Athens, Greece

Stepping off the plane from Cairo into Athens was like entering another universe. Tiny dresses, Eurorail, designer clothing stores… But we couldn’t enjoy the familiarity without some sort of dramatic adventure first. Wanting to save money on cabs, we decided to take the metro from the airport into downtown Athens. Great idea, until the train became so packed we could barely move, let alone hold all our luggage and maneuver it out the door. We were in physical pain from carting around our lives from the past two months, and annoyed by the stares and unhelpful attitudes of the other passengers as we struggled to depart and switch lines. We had planned to stay in a cheap hotel we found online, but once we were there it was cheaper, (read-scarier), than we realized, and we left to find my friend Hashim, who was staying in a much nicer part of the city. Hashim is one of my best friends from Persian class. He’s from Pakistan, but just graduated from UW-Madison. It was so nice that he met us to travel in Greece! Unfortunately, his passport was stolen his first day there, but he was able to get a new one the next day, (things happen quickly when your uncle is a chief minister in Pakistan). The hotel we stayed in was small, but the old Greek couple that owned it was nice and funny. We spent our first night sampling appetizers and salads, (fresh vegetables were finally safe to eat!!), and walking around the city. Athens is very pretty at night. The Acropolis is lit up, squares bustle with street musicians and vendors, the steps in front of Parliament provide a nice spot to sit and chat, and the beauty of the old buildings is shown more in the moonlight. By day, Athens actually reminded us of Irbid in some areas. A bit run down, tattered and dirty. Other areas in the center, namely the Plaka and Psiri, were slightly nicer and full of clothing stores and cafes.
Thursday morning we set out for real coffee, which after weeks of instant Nescafe was amazing, and traditional Greek raisin cinnamon breakfast rolls. Then Brianna and I shopped while Hashim took care of business at the embassy and met us to trek around Athens. Our wandering was interrupted by riots in front of Parliament. On Thursday, Greece passed a pension bill to overhaul their debt, by reducing benefits and increasing the retirement age. Central Athens were shut down, as riots estimated at about 12,000 people erupted. The best part of our trip came Thursday night when we ate at Paradosiako. The restaurants in downtown Athens were all touristy and served overpriced, not very authentic food. We wanted something better, so we looked up local reviews and found this place. The food was amazing. The Greek salad was fresh and delicious, the cod melted in our mouths, the grilled squid was excellent, as was the zucchini, octopus, and of course, fresh bread. The presentation was beautiful, and the seafood was what we had been craving for weeks. Everywhere we went in Greece, (and also often in Jordan), melon was served after the meal as a complimentary dessert. A trend I think we should adopt in the U.S.!! Along with more olive oil, hummus and falafel, my favorites. :) Friday we hopped back on the bus and actually stopped at each site. We climbed the acropolis, which was really impressive. We’ve seen a lot of ruins over the past two months, but it’s still amazing to think of the history, and how we’re taught about these places, and then to actually see them. We also stopped at Zeus’ Temple, the site of the first Olympics, and the National Gardens. These were pretty, but have nothing on Olbrich Gardens, the Arboretum, or any of my dad’s gardens…we were not impressed by them at all, but we did enjoy the turtle pond!
Saturday was our best day in Greece. We woke up early, (Brianna is getting really sick of me waking her up “freakishly early”), and took a ferry to Poros, an island about two and a half hours away from Athens. The ride was beautiful! The mountains and Mediterranean are gorgeous, and we stopped at two smaller islands on the way. The islands are much nicer than Athens, (think Mama Mia the movie), and we enjoyed a lazy day of tanning and lemonade and lunch. For once I’m actually tan– it’s a miracle!
We took the metro to the train station, said our goodbyes to Hashim, (I’m so sad he graduated and won’t be there next semester to entertain us in Farsi class), and left on the midnight train to Thessaloniki. And the next 36 hours were the worst of the entire 8 weeks. We expected our sleeper car to be small and cramped, but we did not expect to not be able to fit inside it with our luggage. So, we traded with Andy, who had a (barely) better room set up and a couch under one bed. Sunburned, tired and annoyed, we settled in to watch our pirated, only 3 euro copy of Sex and the City 2, and went to sleep. The train arrived in Thessaloniki at 7:30am, and we were told the train to Istanbul departed at 8am. At least, Andy swears that’s what he was told. But when Brianna and I went to buy tickets, we found it was 8pm, and thus we had 12 hours to waste. Fuming, and annoyed that Andy had gotten this wrong, we left him on the platform to watch our luggage while we explored the city. In hindsight, this was a little mean, but we were tired, dirty, our clothes were severely wrinkled, our sunburns killing us, our luggage much too heavy to drag around… Besides, we needed a place to stay in Istanbul, so we went in search of Internet, convincing ourselves we were doing Andy a favor. Internet is hard to find in Greece, which surprised us. It was easier to find in Jordan. Finally, after asking many people, after several awkward language barrier encounters, after espresso at a café that said it had Internet but didn’t, after wandering around and holding up Brianna’s phone trying to get a signal, we found wireless. BUT, the restaurant wasn’t opened because it was Sunday, and Greece is very Orthodox and NOTHING was opened on Sunday. Luckily, the owner was sitting outside and he let us sit at an outdoor table and use the Internet anyway. We found a really nice hotel in Istanbul for almost half-price on a last minute Web site, and in much better moods went for a walk by the water. We walked, got ice cream, and started the 45 minute trek back to the train station, our sunburned shoulders in pain at each step and movement of our bags. Then…we waited. For 5 hours. In a train station with nothing to do. Finally 7:40 pm arrived, and we crawled into another small car, finished our movie and slept. We woke up at 4am to banging on the doors and “PASSPOOORTS” being yelled in thick Turkish accents. We handed ours to the conductor that came to our door with our eyes still closed, only to be woken up a few minutes later to have them returned. And then a few minutes later again to have them taken away. Then, we were forced out of the train to a hut on the side of the tracks at four in the morning in our pajamas, in the cold, on the border of Greece and Turkey with nothing around us for miles. Bewildered, half-asleep and kind of nervous, we stood and shivered until we could pay for our visas and go back to sleep. But in another half hour we were woken up for a customs check. And lastly, to have our passports returned. Moral of the story: DO NOT take overnight trains, especially across borders, especially when the night before you could only sleep one hour due to another train experience. From wherever the train stopped, we had to take a bus to Istanbul. This was supposed to take an hour, but took two. Finally, we arrived, and took a cab to our hotel. From here, the trip, and our moods, improved greatly.

