La Rochelle

Howdy. So this past week I've been keeping rather busy. Wednesday night was Celine's Birthday. We made her a huge surprise birthday dinner (I made cupcakes) and then we went our for a drink at L'Havana bar. Thursday I worked like usual and it was Noreen's birthday so in the evening we went out to the bars again. I awoke early Friday to do some laundry with Pamela before catching a train to La Rochelle for the weekend. When I was pulling my laundry out of the dryer Pamela informed me that we only had 20 mins before we were suppose to be leaving (I hadn't packed, nor showered, nor put my contacts in, nor done my make-up, NOTHING, I was still in my pajamas!!), so I ran home with my laundry, dumped it onto my bed, grabbed a big pile of it and throw it into a suitcase, then threw my make-up in. I literally had no idea what I had packed. We opened up my suitcase once we got on the train to see what I had ended up with and needless to say we all got a good laugh out of it. Thankfully it had all the necessities (like socks, undies, toothbrush, ect), but lacked certain things like a towel, jacket, scarf, ect. Thankfully the weekend was lovely so the missing jacket and scarf weren't that big of a deal. Friday afternoon after we'd arrived in La Rochelle we checked into our hostel and then went to wander the town which is right along the Atlantic Ocean and lined with every size yacht one could imagine. We stopped at a Creperie (a place that makes crepes and sells coffee) for some crepes and ice cream along a pier and people watched for a while. The weather was gorgeous: bright, warm and full of sunshine. We returned to the hostel (which is a 2km walk from the center of town) after picking-up/meeting some other friends at the train station. We got dressed for an evening on the town, then headed back into town to grab some dinner (at a restaurant along the boardwalk) before meeting up with a group of La Rochelle assistants at a bar called "Le Mauvais Garcon" (the bad boy). We had a couple drinks there before heading to another bar/dance club called "the Piano Pub", we spent the rest of the evening dancing there. It was packed with people and the bar had apparently never heard of A/C because it was sauna hot in there. The moment you walked into the club the sweat starts pouring. We retired early (if you consider 2am early) knowing that we had a lot of places to see and visit the following day. Saturday wasn't the nicest weather in the morning. A thick, thick fog had set in during the night and it took it until around 1pm before the sun was able to burn it off. So the beginning of the day was spent shopping at various stores around town (in order to avoid the cold and the sprinkling rain) instead of at the beach like originally planned. I bought some new boots, a scarf and avaitor sunglasses. The afternoon was warm and sunny however so we caught a "water taxi" (a hourly ferry) back to the hostel and threw on some clothes for the beach. We played some games at the beach and then some of the group decided to go swimming (they were crazy, there was no way I was going in that water, it might have been warm out, but with the wind blowing it was still pretty chilly and necessary to wear a light sweater). After the beach we headed back to the hostel to get ready for the evening. We were meeting up with the La Rochelle assistants again, but this time at the beach (not the one close to us, but on the otherside of town) for some pre-gaming drinks before the bars. Drinking wine on the beach was lovely and some guy had built this huge sand turtle (the turtle was wearing armour, kind of like mario brother turtles) and the man had put lit candles in the eyes so it looked totally amazing. That night we visited a few bars before ending up at the Piano Pub again to spend the evening dancing until 4am (so we didn't make it back to the hostel until 5am...it was a very long night). We awoke bright and early Sunday morning to make the most of our time left at the coast. We decided to spend the day at the beach since it was extremely warm. This was a gorgeous day spent at the beach and I have the sunburns to prove it (everyone else got tan, I only got red). Of course on Sundays there is nothing to do in France, because everything is closed (except in tourist towns like La Rochelle and Paris, but still practically everything was closed so the pickings are slim), so everyone in town was at the beach soaking up the rays (and in case you didn't know, public nudity at beaches isn't frowned upon in France, in fact it is highly accepted so needless to say you see a lot more at the beach then you really want to). We caught a 6pm train home to Angouleme and thus ended the weekend at the coast.

