What time is it? SNACK TIME!

           After a nice night of sleep in our air conditioned hostel room, we woke for breakfast provided by the hostel.  They told us it included a cup of tea, an omelette (really greasy eggs) with cheese (a small pack of warm cheese) and bread with jam (some obscure Egyptian fruit).  It sufficed, but really wasn't the best thing for my system...:(  But it was included in the price, so I ate it.  

            We left the hostel and headed to the Karnak Temple, but not until we visited our two-pound water guy.  We walked the three miles to the temple and almost snuck our way in with a tour group.  But, when we didn't have tickets, we were sent back to the ticket booth.  Georgio, speaking Arabic and pretending he was an Egyptian, got his ticket for 2 pounds, whereas we paid a nice 40 pounds...Georgio!  The temple was spectacular!  Almost everything was still intact, or at the very least, a recognizable portion of it.  It's truly amazing how the colors are still visible after thousands of years.  A group of French tourists was trying to take a picture of themselves by tilting the camera on the ground, so I asked them if they wanted me to take a picture for them.  They were very grateful, and I used almost all my knowledge of French when taking the picture.  "Trois, deux, un, fromage!" It was nice to interact with Europeans again.  The trip made me appreciate Germany a great deal more.

             After the couple of hours at the Temple we took a cab back to our new favorite restaurant, "Snack Time."  We thought we would continue patronizing this place, because the food was good/varied/well-priced/not Egyptian.  On of us would always ask, "What time is it"  To which he would get an enthusiastic, "SNACK TIME!"  Unfortunately, it also didn't really sit well with my system either.  I thought a milkshake would have done me some good!  (Well, at least I thought it would be a nice treat in the heat.  Unfortunately it tasted like warm ice cream.)  We returned to our hostel to meet up with the captain of the felucca.  And he had us backtrack to where we just were...but we made our way to the dock, risking our lives on the poorest/rustiest excuse of a walkway in the world.  It was made up of two separate sets of stairs that were connected with wire.  We did see a felucca named, "Alaska" which was cool for two reasons. 1) It is names after our 49th state.  2) Whenever we told Egyptians that we were from the U.S., half of the time, they would reply, "Welcome to Alaska!"–We didn't really get that, until someone explained it was a joke, because it is actually warm in Egypt. 

              We got on the felucca, bound for Banana Island.  Unfortunately, our destination was up river, so we had to whistle for a tugboat, already with three other feluccas trailing behind it, to come and pick us up.  Once we joined up behind them, we waited for a few more boats.  It was actually pretty cool.  Ropes being thrown from boat to boat, a full train of feluccas!  It was a nice relaxing ride on the Nile.  We took our shoes off and dragged our feet in the cool water.  Then Rob had his foot bitten by a crocodile!  Not really, we didn't see a crocodile until later.  The boat was large enough for us to lay out on the cushioned seats, and I was pretty close to taking a nice nap.  Then we reached the isle, where we finally saw our first Egyptian crocodiles...small and in a cage.  After walking through a banana field and checking out the new fertilizer they were using, we got a plate full of fresh bananas!  I was really exciting, knowing bananas to be a constipator, but they didn't really help that much, as I would later find out.   But that's neither here nor there.  We hurried off the island to catch the sunset.  It was absolutely incredible, watching the sunset on the Nile.  I took at least a hundred pictures.  One of the most worthwhile experiences on the trip.  That night we wandered around Luxor a bit, but then I returned home to write some post cards.  Paul and Georgio went out to a café where they sat and played backgammon all night.  Rob and I planned our trip for the next day.  We decided to cross the Nile!

My friend, special price!

            The airplane ride was on a dinky plane that shook for at least half of the hour long ride (according to Rob, who thought we were going to die).  I was asleep most of the trip, although I was awoken a couple of times by the very very rude man in front of me who did not pay any heed to the pilot's orders regarding the shutting off of cell phones.  This man's phone kept ringing!  He would pick it up, lost connection, and the person kept calling back.  In all seriousness, it happened eight to ten times.  Suffice it to say, he was not very popular on the plane.  

