Adventures in Alexandria and beyond... :)

Dearest Persons,
Guess what!?! Guess what!?! I went to a coffee shop today with Wireless Internet and I FINALLY was able to post pictures. So here are a LOT... from this weekend... and if you check back on my previous posts I added a few shots.
This weekend I traveled to Alexandria, Egypt, up north and had the time of my life. Alexandria is right on the Mediterranean Sea and it was sooo warm and beautiful and WONDERFUL! I will narrate the weekend as you view... :)
This picture is taken from the Corneesh, which means "Road by the Water" or something like that in Arabic. But if there's ever a roadway that is beside the water it is called the Corneesh. This is from our hostel where we spent the night. (It was a bit shady and I kind of thought we were staying in a brothel for a while and was scared, but no worries!) If you look straight out across you can see the Fort slash Castle that we visited later.

We looked for a sea food place on the coast for a while but then gave up, got koshery, falafel and schwaarma... which, if you are wondering is marinated beef cut off of the skew-er type deal (I'll have to take a picture for you sometime) mixed with tahini sauce and onions and tomatoes grilled on pita bread. It is SOOO good. We sat here, on the side of the road on this wall and that is our shadow above all the trash... it was so good and really fun.

AND THEN!!! We walked to this castle. It was amazing... except that these five little boys followed us the WHOLE way there and it was really annoying.


I climbed up the castle and Aimee took my picture... isn't it amazing. I'm sitting on a castle!! :)


This was my favorite picture... the sea from the window of the castle... it's like a picture within a picture!
This is me and my Alex buddies... Aimee and Courtney. We had SOO much fun!!



After the castle we decided to walk to the Catacombs and stopped and got icecream on the way and it was sooo good... however it was really yummy! It was like a strawberry-vanilla twist sugar cone. MMM!!
This is the town square... the fountains were amazing! Check out the mosque in the background.

So we never quite found the Catacombs but found these suh-wheat streets LINED with shops. This was a fish store. :) It smelled AMAZING. Fresh fish is wonderful!

This is my absolute favorite picture ever!! Number one that boy smiled at me and did NOT attempt to hit on me which was like a breath of fresh air, second of all I LOVE vegetables, and third... check out all the color and variety and just the veggie-ness of it all!! Mmm. :)

Many shops on this street had raw meat which I chose not to take pictures of or dwell on (Many of the hanging animals still have their complete hairy tails attached... it's rather gross)... but this shop was the first I've seen of it's kind... it sold LIVE meat... ducks, chickens, rabits and the like. I stopped and stared for a long time before I figured out what was going on.

These next few were amazing and TOTALLY made me miss you Dad!! These next three are for you... you are all I could think about this street and I wished you were with me and talked about your mad plumbing, electric, and construction skills. :) Check out the above shot of all the kitchen sinks!!
And then... look at all these different kinds of tile you can get for your floor... and Dad... look at the toilet seats!! :)

Dad, I thought you'd appreciate this one the most... all the pipes and parts. I'm telling you, this street was amazing!!

So... we finally found our way to the "Catacombs" which turned out to be the Pillar of Pompeii or something like that... I don't really remember... but we climed down in a cistern and the guards turned the lights out on us. I realized this weekend that guards are REALLY annoying. At the castle one took us around on a tour and then cornered us in a room and made us tip him. That just made me mad... but yeah, they're really annoying.

Check me and the Sphinx out! :)

Courtney, Aimee and Me with the sand-stone rock in the background. It was soo much fun to just climb all over the tombs and whatnot. :)

I like this one... look at Courtney's face. :)

After the tomb place we lost ourselves in a street full of clothes... it was SOOO much fun!! Look at it all!! I found a fleece zipup that's brown and really warm and amazing and it was 40 L.E. translated to around 7 dollars!! How awesome is that!! :)
So, I'd like to tell you a funny story about my experience at this shop... I was looking for a skirt and found this really hot pink and brown one. I'm holding it up to myself because sizes aren't marked and if they are they say like 44 and I'm not a 44... at least not in the U.S. so I'm not sure... so I'm standing there and the shop keeper says, "Come, Come!" and so I follow him to the back of the shop thinking he has different sizes or whatnot. He points at the corner then at me and the skirt and mumbles in Arabic then says, "Try on! Try on!" I'm like... are you KIDDING me? I'm in PUBLIC in the corner of a store and there is NO WAY I'm taking my pants off!! I just like stare at him and around and shake my head and he tugs on this curtain... I look and there's this bitty curtain... but it's definitely at his eye level and while it would have hidden me from the rest of the market HE would have been able to see!! So I say, "La, Shookran" and leave... which means "No, Thank you." But as I leave... he grabs and HOLDS MY HAND and says "Goodbye very beautiful." TALK ABOUT FREAK ME OUT!!!!!! It was definitely an experience to remember and laugh about. Ha!