Farewell Jordan, Hello Egypt!

This is a mix of Irbid, Amman, Cairo and Alexandria. I kept finding pictures, so the order is very confused. Sorry! And writing about all of Egypt in one day was a bad idea..it's rather boring and repetitive.

Alexandria

Tuesday we woke up extremely early to start our 3½ hour drive to Alexandria, the Greek city in Egypt on the Mediterranean. It was really pretty, and nothing like Cairo. The city was founded by Alexander the Great, and was Egypt’s capitol for almost a thousand years, until AD 641 when the Muslims took over and founded Fustat, later Cairo. Once there, we saw the Catacombs or Kom el Shoqafa, multi-level labyrinth tombs. These were really cool, and just like the pyramids hard to imagine how they was built and carved with minimal tools. Again, sadly, pictures weren’t allowed. Then we went to Pompey’s Pillar, a Roman column originally part of a colonnade made for Diocletian, in memory of the rebellion of Domitius Domitianus. It is one of the best-known ancient monuments still standing.
Alexandria is much different than Cairo, as you can see the Greek influence in the statues and buildings. It’s also much cleaner. I thought it was pretty and nice, but Muhammed said as an Egyptian man, he does not like Alexandria.
We went to the Alexandria Library, which is not an average library at all. It’s huge, and has the largest open space to read in the world. It’s also a museum. The library was only built seven years ago, and the architecture is really neat. There was a contest, and a group of architects from Norway won. From an aerial view the main building is shaped like the sun, and it has writing in many languages on the sides to represent blending cultures. There’s a planetarium on the west side, representing the Earth orbiting the sun. It has one of the largest Internet databases in the world, and you can read ancient books online. Each page of the actual books are photographed, so you can flip through them and read.
We also went to Montazah Park, a cute garden park on the beach. It was very pretty, but strange to see women swimming in clothing and hijabs. We would have been VERY out of place in bikinis, so we just walked around and went to the Presidential House to take pictures. Then it was back in the van for the long ride to the hotel and our final farewell to our guide. He is a very funny man. He’s kind, and jokes with us and quizzes us. But then there were moments we wondered if he was lying about prices and keeping some for himself. According to himself, he’s a good Muslim, and he told us many times of good things he’s done, how he refuses pretty women who try to get him to sleep in tents when he does tours in other areas, how he helps people, how he doesn’t drink and reads the Qur’an daily. And mostly he just really, really wants one of us to convert. We enjoyed our time with him though. And now, we’re going to try to sleep through the very, very loud wedding happening at our hotel, and prepare for our flight to Greece in the morning!