The weather over here right now is gorgeous and warm (sunny and in the 70s), so we've been staying busy. Today I went to the gym first thing to workout, then to Auchan (which is a huge mall) to buy some tennis rackets and later on Celine and me went to play tennis. Tomorrow I'll be staying busy with classes all day and then Celine and me are having another match of tennis tomorrow. Wednesday dad gets into town so I'll be busy coming up with ways to entertain him while he's here visiting. TTYL. LoveYa. Katie

Travel Back to France

Bonjour! I've safely arrived back in France. I took an overnight train from Luxor to Cario Saturday evening and arrived in Cairo around 7am Sunday. On the train I met some other Americans from Minnesota so we stayed up talking about our travels around Egypt most of the ride. They weren't overly impressed with Egypt as a country either, but we all seemed to agree that the temples and pyramids were impressive and worth the journey. Upon arriving in Cairo I immediately flagged down a taxi to take me to the airport, even though my flight wasn't until 2:45pm. I spent the remainder of the day at the airport waiting for my flight out of that god forsaken country. Waiting at an airport for that long, really wasn't that bad. I grabbed some breakfast, looked around at all the shops, caught up on some reading, had some lunch and then took a nap before my flight. I consider that a rather great day, because I wasn't being starred/glared at by people or hassled by people trying to sell me stuff, all the prices were marked so it didn't require me to haggle, the airport and restaurants were clean and a/c so there weren't bugs crawling everywhere, heat or the smell of pollution and people weren't beating animals, ect (basically all the things I hated about Egypt). When I arrived in Greece, I'd never been so happy to arrive back into a "civilized" country. I had to catch a bus into town to my hostel and when I went to buy the ticket the man pointed at a sign that read "women ride for free today" aaaahhh finally a country that knows how to treat women right! My flight for France left first thing Monday morning so I basically crashed at the hostel and then woke up bright and early to head to the airport. My flight only took me to Paris, so I caught a train to Angouleme. I arrived home at 7pm. I'd been travelling for almost four days so I was pretty spent. A care package from dad was waiting for me when I arrived home and everyone helped me eat all the goodies in it (the girls have requested more cheesecake hersey kisses, dill pickle pringles, teriyaki beef jerky and red vines licorice be sent immediately). The rest of the evening was spent relaxing and catching up with everyone on their travels (we are all just a group of world travelers, some went to the UK, others to Italy, some to the states, some to the Netherlands, others to Spain, ect). I also had to prepare my lesson plans because I taught all day Tuesday. Tuesday I went to classes all day, bought some groceries for the week and relaxed watching Season II of Gossip Girls (which I had illegally downloaded on Limewire before I left) with Pamela. Today I woke up and immediately started cleaning my room, putting all my stuff away, getting a bunch of chores done (addressing postcards, laundry, ect). I figured two days of rest after my three weeks of exhausting travel was enough and I need to start getting things taken care of and getting ready for dad's arrival, which is in a week. Today is Celine's birthday, so we're all going out for cocktails this evening. But her party is actually this weekend in La Rochelle, which is a resort town along the Atlantic Ocean. So I'll be spending the weekend there (we've already booked up a hostel and everything. There's a large group of us going). Ahhh the life of a world traveler. I've haven't even been home a full week and I'm already headed somewhere else. XOXO. LoveYa.

More in Depth

Hi, so I figured I'd fill everyone in a bit more on the past couple of days since I didn't tell much in the last one. Like I said, I visited two temples the other day (Luxor Temple and Karnak Temple). I'd met some dutch girls who go to school in Cairo the night before, so they accompanied me to the temples. I wasn't hassled nearly as much, but since we were still a group of girls (even though we were extremely modestly dressed) we did recieve a lot of unwanted attention (some called us "spice girls" when we walked by and we didn't understand why at first but then we realized we had a black girl, a red head (me) and a brunette with us, so apparently that made us spice girls even though none of us were british). They spoke a little arabic so we got better prices on things like food, souvenirs and taxis. Karnak Temple is the largest temple ever built. It was really cool, because it was still really intact. We entered into the main hall and there were enormous pillars everywhere (somewhere around 164 pillars all in rows/columns), but my favorite part was the entrance which was guarded/lined by ram-headed sphnixes. After visiting the temples we grabbed some lunch at a little restaurant across from the Luxor Temple. I really getting tired of Egyptian restaurants. They are the most unsanitary places to eat (I always try not to imagine what the kitchen looks like). This particular restaurant had cockroaches, which we ended up killing two that crawled onto our table. I almost lost my appetit after that, but disgustingly enough I'm getting used to disgustingly unsanitary restaurants. Its very common for bugs to be crawling all over everywhere here. After lunch we hit up a couple of bookshops (I needed a book to read the following day on the beach along the Red Sea) and then took a hour long Felucca ride which was extremely relaxing and cool (it was a very hot day and I have to remain completely covered up so not to get hassled as bad). The girls left that night to head back to Cairo and I turned in early so I could get up early to catch a bus to Hurghada (a beach resort town along the Red Sea).

