Finals Week and EGYPT!

October 23-November 4

The whole week from the 24th until the 28th, we had a final every single day. This meant we got about 4 hours of sleep a night if we were lucky. No one did extremely well on a few of the finals, so we did not feel too bad to see our ok grades. But good news is: three of our classes ended and we only have 2 classes left until the end of the semester!!! On Thursday the 27th we had a concert to attend in celebration of Orson Hyde's trek to the holy land 175 years ago and also to celebrate Jewish and Mormon friendship. It was a wonderful night with important jews from all of Israel and some who traveled all the way from America. Lieberman the Senator traveled all the way here as well. All the main Jewish leaders came, and we of course had Elder Cook and Elder Holland here and Brother Hamula and their wives. There was an INCREDIBLE violinist, pianist, and an opera singer that came to perform for the concert. It was some of the best music I have ever heard. Brooke and I sat in the row right behind the apostles again and so we were able to sit and talk to Sister Cook for a long while before the concert and we talked with both of the Cooks after the concert for about 10 minutes. We even got to talk with the Hollands again and shake all of their hands again. It was so special being able to interact with these incredible people for a whole week and get to a close and casual level with them.

Not the best picture of Elder Holland and Elder Cook but it was a secret picture since we technically weren't allowed to take pictures with them

Finals week was exhausting and stressful, but after our last final on Friday, we were able to begin our HALLOWEEN festivities! Literally the coolest part about it was that all of us did not have any costumes, yet somehow all of us came up with some of the best costumes I've ever seen from nothing! Most of us spending nothing on our costumes! So legit! It was so wonderful because we were able to have our Jewish teacher Ophir come to the center during the day and we all went to our rooms and they trick or treated at each of our doors. (It was a long process finding kosher candy to give them, but it was so worth it!!) They ad only been trick or treating about one other time in their lives which was a few years ago at the center. So they were SO excited! Ophir said they watch E.T. all the time and say "look they are trick or treating!" and then they will pretend to trick or treat. So it was such a blessing to be able to give them such a wonderful time. They planned their costumes for so long and were so happy their whole time trick or treating.

Later that evening we did trick or treating again with the rest of the kids in the center (all the faculty's kids). It was so fun being able to be the ones handing out the candy. Brooke, Faith, Harper and I decorated our whole room and did it all up so it was a haunted house and they had a path of chairs to walk through with sheets and curtains draped everywhere and strobe lights going everywhere and scary music playing. they had to walk through our room to our back porch where brooke was standing dressed as a skeleton standing on a bright garden light shining straight up onto her ace making her look creepy. Faith and I opened the door in our old lady outfits and creepily said "Hi kids, welcome to grandmas house." And Harper was hiding in the bathroom and when the people would be walking our leaving our apartment, she would do a really loud and scary halloween scream. it was so fun and perfect. All the students took turns coming to our room because they had heard our room was so good. We even made one of the little boys cry and he had to leave he was so scared hahaha. Its not that I find that funny, its that I am so proud of us for using what we had to make a haunted house and make halloween so fun.

After trick or treating we had a halloween party (I was in charge of putting this together and organized it all and gave out jobs and followed up with people and set it up and cleaned it up. It was a lot of work but it ended up being really awesome so I was happy.) We did a Halloween dance in the Oasis (where we eat our meals) and we had lights strung across the ceiling and a bunch of food (pumpkin cookies, chocolate chip cookies, and israeli cookie, pumpkin pie, apples and caramel, popcorn, and drinks) The Kitchen crew was incredible and wanted to do all the food for us and they set up tables and plates and tablecloths and they even made a huge centerpiece for the room with big pumpkins that were carved with lights in them and apples and leaves all over the table. It was so cute and they had so much fun making it all and making halloween special for us. 

Egypt!!!