Cairo! Day 2....

Our second day in Cairo started out just like the first. Breakfast in the hotel, and meeting our guide Muhammad, who by this point was set on converting us to Islam. He brought it up at least 12 times and even bought us Arabic to English translations of the Qur’an. If you’re Muslim, and you convert someone, you’re almost guaranteed to go to Paradise.
Anyway, we went first to the citadel, overlooking all of Cairo. We saw the prison there, and the military side. It was interesting to see the security measures in place at the time, but the mosques were much nicer to look at. El-Naser Mohamed mosque was the first mosque in Cairo. It was made with stolen pieces, so the windows are all slightly different, as well as parts of the pillars. It was really cool though, and we learned how all mosques are set up. There’s a curved spot in the front so the Imam leading the prayer can be heard in back, or his echo can, there’s an open area for praying and facing Mecca and Saudi Arabia, and there’s a balcony in back to lead the people outside. There are a lot of other features, but those are the most important. The second mosque, the Mosque of Mohammed Aly, was incredibly beautiful. It was built in 1830 AD, modeled after the Sultan Ahmet mosque in Turkey, (which we’re going to see in a week!). The painting and decoration is so intricate, and the lamps lighting the inside give a magical glow. Mohammed Aly’s tomb is in the mosque also. Next we went to the Hanging Church, or Saint Mary’s Coptic Orthodox Church, also in old Cairo. It is called the hanging church because it is above the gates to Babylon Fortress, and ancient fortress city for the royal family. It is one of the earliest churches in Egypt, built in the 3rd century AD. The Ben Ezra Synagogue is near the Coptic Church, so we went there as well. It’s located on the site where baby Moses was found, according to the local tradition.
One of the best things we did in Cairo was go to the Khan Khalili bazaar. It’s a narrow street packed with stands and shops and hundreds of people weaving through and yelling and pushing. I heard “hey Barbie!” and “blondie!” way too many times, but it was worth it for all the good deals we got. It turns out Brianna and I are fantastic bargainers. We got everything for about 30 percent of the price they asked, which is really good. People told us before we went that they obviously overcharge foreigners, but if we could get to 50 percent we’d be good, but that the real price was probably 20-30 percent, so we were very happy with ourselves. I think it helped that we knew Arabic numbers and once we asked for a price in Arabic they didn’t think they could rip us off as much. We bought eight scarves, t-shirts, perfume, glass bottles, all for less than $40. I want to go back!
After that, we ate Kushree, the traditional Egyptian dish. It’s really good, made with rice, macaroni, lentils, tomatoes, and a spicy sauce.
We went to the Egyptian Museum last. This is one of the coolest things we did, but sadly, pictures are not allowed. This is terrible because I don’t think it’s possible to explain how amazing it was! It has ancient statues, mummies, tombs, and an entire floor dedicated to King Tutankhamun. His was the only tomb ever found intact, all other tombs had already been raided by the time people started looking for them. His tomb was impressive, one of the most decorated and protected. He had a solid gold casket, inside another one, and another and another, to protect his body. Then there were gifts and offerings and things to protect him and keep him happy in the afterlife. Chairs, statues, jewelry…the jewelry was so pretty, and so detailed it’s hard to imagine how it was made then. We saw the solid gold headdress put on King Tutankhamun when he was buried. It’s extremely protected in the museum, and for good reason. The most amazing thing was that because he died so suddenly and so young, (he fell off a chariot), all of this was made in a very short amount of time. It seemed like each piece would have taken forever to make, it’s unbelievable that everything in the entire floor, which is like six rooms, was made in such a short time. Each artifact, and each painted chair, bed, box and jars holding his insides, statues of gods to protect him was incredible. And in really good shape for being so old. I wish we could have taken pictures!!
We were exhausted by the end of the day, and came back to the hotel to drink smoothies in the hotel café, Skype, and sleep.

