?Yella bina, meshi meshi!?

July 30-Aug 1:

July 30
We slept in finally, until 6am.. which was sleeping in for us! We packed our rooms and went to breakfast for one last meal in the amazing resort. I had an omelet; excuse me, a DELICIOUS omelet! There was a chef who was making them made to order, flipping the eggs high into the air and doing tricks. The omelet was big and browned on the edges, perfection to me.
We then loaded the buses and stocked up on water, and headed to the Karnak Temple, a few minutes away from our Egyptian resort. Our tour lady said, “Yella bina,” meaning ‘let’s go’ in Arabic! She also says, “Meshi meshi,” meaning ‘okie dokie’ in Arabic. Fun phrases!
We arrived at the Karnak temple and went through some shops to get to a huge concrete parking lot with palm trees everywhere. The sun was slowly rising so it was a nice temperature outside! One thing- I haven’t put sunscreen on ONCE in Egypt, and I haven’t gotten burnt. Maybe because I’ve been wearing pants, sleeved shirts, and a hat! I figured it would be too much sun and heat, but it actually was enjoyable and no stress with the weather! I loved that.

So this temple had no tourists or anyone, maybe because it was early in the morning. This entire trip there has been absolutely no crowding of people, which is amazing. At the first few pyramids, there were no people except for us. At the sunrise at the Great pyramids, we were the only ones!! When we went to the Sphinx and temples, there were few people! I couldn’t ask for a better turnout.
This temple was huge and I liked it better than the Luxor Temple (which was a lot smaller, but still amazing).  By ‘temple’ I mean big walls surrounding sculpted columns and rocky floors, all covered in hieroglyphics. It’s not like a building or anything with a roof, It is all statues and broken, fallen down columns; beautiful in its own way. In the entrance, there were the mini ram sphinx that went all the way to the Luxor Temple (remember, I wrote about this in the other blog). None of them had heads because they all fell apart. Inside the temple, there were many dogs and men with robes trying to show you all of the cool things inside the temple walls. There were a TON of columns. I could see all of the smoothly finished columns that were build, and towards the end of the row, there were a few columns that were square rocks stacked on top of each other! These were columns that didn’t get finished! It was cool to see how the columns looked before they were sanded down and shaped. There was a sacred column that was placed in the middle of an open area, covered in more hieroglyphics, including the Key of Life and the lotus flower. It is said to walk around it 3 times clockwise, then 3 times back and make a wish! If you walk around one extra time, you get pregnant. So, we cautiously counted to 6!!! There was a cute calico cat following us around, and she did some circles around the column too, haha. We saw the Sacred Lake, which was a small body of water under a bridge with trash in it…
The sun was finally out, and it was getting pretty hot just in time as we left! We headed to the airport and our flight got delayed. Luckily, there was FREE INTERNET!!!! This is the first time this entire summer…. besides one night in Rome. So I used up my time waiting for the flight by uploading pictures and trying to email friends and family. Then, we got on a shuttle bus and headed out in the middle of a parking lot to a TINY plane, the smallest I’ve been on, which was kind of scary. Once we were in the air, there was a burning smell and smoke was flowing down from the front of the plane. We all started FREAKING out and people were pulling out their video cameras and such. I was getting pretty nervous too. Then, the flight attendant announced that she was cooking food for the pilot and she burnt it……….. WHEW. I kid you not- I thought our plane was goin’ down. What a scary experience.
We landed safely (and roughly), and took another coach bus to the same hotel where we had lunch in Cairo. As we entered the hotel, the same band from last time was out front performing music- but this time they were playing Jingle Bells! Haha I don’t think they understood the concept behind jingle bells… There was also a small restaurant next door called “Laredo Tex Mex”! Haha, we definitely got a picture in front.