BAD DAY
I should have never attempted the trip to the Red Sea. It was my most horrid experience while travelling ever!!! The bus station is located out of town so I had to take a taxi there. The taxi driver was not a good person. As we were driving to the bus station he was harrassing me, I'll not go into details but basically it was the most threatening situation I'd ever been, I yelled at him to pull over and let me out when he wouldn't pull over I grabbed my stuff, opened the door and jumped out. I was then stranded for a bit in desert (5km from Luxor and 2km from the bus station). I ended up hitching a ride in another car and drove to the bus station. The person who picked me up was very nice and helpful. He didn't charge me for the ride and he assisted me in getting my tickets and putting me on the correct bus (I think he knew I was in a lot of distress). The bus ride was awful too. The bus ride to the coast is suppose to be a 5 hour drive but our bus broke down twice before we ended up having to switch buses and then that bus broke down too, so another bus picked us up. It ended up taking 8 hours to get to Hurghada. When I got there I hailed a taxi (although I was very weary of taxi drivers now) and droven to a couple of locations where I was suppose to be able to lay on the beach (fully clothed of course), but each place I went didn't workout. I wasn't in Hurghada long because I had to catch a bus back to Luxor that evening and since I'd arrived so late I basically had to turn right around to take a 5 hour bus ride back to Luxor (thankfully this bus didn't breakdown). What a waste of the day. I only had a few glimpses of the Red Sea and didn't even get to dip my toes in the water.

After such a stressful day the day before, I decided today I'd just go to a nice hotel and relax at their pool. The place I went to, I was surrounded by foreigners in bikinis so I was actually able to relax in the sun (in my bikini), swim, read (my book I'd bought a couple days before Agatha Christie's 'Murder along the Nile') and not be hassled by anyone. It was just what I needed after the horrible day before. I ate lunch at McD's before going to the pool (its the only restaurant in town that is clean and bug free). I catch an overnight train to Cairo in about a hour. I'll arrive in Cairo at 6:30am and then take a taxi to the airport. My flight leaves at 2:45pm. I'll arrive in Athens at 4:45pm. I'll try to write again tomorrow evening. TTYL. LoveYa.

Luxor and Red Sea

Hey, just a quick message today. Yesterday I visited the Karnak Temple and the Luxor Temple, but like I said before they are all starting to blend together. Today I had the worst day I've ever had travelling, but i don't feel like discussing it. I took a bus to the red sea. It brokedown twice on the ride there, so we switched buses, then that bus brokedown to so we had to get another bus. Needless to say it was a long journey there (7 hours) and I basically ended up having to just turn around to head back to Luxor which was another 5 hours to return. Tomorrow I'm finding a hotel with a pool and relaxing all day. I don't have much time to write because I'm at an internet cafe, but I'll describe these days more tomorrow hopefully. I take an overnight train tomorrow evening to Cairo and then board a plane back to Greece. TTYL. LoveYa

Luxor and Valley of the Kings

Hello. Sorry for not posting anything yesterday the internet wasn't working. Yesterday I took a 7:30am convoy by bus from Aswan to Luxor. On the way we made stops at the Temple of Kom Ombo and the Edfu Temple. Both were beautiful and situated along the Nile so they had great views. I've noticed that all the Temples are starting to blend together. They all seem to be set up the same with inner and outer chambers and antechambers with pylons, nilometers, ect. They are all in pretty good condition which is shocking since they had to survive the flooding of the Nile for thousands of years. They all have huge columns with hieroglyphics covering them. At first it was really interesting to see all the different hieroglyphic signs and different drawings of the rituals performed in the Temples, but like I said, now they are all kind of starting to blend together.

