Near Eastern Time: So this one time....when we were in Egypt...

Classic Anna: Forgot my camera charger in Jerusalem. Thus, I have pictures for about one day of Egypt. One day. OF EGYPT. So you get to see us at the pyramids, and that's all.

But oh, what pyramids they are!

Our wonderfully fashionable Egypt sunhats. They've started quite the craze.

Luckily I hopped into as many pictures of friends' as I could, so once we're all thru killing ourselves over midterms and papers and committee meetings and Yom Kippur house arrest, I'll steal those pictures from said friends and you'll all have everything you ever wanted!!

I realize I keep promising pictures. Someday either

a. The internet will start working or

b. I'll finally get myself over to hebrew university and upload. And you'll all have everything you've ever wanted.

But until that magical, magical day, I'll try and remember highlights from that blur that was the ancient wonder of Egypt. Basically it was 8 days of pure, intense, learning, sweating, and watching loved ones have explosive illnesses.

My Favorite things:

The Great Pyramids of Giza, of course. We went inside Kufhu's (the biggest big one) and sang creepy, reverberant chants in the tomb. Um...I may or may not have laid in the sarchophogus.

The size and beauty was unreal. I just tried to imagine what they were like 4,500 years ago at their prime; smooth white limestone and gleaming golden point, telling the world of the sun god RA and Egypt's eternal power!
We also hung out with the darling Mr. Sphinx and avoided merchants in his neat-o, crowded, ancient temple.

Saqqara (the oldest old step-style pyramids. Here a member of the "tourism and antiquities police" graciously compelled some friends and I to take pictures on some remote temple. Sit on the king's throne. No big deal.

In my defense, ancient wonders in Egypt are kind of like a dime a dozen. People sit, sleep, pick their nose, play cards, spit gum, on them all the time.

LUXOR!! This place was beautiful. Ancient Thebes, where Joseph lived. Home of the Valley of the Kings (Yep, met Tut. Actually pronounced "toot" believe it or not. OUr awesome Egyptologist tour guide called us Tut.), The Karnak Temple (the 134 columns of this 10-temple, obelisk-laden dynamite conglomeration of ancient worship is one of the wonders of the ancient world. I saw two of these in three days, not bad, eh?), Hatshepsut's temple, the tomb where the book of Abraham was discovered, yada yada yada. I left my heart in luxor.

Here our hotel was right on the banks of the Nile. Once I was assured there were no more crocodiles, I was stoked beyond belief. I didn't expect the beauty. We took a felucca (sail boat) ride, to where our camels (let me tell you sometime how I feel about camels. They are truly noble creatures with funny pita feet) met us. I rode a camel! In EGYPT! We also took a motorboat Nile ride and a horse-drawn carriage ride and a trashy overnight train back to Cairo (I think they wanted us to experience all modes of transportation?).
Oh, and the LUXOR temple was also INCREDIBLE. Ramses 2 was huge. And hot. And then I met him in person in the Egyptian museum in Cairo! Mummies,.....woah. They're cool. I had something of an epiphany over King Tut's toes