3 hours later, after sleeping on the bus, we made it to Alexandria and waited in a huge line to get back on the ship. Four coach busses were in front of us in line and customs had to search every bag, and then the ship had to search every bag before we get on; it took forever. Walking into my little cabin after a long, hectic week in Egypt never felt better. The cleanliness, the comfort, and the air conditioning were so nice to come back to! We were gong to stay in and sleep/unpack… but we heard everyone was going out for the last night here in Alexandria.. so we started getting ready! Before we headed out for the night, we stopped at a bunch of outdoor shops in the port. There were about 10 different ones, but they all had the same stuff! It was really fun because you could walk back and forth telling each store owner how much lower the other offered for. I bought some jewelry, shirts, and gifts! One in particular, there was a man who was very friendly (and a little crazy) who said his name was Jimmy Green, haha what an Egyptian name.. We bought stuff from him because he gave us the best deals and diet cokes! It was pretty fun!
Outside of the customs building there were blue taxis that are allowed into the port for cruise people (us). The yellow taxis outside of the port are hard to trust and they cost too much, we learned this from fellow SASers. What you do is walk up to the blue taxis, tell them your price, and when they say no you walk away and tell them that the yellow taxis are way cheaper. They instantly say, “No, come with me! Ok ok 20 pounds!” Haha we got around for about 1 dollar a piece! The taxi drivers are so nice and protective. They will sit outside of wherever you are and give you a two-way ride for $5. We went to a bar called Mermaid and it was ALL Semester at Sea students- so much fun. The DJ was really cool and let us plug in our iphones and play music that we’ve picked up from Spain, Turkey, and other countries! We had a great time there and then headed to the 4 Seasons hotel (super fancy). We went up to the 8th floor and there was a huge lounge with big ‘sultan’ chairs. The view of the city was beautiful and it was on the edge of the water too! We hung out there the rest of the night, got mcflurries at McDonald’s, and then went back to the MV Explorer!

July 31
We slept in until noon- yay!
I wanted to try a chicken pesto pizza at the pool deck bar so I got one and it was AMAZING. Why haven’t I discovered this earlier??
Ben, Jerome (Ben and Jerry), and Shea and I went out and got a blue cab and went to the Alexandria Library! We had to buy tickets down the street, then register our laptops to bring in. Once we got inside, it was huge! It was very modern and new looking, with a few museums inside, along with many international people. It basically looked like a really nice library, nothing super special. We had our laptops and a few hours until we had to be back to the ship to leave, so we facebooked and emailed, of course, then got gelato (first Italian gelato café in Egypt), then headed back to the ship!

August 1
Today is Sea Olympics! Remember I wrote in one of the first few blogs about how each floor has a ‘sea’? My sea is the Caribbean Sea, and we are pink! We have been letting the ship now just how loud and crazy we are with our cheers and surprise stomp performances. Well, today is the Olympics. There are many games and events going on and all of the seas compete. I’m in a competition where you pick up ice cubes with chopsticks and fill the bucket as fast as you can! I got second place… The other events include, pull ups, relay race, basketball, dodgeball, crab soccer, pie eating, flip cup with water, donut on a string, synchronized swimming, and lip sync! The whole day everyone just runs around and cheers their team on and wears their colors. Our color is bright pink and even the boys were covered in it. I watched the pie eating and it was sick. Jerome ate an entire lemon crème pie and then I saw it fly overboard… ew. We had delicious ribs, burgers, and hotdogs with corn and beans for dinner then the synchronized swimming! It was so funny to watch and some people’s routine was serious, most were just cheesy. We were close to last place during lunchtime, then around dinner, we became first place! I don’t know how, but we did. The finale is the lip sync, which wins the most points. Every group did such a funny job of picking songs and making dances/acting parts. We got third in this, but since we were first overall and received a lot for lip sync.. WE WON THE SEA OLYMPICS!!!! We cheered and screamed/jumped up and down in front of the entire ship. They started playing loud music and we all started dancing and cheering some more. All of the other seas left the Union and we had a big dance party! We all went in our hallway and just hung out and celebrated. We get a private party in the faculty lounge (oh lala) and we get bragging rights of course. The best part is- we get to get off of the ship first when we get home!! How awesome is that?!
“Caribbean Sea?! YA MON, WE BE JAMMIN!”