              Groggy and thirsty, we arrived in Luxor around 7 in the morning (after a nice little delay in Cairo).  We took a cab into the city, and immediately realized the difference in air quality.  Namely, Paul didn't have difficulty seeing through his contacts.  We walked along the Nile for a bit, the entire time getting accosted by Taxis and carriage drivers.  After exchanging some money, we found our way to our hostel, New Everest Hostel, which allowed us to check in at 9.  So we sat around in the lobby, again being offered by the staff plenty of guided ($€$€--it's all the same to them!) tours of the different sites in Luxor.  We declined, confident we could find our way with our handy travel guide.  Knowing we had plenty of time to see the city, we used our first day there to catch up on sleep.  After we woke from our naps, we decided to meander around the city, eventually making our way into the bazaar.  If you are ever feeling friendless, just make your way to Luxor and head down this narrow street.  "My friend, my friend, special price.  Only 5 Egyptian Pounds!  Where are you from my friend?" (Following look of bewilderment)  "¡Mi amigo!" (Continued confused look)  "Mein Freund! (which actually means "boyfriend" in German).   They have enough knowledge of the languages of the most frequently visiting tourists to invite you into their stores.  You may think I am exaggerating, but there must have been 70 shops, all with keepers eager for our patronage.  All claiming us to be their friends. :)  We found this terribly amusing.  As much as a gift from Egypt would be cool to give, I just never found anything with a good quality that I would ever want to purchase.  We did find another papyrus shop which Georgio wanted to check out.  The prices here were incredibly cheap compared to the other shop in Cairo.  We told the guy we would come back again before we left, while Georgio wanted to wait to see how much money he had left before we left Luxor...and boy, would we come back!---->continued foreshadowing!

             As we were approaching the end of the tunnel, so to speak, we heard a couple fighting off the vendors, auf Deutsch!  So, we struck up conversation with them as we looped back...but not through the bazaar.  I was impressed we were able to understand them.  They were a couple from Switzerland, and the Germans maintain, that Swiss German is not actual German.  Probably like someone in New York might say someone down in Dixie can't speak real English.  Either way, I was happy to be able to understand them.  On our walk, I

 serendipitously ran into the one and only (I think) Catholic church in Luxor.   I looked before we left to figure out where I could go to mass on Sunday, but had no idea where it actually was, so it was really nice a near the hostel.  There was a nice statue of the Blessed Virgin outside, along with a cool mosaic of Baby Jesus and Mary on a Donkey and Joseph leaving for Egypt.  :)

           That night we ate at an outdoor restaurant.  We all ordered pizzas, and midway through our meal, we were accosted by cats.  There were cats all over Luxor (and later, Alexandria)!  It was at this point that my bowels were starting to have a difficult time with the food in Egypt.  At last, the (pardon the crudeness, but this was the best name we could come up for it) Cairo Craps had struck... We made a pit stop at the McDonald's, where Paul got a shake, so I could use the facilities.  (Thanks again, Paul.)  After that, we went to go sit in the park-like area outside the Luxor Temple, which is a main fixture across the street from the Nile.   I think it is at the center of the city, at least from what I gathered by our location.  A mosque was built right alongside/partially on top of it.  We made our way toward the mosque, and were invited in by

a man who gave a neat little tour in German, giving us the opportunity to take a few cool snapshots of the temple from up close.  Some of the walls in the mosque were actually walls from the temple.  After the tour, he conveniently led us to a corner, seemingly to offer us another opportunity to photograph the temple.  Then he asked us to give him some money...for the mosque...claiming any amount would be helpful, noting we should give what we thought, from the bottoms of our hearts.  I told him I only had big bills (not really seeing this as something that deserved a tip, noting he graciously invited us in to give us a tour), Georgio gave him something and walked away, Paul offered in 20 pounds, and Rob offered him his four 50 cent bills, also because he had nothing else small.  The guy looked at us, puzzled and said what we were giving was too small...explaining to Rob his amount was too small.  Rob explained that was all he had, so the man asked if he had any Euros!  It was at that point, I left, and Paul and Rob soon followed.  That was a very awkward and weird experience.  We went back to the park-like plaza and sat on one of the grassy areas.  We sat and talked for a good hour, planning out our next couple of days.  We headed back to the hostel, and along the route, found a man selling big bottles of water for only two Egyptian Pounds (roughly ¢40), which was the best deal we had found (and we frequented his stand)   We made plans to visit the Karnak Temple the next day and arranged a felucca boat ride with the hostel for the evening.  We were all set with plans...we just needed some sleep.