We woke up early Sunday morning and went to the airport and headed on our way to EGYPT! We flew to Cairo where we began walking around the city and looking at beautiful Mosques around the city. There are 24,000 mosques in Egypt. They are all so incredible. We then went to the Khan al Khalili Bazaar. This is the shopping center where it is a long strip of shops on both sides of you where the shop keepers stand in front of their shop and talk loudly at you and yell prices at you and chase you down and put stuff on you and drag you into their shop and don't let you leave and try to negotiate prices for hours and call you baby until they somehow find out your name and then they say your name every other word. I get that tourism is like 90% down from what it usually is and so all these people are super poor and struggling, but they are almost all so annoying and rude and overbearing. If they were just to themselves and let me look at their stuff without attacking me then I would be way more likely to but their stuff. I hate shopping as it is, and so this just ruined it for me. I was so done after just a few minutes of being interrogated by a shopkeeper.

In Egypt we were only able to drink bottled water and eat hot/cooked foods. Their water is very dirty and has bacteria in it that would get us very sick. I ran the shower water while I got ready to get in and by the time I went to go get in, there was about an inch of brown water in the tub. It made me want to take a 30 second shower. It made me a lot more paranoid about not getting it in my mouth or eyes at all. The food we did eat though was delicious. We stayed at 5 star hotels since tourism is way down. When we walked into these hotels (after going through security) we were greeted by hotel staff handing us juice. These hotels had multiple pools and beautiful gardens and they were HUGE and some of the nicest hotels I have ever stayed in. So many people actually ended up eating fruit and even SUSHI at these hotels and they were fine and did not get sick. I know it was just because these hotels were so nice that we did not get sick. If we had eaten those foods outside of the hotels they probably would have gotten us sick.

On Monday the 31 (Halloween), we went to Sakkara and Giza. Here we saw a big step pyramid and a few tombs. We then went to two of the HUGE main pyramids and got to walk around them and climb up onto them. We went to a lookout over the three main pyramids which was a great view. After the lookout we went to the Sphinx. This was really cool, but actually really disappointing. I was expecting the Sphinx to be huge and incredible but it was actually very small... But it was still really cool! And the pyramids were right behind the sphinx too, so it was a really awesome site. That night we went to a Papyrus factory and were able to see how they make their paper out of the plants in Egypt. At dinner the hotel staff gave us all goodie bags for halloween. These were so thoughtful and hilarious! They consisted of a sparkly hat, a sparkly mask, new years horns, and Santa Claus pins. So funny! After dinner we went to the bar at the hotel (this was ok'ed by Dr. Huff, don't worry) because the hotel staff had decorated it super cool for Halloween just for us and came and got us to have us go check it out. They even had a bathtub outside the bar with a shower head pouring red water into it that looked like blood onto a fake dead body. The staff all was dressed up in creepy costumes and wanted to take pictures with us. After checking out the bar we went to the pool and swam for about an hour and then went back to the bar for karaoke and Coke that night. Oh funny story! When we were at the bar the first time to check out the decorations, Sam Cahoon, one of our friend here asked the bar if they had any blood and so they mixed him up a shot of "blood". We asked what was in it and they said vodka. We laughed and told them that we actually don't drink alcohol. After we left the bar, on our way to go to the pool, the man who mixed up the blood chased after us and in his hand had a skeleton arm shot glass holder with enough cups for our group of 5 people with nonalcoholic blood in it that he mixed up. It was a shirley temple (sprite and cherry juice) made just for us. It was fun to take a "shot" hahaha. It was so funny. The hotel staff in Cairo was so personable and friendly and kind. I loved them so much.

On Tuesday November 1, we went to the Cairo Museum. It is incredible how many antiquities and artifacts are still here after thousands of years! We saw King Tut's treasures that were found in his tomb in 1922, one of the only tombs that still had its treasures that weren't taken by grave robbers, several mummies of the great pharaoh's (even Ramesses II who we believe was the pharaoh at the time of Moses), several statues, tons of treasures and coffins of the pharaohs, mummified animals and pets of the pharaohs and royal court, and so much more. It was so huge that we definitely didn't have enough time to really appreciate every single item that was in the museum. After the museum we visited a few church's where Joseph and Mary could have stayed while living in Egypt when they were escaping King Herod. Right after that we actually had lunch at TGI Fridays! It was kind of nice eating somewhere we actually recognized. We also saw the oldest mosque in Egypt and another beautiful mosque that was huge! I can't believe how important religion is to these people. You cannot drive down the road without seeing several different churches or mosques. That evening we got to have a dinner cruise down the nile. Even though the water was disgusting, it was so beautiful! The food was good, they atmosphere was amazing, and they even had a dancer perform for us. It was a crazy kind of dance where he wore a dress and literally spun the entire time! It was actually really cool! That night we flew to Luxor where we stayed at a sweet hotel right next to the Nile River. Gorgeous view!!