Cairo! Day 1....

We were picked up from the airport in Cairo by our tour guide Muhammad and his adorable three-year-old son, who escorted us to the Horizon Hotel. It’s much nicer than we were expecting! Sunday we were up early for breakfast at the hotel, and a day of touring Cairo. Our first stop was the Step Pyramid of Saqqara/Pyramid of Djoser. It was the first pyramid ever built, in the 27th century BC for Pharaoh Djoser. The first pyramids were made in step formation, before the traditional smooth sided pyramid. Originally, the Pyramid of Djoser was 62 metres/203 feet tall, and was covered in white polished limestone. It has decreased by 11 metres, but is still enormous. The pyramid is surrounded by trenches and a colonnade entrance, and there is a vast open courtyard. At the time the pyramid was built, the Pharaoh would race a bull from the colonnade entrance, to the front of the pyramid where they would circle a stone structure, and back to the entrance. If the man beat the bull, he was fit to rule, but as our guide said, they probably drugged the bull somehow. We also learned about the ancient Egyptian religion, and how they worshipped. Many people think they worshipped animals and objects, but this is not true. They worshipped the jackal,Anubis, god of the dead and fire, and the ram, hathor, goddess of fertility, for example, but not in their animal form. They worshipped the things they could not defeat, and the virtues they brought. They couldn't defeat fire, so they worshipped it's heat, they couldn't defeat the ram, so they worshipped it's milk as fertility, they couldn't stop the jackal from entering tombs, so they made him a temple and designated him as guardian of the dead, and they couldn't defeat the falcon, so they worshipped him as protector, and on and on. Also, they ate the meat from these animals, and if they worshipped the animal itself, not only its abstract quality, they would not have been able to eat it.
We saw tombs after the step pyramid, and were amazed at the hieroglyphics inside. They're so intricately carved and beautiful! Next we went to the Great Pyramid of Giza/Pyramids of Khufu, the most famous pyramid. It is the oldest of the seven wonders of the Ancient World, and for good reason. It is massive. It's crazy to think that people built it with rock, pulley systems, water movement and their own strength. It was built as a tomb for Pharaoh Khufu in the fourth dynasty, in 2560 BC. For the next 3,800 years It was the tallest man-made structure in the world. We took camel rides to the spot where you can see all three pyramids in a line. It was fun! But a little odd. The camels are all just sitting there in a field with people ready to surround you and try to overcharge you. And they smell. The little boy pulling Brianna's camel was so cute though!
The smaller Pyramid of Khafre, next to the Great Pyramid, is still impressive, and belonged, along with the Sphinx, to Pharaoh Khafre. The Sphinx was really cool, but actually smaller than we expected. It's hard to believe when you're standing in front of the pyramids that they were built by hand so long ago, and that civilizations flourished here. Muhammad gave extensive detail on the dynasties, the pharaohs, anything you could think of. Apparently being a tour guide here is a really good job and takes a lot of schooling. I guess that's understandable though, as there is so much history to learn. I'm definitely glad we got a guide. Taking cabs and figuring out what we should and shouldn't waste time on would have wasted a lot of money. Also, the people who don't have guides are swarmed by people selling post cards, mini pyramids, etc. The people here are much, much more pushy than in Jordan. At every tourist place in Jordan, the same people would come up to you offering to take a picture for free, then charge you, but here it's worse. They don't stop, no matter how forceful you are, how many times you say no, even in Arabic. And they demand tips for EVERYTHING. In Jordan, tipping was unheard of, and they were more welcoming, hospitable and happy to see us. The falafel was better in Jordan too–we miss it! But the stares are pretty much the same.
After the pyramids we went to a school where they teach students starting at age eight to weave rugs of silk and cotton and wool. The rugs were beautiful, and the students' hands were flying! We also visited a place where they make lotus perfume and many other pure scents. It was really cool. They blow glass into beautiful shapes for the bottles, and since the scent is so concentrated it lasts for much longer than perfume at home, (there is no alcohol added). They make exact copies of brand names like Armani, Chanel, Lancome, etc. Lastly, we visited a shop where they make papyrus paintings. These were really pretty, and the process of making them was very interesting.
We finished day one with a nighttime fluka cruise on the Nile River. This was relaxing, and very pretty, but strange because when you think of the Nile, you do not think of being surrounded by hotels and McDonald's and bright lights. Definitely a successful and enjoyable first day overall!

