recap of a life unterwegs

As promised, my fifteen favorite photos I haven't posted yet and:


a map of all the places I went (excluding the US). In dark green are the countries I went to over the semester, in red are the specific cities, and in brown are the countries I've been to before.


Constance, March
gravestone of a Jewish soldier from WWI who died fürs Vaterland (for the fatherland)
ironic, seeing as what would happen a few years later


Berlin, April
Jewish memorial


Berlin, April
Berlin Wall, East Side Gallery


Moscow, April
That disgusting statue of Peter the Great towers over Christ the Savior, one of the most beautiful churches ever.


Cairo, May
An odd statue stands in front of skyscrapers. No one knows what the statue means anymore, tho, as the lettering at its base was rubbed off.


Cairo, May
Red sails on the Nile stand out in the smoggy evening.


Luxor, May
statue of a pharaoh towards sunset


Radolfzell, May
Birds fly over the Naturschutzgebiet on Lake Constance.


Augsburg, June
sea green and yellow light


Augsburg, June
near the entrance to an art museum


Montreux (Switzerland), June
A cruise boat crosses Lake Geneva in front of the Alps.


Zurich, June
The captains of Europe's EM 2008 teams dwarf visitors in the Hauptbahnhof.


Oslo, June
Vigeland


Dubrovnik (Croatia), July
Where's the Cheshire cat?


Constance, July
I pose for the first and only time with those weird blue statues in front of the university.

So in closing, thank you for reading, thank you for all of your comments, and I hope you enjoyed. I know I did ;)

last leg in Luxor - معبد الأقص ومعبد الكرنك

I'm gonna jump right into photos:


Our first stop today was the Temple of Karnak. It was another one of my favorite things in Egypt. It towers like a Gothic church. (Each of these pillars is thicker than a tree!)


the first peace treaty in the world, between Egypt (Ramses II) and the Hittite Empire (Hatusili III)
(hieroglyphics in the Temple of Karnak)


that forest of pillars again, with Vera, Alex, Sara and the best tour guide ever - Doaa!


goats outside of Karnak


Vera is skeptical as our evil driver hands us what is apparently a train ticket to Cairo for three people. It is indecipherable even for native Egyptians and is written with pen on torn blue paper. That's what I call "official."


Next up was the Temple of Luxor. It wasn't as cool as Karnak, but it was still pretty sweet.


Roman-era painting of (possibly) the Last Supper
Notice how the newer, Christian stuff has mainly worn away, while the thousands-of-years-older Egyptian stuff has remained. This supports my theory that people are so fascinated by the ancient Egyptians because they have come closer to permanence than anyone else.


Alexander the Great, depicted as a pharaoh and remembered by the Egyptians as a liberator, being given the key of life (Ankh) by the sun god Ra


We asked some man and his wife to take a photo of us. While we were positioning ourselves, the wife walks in front of us, ready to be photographed (by my camera?!). Then he snaps this award-worthy portrait. After that she walks right up to him so her face covers the entire shot.
(Notice I'm not even ready for the photo, because he gave us absolutely no warning.)

And we just got back into Cairo. The overnight train again took 12 hrs, partially because we were stopped next to some green, lit-up minaret for literally an hour and a half! Bleh. I hate the trains in Egypt.

Oh, and before I close, I want to address two comments/questions on my last post:
1) Shockingly, Luxor manages to defy natural law and maintain an extremely hot temperature right through midnight.
2) And as to the "Welcome to Alaska" thing: We actually got three more "Welcome to Alaska"s in Luxor, so we decided to start asking around. But no one knows for certain. A friend of Sara's says it's because of the ironic temperature difference between the two places. The wonderful Doaa suggested that they just don't know what they're saying. Our tour guide from the day before (Menan) said she thought Alaska was a well-known city, and that the Egyptians just assume most Americans come from there.

SO COOL! but SO HOT! - في الأقصر

First off, happy belated 50th, Mrs. Toft!

"So, just how hot is it in Luxor these days?" you ask. Well, today it was 110°F - painful. Tomorrow it's only supposed to be 97°, tho. Being basically in the middle of the desert if you step more than five feet away from the Nile, it's also pretty ungodly dry.

And now, PHOTOS! (way too many, just to warn you)


Breakfast at the Nubian Oasis Hotel is included in the approximately $3 I spend a night staying here! This is about the best breakfast I've had in weeks. The hotel, however, isn't air conditioned, which kind of sucks.

Today we saw some of the coolest things so far, which is saying a lot! First we went to the Valley of the Kings.


It's a good way into the mountainous desert (in order to prevent grave robbing, tho it didn't do a very good job), so we had to take these little carts to the different tombs.

We saw the tombs of Ramses I, III and IV, but couldn't take photos inside. They were amazing! This is the stuff you see in movies and on archeology TV shows (what? you don't watch archeology TV shows?!). It was covered in hieroglyphics and paintings of the gods.


Next we went to Hatshepsut's Mortuary Temple. It was really cool. And here you are allowed to take photos. (For those of you who were wondering, Hatshepsut is the pharaoh who married her half-brother, dressed up like a man, and sort of usurped the throne from her son.)


hieroglyphics in Hatshepsut's Temple


sphinxes around Hatshepsut's Temple

Next up we went to the Valley of the Queens. Here we also went into a few tombs, but they weren't as cool as the King's tombs. And again, no photos allowed.


doorway to one of the Queens' tombs


Next we drove to the Colossi of Memnon. They were huge. But I was so hot in the car, that I'd taken off my shoes (thinking we were done with the trip already). So when we had to jump out of the car, I had to skip across the burning tar to the comparatively cool sand in order to get a good view.


the Nile at Luxor


This was my lunch. It cost less than $2 and was delicious. (tomato soup with lemon and falafel - delicious!)


Luxor seems like it's a lot poorer than Cairo to me, but it might just be that we're living in a low-income area. For example, there is a flock of goats that lives near us and wanders the streets.

the unending train ride - أو ذهبنا إلى الأقصر

I'm typing this in Luxor! Plus (more good news) a friend of mine back in Constance just let me know that the internet is finally working in our dorms!


Last night we walked down to the Nile and decided to take a felucca ride.


This was our view for an hour and $2/person! It was awesome. (Oh, PS, a felucca is an Egyptian sailboat, in case you didn't know.) We also grabbed some shawarma and had a little picnic on the boat.

Then today we took the train to Luxor. I was told it would take about 6 hours, but it turned out to be closer to 12! We spent our entire day on the train, but at least we were in first class (it cost $2 more than second).


And it's Vera's birthday today, so we bought her this delicious, massive tray of goodies in Cairo.


The ride was very pretty, but God knows I would rather have done something else.


And our "lunch" was terrible. We grabbed pretzel sticks, which were soggy and had chunks of pepper in them. Left from the "pretzels" you can see our Chipseys, which tasted more like tomato juice than chips, and left of that our very decent pack of cheese.

Anyway, Luxor is way different than what I'd expected, but keep in mind I've seen just about nothing so far. It's also ungodly hot here. I just took a shower 20 minutes ago, and I still feel like I could use another right now. And our hostel is right next to one of the places where they blast the prayers on load-speakers - about every half an hour. But I'm very excited to be here, and tomorrow we're going to some very famous sites, so be sure to stop by again!