Field Trip

Hello hello,

I wanted to take the time to talk about my weekend and how much fun it was. Yes, i had a lot and a lot of fun! So i was invited to go on a field trip with the students of the seminary. They were going to visit the pyramids, the egyptian museum, and go on a faluka ride (its like a boat down the Nile ride). So i said i would go. We were supposed to leave at 8am but we ended up leaving at about 9:30-10 because of the wonderful thing which is EST (Egyptian Standard Time). Haha i am very used to it since i have lived with this all my life. We are supposed to go to my Tunt and Uncle who live in North Carolina. We are supposed to be there by 1, maybe 2 so we can have lunch and everything. NC for us is a 12 hour drive so that means, haha, we need to leave by like 5am. My sisters and I dont sleep the night before just because its easier to stay up all night than sleep for a little bit and wake up. So we are supposed to leave by 5 but we always end up leaving at like 10am...haha i mean usually EST isnt to such an extreme, but the Ghobrials are a family that takes things to the extreme!....anyway i'll go on

There is a good number of us and we get into this huge bus and drive off. During that bus ride i am listening to all the noise thats going on and its great. Everyone is so close and comfortable with one another that you really just feel great being in their presence. So we get to the pyramids and here is how it works. For an Egyptian with an Egyptian ID the cost of getting in is maybe 50 piasters, 1 pound tops haha but for a foreigner its 50 pounds....so i had to pay 50 pounds (which is only like 9 dollars) while everyone else paid about a fraction of a cent. It didnt bother me because just the opportunity to go and spend time with everyone is amazing enough. We walk, talk, listen, take many photographs and have a good time. After an hour or 2 we move on to other places to see the sphinx and the tombs of the old pharaohs. I had a really cool time and it was a lot of fun the second time around with a group of people.

After the pyramids we went to the egyptian museum, again 50 pounds for a foreigner and about 1 pound for an Egyptian, i didnt really like paying that much so my friend hany bought me a ticket and when we went to the guard he asks you where you are from. I of course dont have an egyptian ID so i just handed him the ticket and he is like "inta min fein?" (where are you from) i go "enna musri" (i am egyptian). haha i am really bad at hiding things so as i said this i was looking down at the floor. the guard grabs my shoulder and is like "If you are egyptian look me in the face and be proud!" (haha i dont feel like typing out poorly spelled arabic translation) so he let me in and it was great. I would have brought my camera to take pictures but the battery died while at the pyramids, and also you arent allowed to have cameras in the museum....so i guess the first reason didnt matter so much....whatever. The museum was filled with so many amazing artifacts and stuff. I got to see a fossilized crocodile from the nile a couple hundred years ago....they are huge. Like seriously, they are really really big. But yeah so the museum is something i am really glad to have visited, and God will, if i get an egyptian ID i'll go more often.

After the museum we got sandwiches from a place called "Momen" and its like fastfood i guess, but really really tasty. Everyone was given 2 sandwiches, a beed sandwich and a chicken sandwich and they were nice and refreshing since we were all starving. The best part was we ate on the faluka boat as we went down the Nile. It was amazing because we went just as the sun was setting so the scene was breath taking. Haha, unfortunately my battery was still dead so i didnt get any pictures, but someone else had a camera and said i could copy some pictures from them later. So when i do i'll share them. Anyway it was a lot of fun we did cool guy stuff like arm wrestling matches and i actually won a few! I mean granted i might have won a few more if i was using my left hand, but i wont make excuses it was fun haha and we talked about governments and what not.

Either way after the boat ride we headed back where i relaxed for a bit and then went a played ping pong which is a lot of fun. Ok so i'll show you a cool picture of the group i went with. I had fun and i think i bonded with some people? Anyway yeah here is the group.

ps. I tried out these new glasses i have. They turn into sunglasses when sun light hits them and they worked beautifully. So now i am all cool and macho with sunglasses. haha ok thats about it

I hope Joe got to read this