Luxor ≠ Aswan

We talked to one of the staff members from the hostel about a flight to Luxor, which was quoted the day before at €60.  She told us it was now €80...so we told her we would have to discuss it further, because a nine hour train ride would be a fraction of the price, but Rob had no real desire to sit on a train for that long.  After visiting the small museum, in which we saw actual mummies, canopic jars (the ones with disemboweled mummy parts), and some other very old items, we walked around the pyramids at Saqqara (formerly Memphis), seeing the famous step pyramid that is the first known building made entirely of stone (circa 2650 B.C.).  We were also fortunate enough to see about 50 people selling souvenirs.  One man, who was offering a donkey ride, saw me put a piece of gum in my mouth.  He came up to me and kept saying something that sounded remotely like "chicle," the Spanish word for "gum."   So I started speaking to him en Español and he kept guessing where I am from.  He listed off about eight Spanish cities until he gave up.  I ended up telling him that I am from the Dominican Republic (Somos Amigos 2006!).  Then he asked me to take a picture of him.  Then he tried to take my camera off from around my neck, so he could take a picture of me...no gracias, señor!

Our cab driver had mentioned to Georgio how great it is to take a dinner cruise on the Nile in Cairo, which the hostel would (of course) happily book for us.  We figured out a compromise.  Since the price for the flight went up (for sketchy reasons mind you...I still am not sure what she was trying to tell us), we thought to haggle a bit to get the flight and the dinner cruise for €80 collectively.  Paul deliberated with the woman over the phone for a while, saying we wanted to go from Luxor to Cairo, and return from Luxor to Cairo (a fact I had made clear when I spoke with her earlier), which differed from their itinerary for us going to Aswan.  After some heated discussion with the woman, we eventually got the price down to €80.  Gut gemacht, Paul.

We spent a little downtime at the hostel, recuperating before our dinner cruise.  The woman from the hostel had purchased the flight tickets for later that night, namely 4 in the morning.  Redeye=cheapest.  So we left our stuff at the hostel, went to this dinner cruise–which we were made to understand was all-inclusive–thinking we could stuff ourselves not only with food, but with beverage as well.  We were thirsty probably 60% of the trip.  Unfortunately, the drinks were not included in the fee, but the food was, and was a weird mix.  There was spaghetti, rice, beef, and plenty of Middle Eastern "salads" that looked more appetizing than the Egyptian desserts.  The food was nothing special, but the lounge singers who were stationed right behind me (one even had his hand on my chair during half of his song...while I was in it) were spectacular...ish.  The best part of the cruise was simply being out on the Nile.  It was a nice, cool night.  After dinner I made my way up to the bow of the boat, relaxing and breathing in the (seemingly) clean Cairo air (Oxymoron!).  Rob joined me, and after a nice conversation, Paul found us and revealed that we missed a dancing dwarf and a belly dancer.  Shucks!  

We found ourselves with plenty of time before our flight, so we went back to the hostel and took naps in the common room there.  I woke up a bit early and snuck onto the computer to quickly check if the Vikings had beaten the Packers, since we left on the Monday night with the big game.  Unsurprisingly, the destroyed the Packers. :)  We got to the airport, looked at our tickets, and thought, "Hmmm...why is our destination listed as 'Aswan?'"  Rob said he asked the woman about that earlier when we received our tickets, but she claimed it was the same airport, and one could simply go to either Luxor or Aswan.  Talking to the EgyptAir agent, we were informed that it is actually a three hour distance between cities (by train).  Thanks a bunch, hostel.  We had to pay a surcharge to change our flight, figuring we would explain what happened to the hostel when we returned to Cairo and get our money back...and then we waited---->next stop, Luxor!

Did you know falafel is just a ball of deep fried spices?

Wednesday, October 7th:  We awoke early to start our adventure.  The breakfast included with the hostel was not yet prepared, so the man at the front desk gave money to the cab driver to pay for breakfast for us.  So, we stopped for some authentic Egyptian breakfast (I don't think they actually eat it this early):  falafel and what was pretty much a pita pocket filled with beans.  The beans were delicious and the falafel initially tasted good.  I don't really like fried food, so when I realized that all falafel is simply a ball of deep fried spices, I regretted eating mine...and Rob's.  When Rob said he didn't want the rest of his, I asked him, "Rob, do you not like this?  Or do you just not want diarrhea?"  <----foreshadowing!  