Check out these yards and yards of fabric!

This is hijaab... the scarves that the women wear on their heads to cover their hair. The scarves are SO beautiful! I wish we wore scarves in the States cuz they have HOT ones here!

This was our public transportation tram friend and driver. He was funny. Arabs that know few English words are just funny! Like last night our taxi driver told us that he likes Hillary Clinton... but his english was really broken, and it was just really funny. :)

So, normally I do not dislike elevators and think they are a gift to our legs... but this one was just, lets say SKETCHY. I had a REALLY hard time getting on it... it was pulled by a metal chain and was like a creepy box with awkward doors. Courtney and Aimee made me ride it though so I took our pictures. I was really freaking out.

And this is the floor buttons on the elevator... would YOU want to ride it?? Be honest now!!

MMMM!!! Dinner in Alexandria Friday night was definitely my most favorite meal since we've arrived in Egypt. I had vegetable Pizza... it had olives, green peppers, and tomatoes and I actually had a glass of soda... Pepsi in Lindsey Kline's honor!! I miss you buddy!! :)

Check that out... doesn't it look delightful!?! Mom... I'm growing to like veggie pizza!! :) Aren't you so proud of me? :)

CHECK THIS!! CHECK THIS!!! This is my new camel... Zono (pronouced like Bono)... I bartered for him at the castle today and now he is my friend. They wanted 10 pounds for him and I talked them down to 5. That translates to a little less than a dollar!! Isn't that awesome!?! I love my new camel friend!! :)

Ok, so Saturday was an ADVENTURE!!! Aimee, Ruthy, Esther, Bryce, Steve, Steve, Stephan, Justin and I all decided to get a micro-bus and go to the Rosetta... the place where the Nile River meets the Mediterranean Sea... it's about an hour and half away from Alexandria in the middle of nowhere. We found an awesome bus driver after a long while who figured out where we wanted to go and was kind enough to drive us there... so we took off. We got to Rosetta the town, oh by the way... Rosetta is where the Rosetta Stone was discovered that helped break the Hieroglyphics Code and enabled translation... anyways we get to the town and a guard pulls us over. Steve, one of our interns, is extremely annoyed and warns us that it's going to be a long annoying day due to the guards... and he was RIGHT!!! Oh my goodness we were sooo annoyed. The guard made us follow him... and so we start and his motorcycle dies. Yeah... so then we have to wait for him to fix it, and then they take us to this station and send soldiers to follow us around all day. We told the bus driver that he could go because it was obvious that we were a hassle, and we decided to walk the rest of the way there. Eventually we realized we were still 12 miles away and were really disappointed and decided to settle for exploring the town... only the guards were ever in toe.

This is an over my shoulder shot of their vehicle... there was at least one guard for each of us... some on foot and motorcycle ahead of us, and about 12 inside of this truck. ANNOYING!!

We saw this amazing looking date forest (Palm Trees that grow dates) from the side of the road and decided that we were going to ditch the guards so we took off across the following field...

The guards went PSYCHO!! They were yelling and honking and driving back and forth and finally about 3 of them chased us through the field and then just followed us. It was sooo funny but so much fun. And I felt like I was in the middle of a jungle... the vegetation was so lush!

Sweet shot, aye? When we came out of the field all the guards were back, obviously ticked at us, so we submitted and let them follow us and we wandered around. This picture was painted on the side of a house and totally caught our attention. I'd like to know what it represents exactly... i.e. the countries in the flowers.

An amazingly friendly man offered us dinner and we had fool and falafel... it was SOOO good. Falafel is becoming my favorite food here... the fool is ok, but you know sometimes refried beans are good to me and other times I still have to force it so fool isn't the greatest, but it was delicious all together.

This is the little town square with the horse and donkey carriages, taxis, and Steve Kool's face in the background.
On the ride back there wasn't enough room for everyone to have their own seat so Steve Stephan and Bryce shared... poor Bryce... he got the wrong train ticket that night and had to share a seat with me and Tim then too... I feel bad for his rear end. ;)

This is one of the last pictures I took in Alex... it was so beautiful driving back and was sprinkling... and the sky looked FANTASTIC!!! Isn't that gorgeous!?!
Hope you enjoyed the pictures!! I loved posting them!!
I love and miss you!! Leave me comments please!!
In His Mighty Grip,
Your Kara Joy