Today I took a ferry to the West Bank of Luxor which is where the Valley of the Kings, Tombs of the Nobles, Valley of the Queens, ect is located. I rented a bicycle for the day (much cheaper then renting a taxi all day) and headed to the Valley of the Kings which is about 11 kilometers from the ferry dock (these ferries actually somewhat resemble ferries except they are basically huge metal fishing boats with wooden benches to sit on and a second story to the ship. It's not inclosed at all though). The bicycle ride today was so enjoyable. The breeze from riding helped to keep me cool in the HOT, HOT sun. I visited three tombs in the Valley of the Kings: Ramses IX, Ramses IV and Tuthmoses III (lots of the tombs I originally planned on visiting were closed for restoration) and also the tomb of King Tut (which I had to pay extra to see), which had one of his coffins (he was buried in four coffins one inside the other, which I saw the rest of the coffins at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo). His mummified corps is still in the tomb too, so I got to see him. King Tut's tomb was rather small. I entered down some stairs and immediately came across two chambers (one with the coffin and one with the body), there were two other small chambers which we weren't allowed to enter but they were empty and were the rooms where all the treasures that now lie in the Egyptian Museum were located. The room with the coffin had heiroglyphics and drawings all over the walls. It showed Tut as short and fat, which I found really amusing. I'd known he was short, but not fat. I think I know how he died (granted it's just my theory), all the kings were so imbreed from marrying their sisters/mothers that he probably had hemowhatever (that causes the blood not to clot, a common trait of imbreeding) and he cut him shaving and bleed out. The other tombs were more impressive with long entrance chambers, some with steep staircases and huge pits (to prevent thieves from robbing them) that they've now built walkways across. The walls are covered in colorful hieroglyphics (the coloring of the walls and cielings are still vibrant and amazing) that tell the lives of the pharoah and have drawings of the ceremonies surrounding his entrance into the afterlife. From the Valley of the Kings I rode my bike to the Valley of the Nobles (which is where the high ranking officials were buried). The hieroglyphics and drawings in these told the story of what they did during their lives as well. I visited the tombs of Serrenof and Rehkmet there. After that I rode my bike back to the bike shop near the ferry. It was getting to be midafternoon, so it was scorchingly HOT (but surprisingly I've managed not to get sunburned yet, but also have managed not to get a tan at all either, oh well). I don't think I'll be visiting the Red Sea like I originally planned because the bus schedule is silly, but we'll see. I have decided to take a hot airballon ride over the West Bank during sunrise however. I've always wanted to ride in one and I'll never find it so cheap to do again. Tomorrow I'm planning on visiting Luxor Temple and also Karnak Temple. TTYL. LoveYa.

Aswan Pictures

Ruins of the Monastery on the west bank of Aswan

The decor of the Nubian Beach Restaurant.

The Mausoleum near the Monastery on the west bank of Aswan


The tomb of Sarenput II had a little chamber with baskets full of bones of other family members

Hieroglyphics and drawings inside the tomb of Sarenput II

Inside on of the tombs. That hole goes a loooooong way down to a tomb

Some entrances to the tombs in the side of the hill

A view of the Tombs from the East bank of Aswan

View of the Tombs at night from the East bank of Aswan

A view of Lake Nassar

Some Hieroglyphics in the Temple of Isis on Philae Island

The Temple of Isis on Philae Island

The Temple of Isis on Philae Island

The Temple of Abu Simbel. This is the one built for Ramsis II's favorite wife

The Temples of Abu Simbel. This is Ramsis II's Temple

A view of the Nile from the east bank of Aswan

The ancient Abu ruins on Elephantine Island

Aswan's West Bank

Salam ala khum!! That means hello in arabic (literally it means peace to you. which is very 70s of them to walk around saying peace to each other all the time). Today Alex and me visited the west bank side of Cairo in order to see the tombs and an old monastery. In order to get to the tombs we had to take a 'ferry' to the west bank and then hike up a forever long hill of sand to reach the tombs (I'm sure my legs and butt will be sore tomorrow, walking in sand is a lot more exhautsting then it looks). Most of the tombs were little caves in the mountain side with a lot of garbage in them (apparently the locals must consider people's graves as a dump site), occasionally there was a tomb full of bones and there were two tombs that we entered that were full of hieroglyphics and were deeply carved into the mountainside. They were definitely worth the hike. From there we caught a ferry to the Monastery. Well actually we caught it at the bottom of the monastery, so we had another very long walk up a mountain of sand. On the return walk back we visited a famous mausoleum before catching a ferry to the Nubian beach Restaurant which is by far my favorite place I've ate at so far. Its very secluded and only accessible by boat. the best part was that the boat will pick you up and drop you off for free (a rarity in Egypt, I thought they were going to rip us off hardcore, but they were great). The food was simple, but delicious and nicely priced. The restaurant over looks the Nile so we ate outside and enjoyed our last sunset in Aswan, before heading back to the east coast to have another cup of tea with Mohammad (as promised).

Tomorrow I leave for Luxor and Alex is going on a Felucca ride up the Nile, so I'll no longer have an escort, but I should be fine. I've learned how to deal with the aggressive sales people and Luxor only has 500,000 people and is full of tourist so I shouldn't be hassled to badly. I catch a bus tomorrow morning at 7:30am (another convoy) and we'll stop at a couple of temples on the way to Luxor, so I should have a very busy day. TTYL. LoveYa.

Cairo Pictures

The marketplace where the terrorist attack had occurred a couple of days before.

Hanging Church in Coptic Cairo

Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Pictures weren't allowed inside.