We finally got out of the smoggy air in the city and onto the highway.  It was nice moving away from the heavily trafficked streets.  The housing along the highway consisted of red brick buildings, none of which seemed to be fully constructed.  After about five minutes on the highway, we got our first glimpse of the pyramids.  If our trip ended there, I would have been okay.  It was so cool seeing these monstrous structures from miles away, until they eventually got lost behind buildings or trees.  We drove along a small "river" after we got off the highway.  It was mostly a trash receptacle. (SIDE NOTE:  Garbage is everywhere in Egypt.  There are seldom garbage cans.  One simply throws garbage on the street.  It took a while getting used to, and once I got back to Germany, I had to catch myself a couple of times!)  The strangest thing we saw in the "river" was the pair of dead horses...

Speaking of horses, our driver took us to a "stable" where we were able to choose between a camel or a horse for our trek to the pyramids.  We all opted for camels, which were tied together, one behind the other, like a train.  Fortunately I was at the front, and got the opportunity to "steer" for a while.  Camels are tall animals.  So tall, that as we rode through the streets, we looked down on some of the cars that passed beneath us.  After we had to dismount for a security checkpoint, we all decided to put on some sunscreen...because it was hot.  Oh, that's right. We had absolutely beautiful weather during our trip.  75º during October?  Yeah, it happened.  Well that was the one time we used the sunscreen...we left it in the camel pack when we left.

Our tour guide and his small sidekick (a kid who met us in the street and stole the reigns from me) led us up the sandy path.  Along the way, our guide started telling us riddles and jokes, primarily to practice his English.  And anytime he made a disparaging comment about Asian tourists, he assured us everything was in order, because hey, he's got a Japanese wife!  As we continued up the mounds of sand, the tips of the pyramids slowly came into view.  It was during that surreal moment, that we all began to understand that we were really in Egypt.  

We again dismounted our camels, but this time for our photo shoot.  It definitely wasn't our guide's first rodeo.  That dog could hunt!  He took turns with all four of our cameras making (Germans say "making" photos, not "taking" :) ) the same set of pictures for each of us.  He had us jump "over" the pyramids, lean on them, and even sit on them!  Our guide then told us to stand on the back of my camel.  I had to laugh, thinking how many waivers I would have had to sign had we been in the U.S.  Following his example, I took my turn on its back.  The weirdest was when he had us jump off the camel's back.  The entire time I kept thinking, "Boy, I sure hope it doesn't stand up right now."

Our tour guide then led us down to get closer to the pyramids themselves.  He was bragging about all the music he had on his cell phone (very common in Egypt to have lots of songs on cellulars) and proudly played us some songs from his collection, namely Celine Dion.  That's correct.  When I went to go see the Pyramids at Giza, I was listening to Celine Dion.  We climbed a pyramid for a nice photo op (which is completely legal) and made our way down to the housing for the builders of the pyramids.  Our guide kept telling us it was illegal to go inside these structures, and that he had to go pay off the guards if we wanted to see them.  When we told him 50 pounds was way too expensive for this, and that we were okay missing out on the visit, he kept trying to talk us into doing it, saying, "How much are you willing to pay."  Translation:  The 20 pounds we each payed went directly into his wallet.  

He took us into a few different rooms.  The coolest room was one into which we had to climb down.  The air within the space smelled sweet.  It had formerly been a roomed used during the embalming of the mummy.  Since they used the fragrant aroma of flowers, the room still had the sweet smell, thousands of years later.  

We headed in the general direction of the Sphinx when our guide tried to take us back, but Rob and I wanted some real pictures of it.  So we ran down to get some snapshots, only to be accosted by little Egyptian boys trying to sell us rulers with hieroglyphics on them.  (Sorry, Peanut, I didn't get you one.)  Did you know that when Napoleon marched into Egypt in the early 19th century, he had his troops shoot of the nose of the Sphinx so he could have it shipped back to France? Cool eh?

We rode our camels back to where we started, and then were herded into a room by our tour guide, only to be strongly encouraged to give him tips.  That was a bit awkward, but not as much as when our driver took us to a papyrus painting shop.  (He had purchased us more falafel, and my hunger outweighed the taste.)  But as I mentioned, he took us to a shop.  Not really sure what was going on, we were encouraged to enter.  I think it was run by his friend.  Thankfully Georgio purchased something, because they gave us all free beverages and constantly tried to haggle with us.  It was all very expensive, and frankly, nothing I would ever want to buy.

We were finally en route to see the pyramids at Saqqara.  We still needed to figure out our flight for that night to Luxor, so we had to call our great friends at Let-Me-Inn...