On Wednesday November 2, we met at the back of the hotel by the river where we took motor boats over to the Karnak temple. Kelsie was super excited because our boat was called the New Titanic. Of course we had to take pictures like Rose and Jack and sing "My Heart Will Go On". The Karnak temple was incredible. It was built by Queen Hatshepsut and it was HUGE! The coolest part was that it had a lot of aspects of it that kind of represented things in our church too, like the different kingdoms in the afterlife (terrestrial, telestial, celestial) and there were hieroglyphics that had the sam anointing process that happens in the temple. It was super cool hearing the ties between the egyptian religion and ours. After that we went back to the hotel to eat lunch and have free time. During the free time we got split into groups to go on camel tours! We were in very first group, so we met at the back of the hotel where we went on feluccas down the Nile to the camel tours. It was so relaxing! I loved it. Although we did see a dead cow floating past our boat...so yeah...definitely do NOT swim or even touch that water! Gross... My favorite part was when the camel first stands up, it is scary/so fun!! They are kneeling so they stand up with their back legs first, and then their front legs, so you are falling forward and then backwards! It is hilariously fun! We each had a young boy walking our camels as we walked around the town and along the Nile. It was so much fun and I couldn't stop smiling the entire time! Once we were done and took the feluccas back to the hotel, we had a few hours to sit by the pool and relax. It was sooooo nice! Plus we were laying out when the sun was going down, and it was GORGEOUS!! It literally felt like paradise. Then we had dinner and immediately gathered for a carriage ride to the Luxor Temple. It was fun plus we got to be with Faith and Sam, our bestest friends EVER! Plus our carriage driver was hilarious! The main english phrases that he knows are "Whatever!" and "Loser!" and "Shut up!" so every time we passed a carriage or even people on the street he would lean out and yell those phrases. It was hilarious! The Luxor Temple was gorgeous at night and yet again I was blown away by the ancient Egyptians and their architecture. So majestic! After the temple we had about an hour to go to a bazaar for a little more shopping time. The venders were ridiculous. The tourism is low in Egpyt so they are extra crazy. You literally can't show any interest in their stuff, even when you actually are otherwise they will throw it in your face and literally chase after you. Kelsie had a bad experience and literally had to run away from one of the venders that was being too intense.

This is one of the only good pictures we took on our phones from the carriage ride, Sam took a bunch of adorable ones that I might attach later

On Thursday November 3, we went to the Valley of the Kings. At night they literally light up the entire mountain side where its located. Sadly, we couldn't take any pictures there, but our ticket paid for us to see 3 of the tombs. Luckily our tour guides know which ones are the most interesting, so we saw King Merneptah's, King Ramesses VI's tomb, and I think King Thutmose's tombs. Super crazy what the Egyptians were able to do digging down deep into the ground to make these incredible tombs for their pharaohs. Then we went to Queen Hatshepsut's tomb which looks like this big temple. Then we went to Ramesseum which is a temple built by Rameses II. After that was free time again for a couple other groups to go to the camel tours, so we stayed to swim and tan by the pool. After that we cleaned up and headed back to Cairo for dinner and to stay the night before flying back to Tel Aviv in the morning.

Egypt was so much fun! All of us were really sad to leave and loved everything that we got to see. Of course Kelsie literally only bought like one little thing, whereas I bought a bunch of stuff. Haha! Typical! We are back now and all extremely exhausted for doing SOOO much with barely any sleep. Kelsie and I were so tired that we literally fell asleep at noon when we got back and woke up right before dinner. Holy cow...worth it! Haha!