This was the view of downtown Cairo at night taken from the window of my hostel.

View of downtown Cairo at sunset as seen from the window of my hostel

Some hieroglyphics that I illegally took photos of in Saqqura.

Step pyramid at Saqqura

Giza Pyramids and the Sphnix.

The pyramid that I illegally climbed

My camel I rode to the Giza Pyramids. I named him Lorenzio. Ain't he sexy!?

Giza Pyramids

Giza Pyramids

Aswan and Abu Simbel Temple

Waz up!? We arrived in Aswan around noon from the overnight train. We quickly made our way to our hostel to check in, so we could explore Aswan. We decided to spend the rest of the afternoon visiting Elephantine Island which is an island that seperates the west and east sides of Aswan. In order to get to the Island we took a Ferry. That's what they call it, but its actually similar to a small metal fishing boat with a little engine that smokes when they start it. Elephantine Island has the ruins of the ancient Abu and the Aswan Museum (which is one of the smallest and crapiest museums I've ever seen). The ruins were pretty fun to explore. Your able to climb all over them (because no one really cares or even watches to see what you are doing...I could have carved 'katie was here' on one of the pillars and no one would have ever known) and since no one was watching us we visited the 'off limits area' (by accident because they had it roped off on one side and not the other) where I pocketed some pottery fragments from the excavation area (don't get mad at me, there were tons of fragments discarded just lying around everywhere). Upon exiting the ruins we wondered through the village and were invited to join in on a game of soccer (they were rather impressed with my soccer skills). It was great fun to join in and mix and mingle with the locals. Upon arriving back at the 'ferry' dock we returned to the east side of the Nile to explore and do a little haggling (I got a great deal on a 'sheesah' bong for gift, but I won't say to who because they might be reading this). We were planning on turning in early because we had to be up by 2:50am in order to catch a convoy to Abu Simbel the following morning, but we ended up not returning to the hostel until almost midnight.

Abu Simbel
We awoke at 2am in order to shower and get ready before our bus met us at 3:15am to take us to meet our convoy which left Aswan at 4am (the convoys leave early in orfer to beat the heat of the day at the temples). Its necessary to take police lead convoys south and north of Aswan. They haven't quite explained why to me, but apparently people are crazy drivers (we watched a head on collision while we were returning today and we almost had a head on collision with another bus). The plus side to taking a bus so early in the morning is that we got to watch the sunrise over the desert which had breath-takingly beautiful colors. The temples of Abu Simbel were awesome!! Basically Ramsis II built a huge temple for himself for other people to worship him at and built a smaller one for his favorite wife close by. The man was obviously in love with himself. The outside of the temple is guarded by four huge statues (built right into the mountain) of himself sitting in his thrown. Inside the temple are drawings of him as different gods and squashing his enemies. What is most interesting about the temples is that they weren't originally in that area. They were moved from their originally location which now sits at the bottom of Nassar lake (the biggest man made lake, formed by the creation of the High Aswan Dam). How they moved a mountain that large shocks me, but they did it.

After leaving the Abu Simbel temples we visited the High Aswan Dam and then Philea Island which has the ruins of the Temple of Isis. What is great about the ruins in Egypt is that they are much bettered preserved then the ruins in Italy and Greece (and they are thousands of years older). Not only are they mostly intact, but they are covered in hieroglyphics and colors that have lasted throughout thousands of years (lots of the pyramids and temples I've visited were built between 4000-2000bc). In order to reach the island we had to take a 'ferry' boat through Lake Nassar, so the ride there and back were quite beautiful. From Philae Island we headed to the unfinished Obelisk on the outskirts of Aswan before being dropped off at our hotel. We ended up taking naps after this voyage since we'd only had two hours of sleep. This evening we went and got supper (egyptian pizza, which is similar to regular pizza, but the top is covered with bread too, kind of like pie), hit up a sheesah place to smoke and play some dominoes, then we headed to a souvenir store we had visited the day before to have some tea with the owner. He was very nice and explained all about the history of the places we'd visited that day and gave us advice for our future trips to Kom Ombu and Luxor. We bought a couple more souvenirs (he always gives us the best prices with out having to haggle and its all made in egypt, not china souvenirs which I like) and he gave us a couple of free gifts and made us promise to join him for some tea again tomorrow. He was very interesting to listen too, so I'm sure we'll see him again before we leave. Its great to interact with the locals (when they aren't hassling you for felucca rides or to buy things).

Tomorrow we are headed to the tombs on the west bank of Aswan. It should be interesting. I'll try to post some more pictures tomorrow. LoveYa.