Europe's getting kind of boring. Let's go to Africa!

Our itinerary: October 5th-14th--be in Egypt.

       In order to get the cheaper flight, we had to take the red eye.  We arrived in Cairo around 3 in the morning.  I wasn't really able to sleep much on the flight so I was pretty tired when we arrived.  Paul, on the other hand, was awake and lively, having spent the entire flight chatting with a German-Iraqi.  Paul got the best of both worlds–he got to practice his German while practicing his Arabic.  He introduced himself to Rob and me as "Georgio."  Fine by me!  After passing through some very weak health checkpoint–nothing like the bio-thermal detectors the State Department had promised but rather some old ladies wearing masks who wouldn't let us through until we filled out some paperwork– we exchanged some money and purchased our visas for $15. (Bryna, if you read this, maybe think about going to Egypt next time.  You can just get your visa when you arrive!)  Egypt uses the Egyptian Pound, a reminder of their former occupation by the British no doubt.  It was about 5.45 Egyptian Pounds to the Dollar when we arrived, or about 8 Euro per Pound.  Neat currency, though they have no denomination small than a 50 cent piece...which means you can literally get short-changed.

Once we got our baggage, we made our way to the doors.  20 feet or so before, we could feel the warmth and could smell a dusty dry air that I won't soon forget.  Georgio was able to get a taxi–odd how he wanted to be payed in Euros– which he shared with us.  As we made our way from the airport to the city center (about 20 minutes away by car) we got to talking to Georgio a bit more.  Before we knew it, Paul invited him along to our hostel, humorously named "Let-Me-Inn" Hostel.  We changed our room to a four bed-room to accommodate our new friend.  "Hey, Mom.  I just got to Egypt, met a 37 year-old Iraqi man who goes by "Georgio," and am sharing a hostel room with him.  Bye"  That was pretty much the conversation Rob had with his mom before we went to bed.  :)

        Our first day there (October 6th) we decided to make our way around the city to get a taste of Egypt.  Well, let me tell you.  Cairo has 12 million people.  It is absolutely huge.  Trying to cross the street involves playing a real-life version of "Frogger."  I would almost say cars speed up once you enter their paths.  The air quality within the city is also very poor.  Later on in the trip, Paul had a hard time seeing our of his contacts because of all the pollutants in the air.  

       We took a subway a ways out of the center of the city where we made our way through busy street markets to the Nile, the lifeblood of Egypt.  It is pretty fantastic.  As much as a river can be, I guess.  Very wide.  Very large.  After getting our first round of pictures with the river, we followed to current of the river back toward the way from which we came.  Along the bank, there are plenty of green areas.  They charge an entrance fee, but the you can sit there and admire the rather sparse greenery.  We opted to keep walking.  After a couple hours of that, hunger finally set back in, and we made our way to a Pizza Hut.  Let me tell you, Pizza Hut in Egypt is a classy establishment.  Cleaner, cheaper, but not as tasty as in the U.S.  Paul had this fantasy of drinking tea in an Egyptian tee shop.  I on the other hand, wanted to get a haircut.  Let's face it, haircuts in Europe, like clothing, are too expensive.  Plus, now when people ask me what I did in Egypt, I can respond proudly, "I got a haircut!"  Georgio had to explain what I wanted.  It was sort of a weird experience, especially because the barber didn't know English,  though he somehow knew how to smoke while cutting hair.  After he was done, he squirted about a third of a bottle of gel into my hair and "styled" it.  Of the phrases I learned while in Egypt, I still wish I would have learned how to say, "Please sir, do not put all of that gel in my hair!"

Rob came back to get me in time to see the gelling incident and led me to the café where Paul and Georgio were enjoying some nice Egyptian tea.  Georgio was on vacation and, like us, happened to find a cheap flight to Egypt.  But, he was hoping to return in January during a longer break.  So he asked around about renting apartments for a couple of weeks, and pretty soon brought up the crazy idea of renting an apartment for our return leg in Cairo.  Having already put some down-payments on different hostels, I didn't really feel like losing out on those.  Plus, we're poor students.  We're supposed to rough it when we go backpacking.  Nonetheless, Georgio and now Paul and Rob, wanted to check out the apartment.  This man on the street took us up to this 8th or 9th floor flat which provided a beautiful view of the city over the Nile.  We snapped some pictures and told them we would call them after we returned to Cairo if we were interested.  Haha...thanks for giving us a place to take some cool photographs!  We never called them back.  We had neither the funds nor the desire to stay in the apartment/Cairo during our last days in Egypt, but that comes later.