Jordan, We miss you already!

After a week of last favorite things in Jordan and long nights of studying, we took our final tests on Thursday and left Aphamia hotel for the last time. It was sad to say goodbye to some of our favorite teachers, (Ahlam we love you!), but finals went very well, and we were mostly glad to be out of Irbid. Within an hour of our luncheon/graduation ceremony we were on the bus to Amman. There, we checked into the Dove Hotel, the adorable place we found the weekend before, and called the friends we met there. They took us to Dubliner’s for dinner, an Irish pub/restaurant, for fish and chips. I don’t think anything has ever tasted so good! We hadn’t had fish since before leaving the U.S. Zaid, Ramsey, Khaled and Mohaned, our new friends, had made reservations at one of the nicest clubs in Amman, so we dressed up and got ready to actually go out for the first time since Dubai. It was SO much fun! It was just like clubs at home. Loud music, lots of dancing, bottle service, and packed with people. Hours of dancing, dozens of pictures and three lost friends later, we finally found a cab and made our way back to the hotel. Friday we showed Derek, (Cassidy’s boyfriend who had arrived from the states the night before), around downtown Amman and ate at Hashim’s. This restaurant has the best hummus in Jordan we ate there every chance we could–I’m going to miss it! The day wasn’t too eventful after that. We went to Dubliner’s again with our other friend Hala, (thank you again for everything Hala we already miss you!), for dinner, to a cute garden bar for the Ghana/Uruguay game, (which was crazy), and then to the airport to pick up our friend Andy who is traveling with us. Saturday we went back to the citadel and amphitheater we went to on our first week in Jordan, but Andy and Derek wanted to see them, ate at Hashim’s again, and finally we were on our way to Egypt! It was sad saying goodbye to Cassidy and Mike after becoming such good friends, but we’ll see them very soon and for the rest of the summer in Madison. I really enjoyed the six weeks in Jordan. We learned much more than I thought we would, and living there taught me more than studying at home ever would. Things I'll miss the most: Hummus, falafel sandwiches, hareesa, the friendly people, the cheap prices, the english words put into Arabic, (this is hilarious), the warm weather, the history, the odd cultural things, (see "lessons" post), the simplicity. Also, living in Jordan made us realize how lucky we are at home! Brianna and I were joking yesterday that even the dirty areas of any place at home are going to seem shockingly clean. And we're going to bring water bottles places, then realize we can drink out of the taps. We're going to be amazed by clean bathrooms, and appliances that work. Everything in the U.S. is just ten times nicer, there's no other way to say it, and it's not a bad thing, it's just how it is. I love Jordan, and will really miss it, but there's a reason most of the people there want to move to the "freedom dream land," (as one elderly man told us), and now I understand it. In Jordan, we were extremely wealthy. At home, we're poor struggling students. It's a very strange culture difference. There are things about Jordan, and the people, that I think are better than America, but for a permanent residence, I'm glad to be living in Wisconsin, (and hopefully soon New York!).