really uncomfortable when people went by in the opposite direction. This picture is of a random person, but you can see how small it is and there's not much space for 2-way traffic...

But it was worth it to get to the end, which was the King's chamber, and just being inside the Great Pyramid was... Great! :)

More "Egyptian Adventures" coming soon!

Culture Shock in Egypt!

When Nate and I first moved to Switzerland, we thought we witnessed a great deal of culture shock, but we realized that it was quite minor in comparison to the culture shock we experienced in Egypt. There are so many cultural differences between the US and Egypt that I probably don't have enough room on this blog to list them all, but I will give you the highlights.

Once we stepped off the plane, the first thing we noticed, were all the men carrying around big guns (very nonchalantly at that!) ... Sorry this is not a very good picture, but Nate thought I should be discreet, which was probably a good idea!

There were also lots of gunmen surrounding the airport. This one looks a bit bored...

Since Islam is the predominant religion in Egypt (over 90% are Muslim), there are many mosques... a little different from the many churches you see in the South.

From what I saw, there were no crosswalks in Cairo and the traffic was horrendous, so we had some adventures crossing the road! Here is a guy just strolling along in the middle of traffic like it's nothing...

The view of Cairo and the Nile from our hotel room... look at all the traffic on the bridge. There was constant honking at all times of the day. Good thing our windows were somewhat soundproof!
All the haze and pollution was very beautiful at sunset.

This is what I saw when I opened the menu at our first restaurant. I freaked out a little because I obviously can't read Arabic, but then Nate pointed out the English section to me...

Meet Mike and Kimberly.

If it wasn't for Mike and Kimberly, Nate and I probably would have never taken a trip to Egypt, but since our good friends were already going, we thought it was the perfect opportunity to spend time with them and travel a new part of the world. We had an amazing time together. When you're traveling alone as much as Nate and I are, traveling with friends helps to keep it interesting!

Munich & Chelsea's First Time to Europe

One of my dearest friends, Chelsea, who just so happens to be my brother's long time girlfriend, came to Europe for the first time this summer and I was happy to share in the experience with her. After traveling around and singing in Germany and Austria with her school's choir, I met her in Munich for their last stop. We got to spend the day together in Munich and the next morning, I got to hear one of their performances.

We were so excited to see each other!!

Munich has a huge garden, called the English Garden. It was so beautiful with parks, a lake, and even horse drawn carriages!

We shared ribs for lunch... they were so tasty because I hadn't had ribs since January!

Hanging out in the Munich Square in the evening... they have a beautiful clock tower that was rebuilt to look like the original after it was destroyed during WWII

At night, we got to see a performance of German folk music and dancing... it was very entertaining!

The next morning, Chelsea performed with her choir and after that, we hopped on a train to Basel. Unfortunately, it was so packed that we didn't even have a seat for part of our journey. That had never happened to me before, so I couldn't believe it.... but Chelsea was a trooper and didn't mind. :)
The next two days in Basel, we really enjoyed just hanging out. We walked around the city some, but we spent a lot of time in the apartment doing laundry, cooking, and lots of chatting!

On Chelsea's last day, we went to Colmar... her first time to France. She was very excited!
Jake was excited to check everything out too!And he was very well behaved when we went shopping :)
Chelsea walking down a quaint street...

Last picture we took before heading back to Basel...

The next morning, we all got up early and Chelsea flew back home (I was so sad to see her go) and Nate and I flew to Cairo. Miss you Chel-c!! ;)

Backtracking a bit...

Nate and I have only been home for a few days since the end of May and are exhausted. That's only enough time to unpack, do laundry, and re-pack for the next trip. It's been a blessing to travel to so many amazing places, but you can only take so much of living out of a suitcase! So it's nice to be back home and to sleep in our own bed again. Throughout our travels, I only had the internet at ONE hotel, so I'm a little behind on blogging... okay, I'm really behind, but I plan to backtrack and update you on everything!

After Italy, I took the ISB high school tennis team to the national tournament in Leysin and we had a blast. Unfortunately, they didn't win this year, but that gives them motivation to work hard to win it next year!

Having fun in the van on the way to the tournament...
The tournament was in the mountains and the view from my hotel room was not too shabby!The following weekend, we had our first visitors! While I was in Turkey, I met two girls through my friend, Julie, and I invited them to visit me in Switzerland and they did! They are from the States, but working in Turkey for 6 months, so they had to fit it in before their time was up in Europe. Here are some pictures from our time together.
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We showed them around Basel...
Took them to Interlaken...
The Alps...
And I think it tired them out! :)
We had a great time and we look forward to having more visitors!

Quick Update!

I am sitting in a hotel in Prague right now and I am so excited to be able to use a computer while traveling. This is the first place that we have stayed at since traveling in Europe that has a free computer and internet access! The only down side is that it is a Czech computer and the keyboard is quite different. It is taking me a long time to type because some of the letters are switched around and I cannot figure out how to make a smilie face or an apostrophe, but at least it is a computer and I can give you a quick update!

The last month has been a whirlwind. We have had lots of visitors... two girls from Turkey, one of my best friends and brothers girlfriend, Chelsea, and another dear friend, Paige, who is now studying in Switzerland and will come back to visit for a little while before going back to the States. Not to mention, we had our little trip to Egypt, which we were able to share with two great friends, Kimberly and Mike. And after we were back a few days, my parents arrived! We then went to Monaco to see my dads side of the family and had a blast. It was Nates first time and he loved it. We got back Thursday night and then left for Prague yesterday morning for what seemed like the longest road trip ever. What was supposed to be a 6 hour trip, turned into over 10 hours!! But now we are happy to be here, in the city where my dad grew up. It is Nates first time, so I am excited to show him everything here. During the week, we will be meeting up with a team from the States and going to a town in the Czech Republic for a mission trip... we will be teaching English in the morning and then doing sports clinics the latter part of the day. Please pray for the weather, the team, and that God would speak to the hearts of Czech people. Check back in a little over a week for more details and pictures from all that happened over the last month!