           We took a taxi back to our hostel.  It was a very exhilarating ride.  Namely because there is very little traffic controlling in Egypt.  One simply changes lanes and there are clusters of cars everywhere!  Headlights/directionals are completely optional.  Most of the switches for the horns are where the windshield wiper switch would be.  That's how often they are used.  Once back at the hostel, we took turns showering.  There was no tub, just a shower head in the bathroom with a squeegee to push the water down a drain once finished.  Afterwards, we talked with the staff at the hostel about possible plans.  It seems like everybody in Egypt knows somebody.  Meaning if you need something, whoever you are talking to, knows somebody who can procure the good or service.  Our plan was to spend another day in Cairo, then take a 9-hour night train to Luxor.  They tried to fix us up with this different itinerary that would have sent us to Abu-Simbel, an ancient temple not too far from the border with Sudan.  We laughed at the quote the gave us and explained our poor-studentness.  They recommended a flight from Cairo to Luxor, which would be more expensive than the train, but would go 9 times faster.  That was something we had to think over, but we did make plans with them to go to the Pyramids the next day.  We went to dinner at an Egyptian restaurant.  I ended up getting some sort of meat (which tasted curiously like meatloaf) on a stick along with "macaroni," which consisted of mostacolli  noodles with some beef and cheese.  Not too bad!  Then we tried our luck with a confectioner, who made some very very delicious baklava.  Afterward, we walked around the streets for about an hour and a half.  The night life there is huge.  We saw full families walking about at 10:30-11 o'clock at night.   After trying on a couple pairs of knock-off shoes (including a pair of sandals I swear were women's), we called it quits for the night.  After all, we were going to go see the Pyramids at Giza in the morning.

Egypt? I don't know. I am a bit krank(y)!

(Krank in German means sick...it's a play on words, because I was both sick and because of that, cranky.)

With four days left in the intensive language course, it was time to start planning out what I was going to do with the nice 15 day break before the semester started.  I had a few options:  1)  Visit Max Loos in Tunisia.  2)  Visit Paul and Mandie Wilburn in Rome (since they wouldn't visit me in Germany).  3)  Go to Egypt, where a friend of mine (Guthrie) is actually studying.  My friend, Paul, and I had discussed earlier the possibility of going to Egypt, and having looked at prices/tickets, we figured going to Egypt would never again be as inexpensive as it was.  Tunisia was too expensive, and I am planning on going to Rome for Easter.  So we made up our minds, talked to another AYFer, Rob, and bought our tickets on Monday. 

 I felt like I was getting sick on Monday, and sure enough, I woke up Tuesday feeling like garbage.  I was either too warm or too cold.  During class, I had a hard time concentrating and wanted nothing more than to go to bed.  It was at this point that I began to worry something terrible.  With the H1N1  virus going around, and with my flu-like symptoms, I was a bit worried my trip to Egypt wouldn't happen.  Because of the outbreak, the U.S. State Department warned all travelers going to Egypt that if they were detected (via a biothermal radar) as being sick, they would be quarantined in an Egyptian hospital for 48 hours, and released if they were not deemed a threat to the public.  :-D  Wouldn't that be a great welcome!  Fortunately that night, my friends Ambika and Paul came over and made me dinner, and Eva and Kirsten pampered me in all sorts of ways.  They made me tea, brought me a large blanket with a tiger on it, gave me heat packs, and plenty of facial tissues (Kleenex).  My 11 hours of sleep coupled with missing my last actual day of class did me well.  I was on the road to recovery.  Eva made me some great soup for lunch and things seemed to be going well...until I realized how much I needed to study for our finals.  But, everything went well.  I made it through both exams, went home, ate, and went to bed.  

The next day, Paul and I met my roommates for lunch at an Italian restaurant.  Apparently "Margherita Pizza" here, simply means cheese pizza.  Paul got some Spaghetti made with vodka.  It was actually pretty good.  After lunch, we (now including Rob) met with our advisor in Freiburg to go over tentative class schedules.  The sign up process in Germany is light-years behind that in the U.S.  Depending on the department, one has to 1) Sign up online 2) Email the teacher and request a spot 3) Fill out a form within the department as to which classes you would like to take, after which, lists will be posted as to whether you got into the desired class(es)  or 4) Just show up.  These are the only methods I had to deal with, but I expect there to be more.  I thought Germans were supposed to be über-efficient.

