Egypt is Amazing!

I just got back from Egypt late Sunday night and it was a blast! I can now say I have been to Africa, and it was definitely quite the experience. We were there for a week, so I will probably talk about the trip in segments, but don't worry, I will try to post a lot of pictures (as long as my connection lets me).

We left last Sunday and stopped by Beersheba where Abraham dug a well. There was a whole town there and it was really neat to see the things that were left. We also got to see the wilderness of Zin and Kadesh Barnea. The Israelites wandered through 7 different wildernesses, two of them being these, and it was neat to see. Check out the wilderness of Zin in the background of the picture.


After that we drove to a Kibbutz and went on a tour and then spent the night at a different Kibbutz. A Kibbutz is a community that combines socialism and zionism, and the tour was really interesting. The community works together to run a dairy farm, and they showed us the entire process. They all have different jobs around the community, but all of them receive compensation according to their needs, and things like healthcare and everything are provided for them. It was a really pretty place and a neat concept, but I am not sure I would want to live there. They had a lot of date trees which was really neat and we got to try fresh dates which were really good. It was funny because they had big bowls of dates for us to try (they said it was the only "date" we could have this semester...) and a lot of people didn't really like them so I grabbed a bunch on my way out. I think I was on a sugar high for awhile...The tour was really fun and then we had dinner there and danced around and sang Jewish songs. It was so much fun! This is me with a cow at the Kibbutz.


The next day we crossed the border into Egypt and it was kind of crazy because I almost left my purse with my camera, wallet, etc. at the Kibbutz where we stayed-that could have been awful! Luckily a guy in my group noticed it got left behind and brought it. Egypt has a lot of sand and such, and it was cool seeing where people live and how they dress. My bus almost hit a camel as it walked across the road-crazy huh? We traveled to Giza and stayed at a really nice hotel with a beautiful pool that like 50 of us went swimming in. It was really funny because we played a lot of games and even turned it into a whirlpool, all while people lounging around the pool just sat and stared at the crazy Americans. After dinner we packed 16 of us into a 12 person van with a crazy taxi driver who gave us a tour of Giza. Our tour was pretty much him taking us to his cousin's/friend's shops, but it was hilarious. He was a crazy driver and driving really fast, while all of us were just packed in the back. Fun times.