Out and About with My New Family

Sandy and I

Sandy, Mama Niveen, and I

Arab version of Ben?

My new family is very excited to have me see egyptian culture and we try and go out every weekend!  These pictures are from one time when we went near downtown and took a carriage ride and the second from when my host mom Niveen, Sandy, and I wandered around the older part of Cairo.  Many of the buildings are from the medival Islamic period and we visited a few mosques and khan el khalili (one of the oldest markets, souqs, in Cairo).  I went to Azhar Mosque and it was the most peaceful place I've ever been to before.  Everything was white marble it looked like and Sandy and I just wanted to sleep in the courtyard and look up at the stars all night.  It was open air and the perfect summers night (even though it was still winter, gotta love egyptian weather!) and for the first time in Egypt, not a single fly.  It was wonderful haha I hate the nasty little buggers and they are everywhere in Egypt, swatting them away becomes second nature.  We also stumbled upon a performance with traditional music and tanoura dancing which was awesome and definetly worth a second visit!

[Outside] The Egyptian Museum

Adam, me, Louise, Lalli, Momo, and Gabriel

Artifacts outside, the museum in on Tahrir Sqr. with tons of traffic and pollution.  A new museum is supposed to open around 2015.

Where I'd sleep if I was an egyptian hobo :D

My new host sister, Sandy! I switched host families after the sokhna trip for personal reasons.

No pictures allowed even without flash :/ I've gone two times, first, with my afs friends (we didnt go in), and second, with my host family.  They were trying to be nice by getting me a guide, but his english was very bad and we rushed through the whole museum looking at one or two objects for each room.  I would suggest getting an egypt-obsessed brazilian/egyptian to show you around instead.  I saw Tutankhamen's funerary stuff!  It was crazy, and he wasn't even an important pharaoh!  I also saw the royal mummies, too.  Its huge and I'm positive I'll be coming back for more.

Sokhna

Sokhna is on the red sea and is more for egyptian tourists as every resort has a foriegn names (most of them Mexican)  It was sooo windy and the sea was freezing, but we still enjoyed the sun and tried bellydancing :D Maryam and her mom tried to teach us :)

Italian Circus

Trapeze

I think he's called a ring master?

Spanish dance

the Juggler

CLOWN!

3 motorcycles in a ball!

Louise and I

A circus came near citystars so Louise and I decided we must go and see a circus in Egypt.  It was pretty neat and it was my first time to see one!

Photos from Luxor

Colossi of Memnon

A temple... I forgot the name :/ sorry

Hatshepsut's temple!  First female pharaoh of egypt!

Right as I took this picture a piece fell off of the statue he was working on -.-

Except for the smile, the lady in the green looks like my real mom's twin! Except she looked a little older.  :p so my mom's older twin haha I had to get a sneaky picture...

Excavations!

Alabaster factory near the temple

Valley of the Kings

wow. capitalism needs to have some respect. But whats cool is Luxor Temple is right in the middle of the city, kind of like Notre Dame in Paris.

Luxor temple evolved with everyone that occupied egypt.  Many pharaohs added on to it and the romans too.  This is a mosque inside of it.

Romans just pasted over the top of the pharonic stuff haha

open air museum next to the temple

Banana plantation

bricks

Felluca

I'm sorry for waiting so long to upload these!  Nothing major happened in Luxor, no amazing stories like the last one haha, just went sight-seeing, but I hope you enjoy!  PS prom is in 2 days so I figured I should catch up here so I can post pictures after!