After our meetings, the three of us went to this "US Store" where they sell old military uniforms and gear.  There are hats from the Franco-Prussian War, helmets from both world wars, and some really spectacular military uniforms in good condition.  Rob was looking for a backpack for Egypt, but the ones there were either too big/expensive or too small.  So he just bought one at a backpacking store.

Eva, my roommate who studies law, knowing how dearly I miss Mexican food, invited me out that Friday.  She and her fellow law students were to have a get together with either a judge or district attorney.  They sit around a table, drinking different types of alcohol, seeing the different ways they affect the body.  So, suffice it to say, when I finally met up with them around 9, some of them were three sheets in the wind.  I did meet a guy whose Mother is from Barcelona and whose father is from Germany.  So I had a really cool trilingual conversation with him.  The Mexican food was pricey and not as good as that in the States, but really hit the spot.  On the whole, Mexican food utilizes so many more flavors.  ¡Te extraño, comida mexícana!

The next day: Anna's birthday/German national holiday (Day of German Unity) commemorating the reunification of Germany.  Oh, and I was no longer sick.  Thanks sleep/roommates!

Two days later (Monday, October 5) Paul, Rob, and I made our way to the train station.  I spent the train ride looking through the German guide book for Egypt that we purchased.  At least we would have something with which we could practice out German.  Our flight was from Frankfurt, leaving around 10:30.  Next stop: Cairo!

Hmmm...it's Saturday. Let's go to France!

Awww, shucks.  If I would have waited two more days, it would have been one full month in between my posts...oh, that's bad...to my blog readers:  Sorry I have taken so long to update this.  I get so intimidated, thinking I need to give you every little detail.  Because I waited so long, I don't remember every detail...so here's what I do remember:

Saturday, September 26th

Well, I made it to France before Anna.  I have a slight advantage, being only 20 minutes away.  As part of the AYF "orientation," we took a day trip to Alsace.  It was a brisk morning with an hour long bus ride, during which we played a game called, "I'm packing my suitcase," or something like that.  Then, taking turns, each person would add an additional item repeating the items mentioned before, going alphabetically.  On the way to France we used food as our theme.  Sounds easy...but we played in German.  Our director Ulli's two sons were on the bus with us (along with his American wife).  They played along and were funny because their German is a lot better than ours.  

Our first stop in France was the Hoh-Königsburg, an imposing medieval castle, fancifully rebuilt in the early 20th century to honor Emperor Wilhelm II.  Today it is a French national monument and as such, encapsulates a significant bit of German-French history.  Over the years it has switched hands between the two countries.  It is built into the rock on top of the highest point in the area, providing fantastic views of the countryside. I just posted pictures on Facebook.  I spent the time wandering around the castle with my friend, Derek.  He and I kind of like to stay away from the loudness and English-speaking that our group tends to bring with them no matter where we go.  We didn't realize how big the complex was, consequently we ran out of time.  Derek spent time writing a postcard to his girlfriend while I booked it to the bus...Ulli said if I had been a couple minutes later, they would have been gone! :)

Our next stop was the border city of Colmar.  This was a beautiful city.  Not too big and definitely French.  We were free to wander until a museum visit later in the afternoon.  After little success trying to find one or two other Americans who wanted to break off from the larger groups, I fortunately ran into Derek again.  After listening to a street performer with an accordion (so French!) we decided to make the most of our venture in France.  Namely, we went to a French grocery store, bought some grapes, a baguette (which I asked for in French, hau hau hau), cheese, and wine.  We sat in a grassy square in the middle of the city and had ourselves a nice French picnic.  It was quite fantastic.  

We visited the Musée d'Unterlinden which was full of beautiful religious artwork from a more pious time in French history.  Again, we ran out of time here.  So much to see, so little time.  And all the religious depictions got some of the non-religious AYFers to ask me questions, which evolved into a full-fledged theological discussion.  This was a really great day.  I hope God continues to use me to reach out to them.

The day was far from over when I got home.  At a local club, The Jazzhouse, there is a night called "Summer of Love," during which they play American music from the '50s, '60s, and '70s.  So pretty much what I have wanted to hear at every dance I have ever been to.  There was a hefty €6 entrance fee, but the four hours we spent there made it incredibly worthwhile.  The best part, they do this every couple of weeks!  It was a great day.  More posts coming soon!

-Nate