bless the rains down in africa

egypt has come and gone. i can now say i've been to africa.
i love africa

along with my last week came about 800 pictures. yes i get picture happy. so instead of a lot written boring post, i'm going to post tons of pictures. sorry for those who don't like this. to be honest this is mostly for my parentals. i hate not having flickr. anyways i'll explain my amazing week in africa through pictures...enjoy

i'd like to introduce you to 78 of my new best friends.....

i love every one of them. i feel like i have learned so much already from these beautiful people.
this is all of us on top of mt. sinai.
don't we look awesome

jeru crew spring/summer '09 is the best.



we spent two days in luxor. those were two of the best and worst days. about 95% of us got sick from the food. good news though...this bonded all of us completely. funny and gross i know. we stayed at this beautiful resort right next to the nile. bod and i took model shots while enjoying the sunset over the nile. nothing better than that.

one of my favorite parts about luxor was the fact that everybody called me a spice girl. i'm guessing it was the blonde hair. at times we would be walking by shop owners and they would shot out...spice girls. funny yes, weird yes


we had so much fun seeing everything there was to see in egypt. one of the greatest blessings of this trip was the bond that was created between all of us. even though we weren't staying together on the trip my roommates and i got so much closer. this is me and kelynn. i love this girl so much. she is such an incredible person and so much fun to be around.

she is so great at being crazy with me.

gotta love people like that.

while in luxor we were able to ride camels. this was a hilarious experience. here i am with my cute camel guide muhammed. he was ten and wanted to be my husband. he couldn't speak much english and so in my broken arabic and his broken english we talked the universal languge....futball. egpyt has a sweet team and muhammed had named my camel zidtan after an egpytan player. we laughed and attempted to talk. half way through i saw muhammed a song and all his friends started calling me shakira. it was a great camel ride to say the least

needless to say we saw tons of old egyptian ruins. considering the fact that i was sick most of the trip i really could't enjoy everything we saw. crazy pictures always made things more exciting though. i was so amazed with how big everything was. those egyptians sure were talented and smart.

one of the highlights of the trip.
sinai
our last day we woke up at 2 am to start our trek up mount sinai. considering the fact that i was still sick the hike was a little harder. i now have a great love for moses.
it took about an hour and a half to reach the top. i loved looking up at the stars as we hiked.
once we reached the top we all cuddled close together. it was freezing on top. finally the sun came up.
this was probably one of the most beautiful experiences i have been able to enjoy in the short little life. we spent about an hour taking pictures and enjoying the sunrise. we were also blessed to have the opportunity for testimony meeting up top of mt. sinai.
nothing better than this.

this one is for my bro ricky. sorry for the fact that i look gross. 5:45 wake up calls are not my favorite. this is me and the sphinx. don't be fooled its not as big as it appears to be. still very cool. i will admit i took the classic kissing the sphinx picture but lets just say i'm saving that one for me.

like i said i was sick for most of the trip. this took away from some fun but not all. the few days we were in luxor we visited site after site. this was our last day there....
this picture was taken at the karnak temple. it was beautiful and amazing to me how much of it is still standing. those egyptians were seriously so talented.

a bunch of the boys picked up on the egypt way and rocked these sweet dress type things. micheal was my favorite one. they all looked so cute.

i sure love the people i'm with here!

now who can resist a jumping picture in front of a pyramid. we were lucky enough to be able to go inside of the big pyramid. the entrance and walk to the center was small and long. the center was just this big room. it was nothing like i expected. i guess all my knowledge of the pyramids comes from the mummy and other such movies. i was surprised to see the room huge, empty and plain. once inside we all sang hymns which was fun. who can say they have sung hymns inside of the big pyramid.

for the rest of the time we had at the pyramids we ran around taking random pictures. bod and i got the jumping ones down...boo ya grandma

on our way back to jeru we stopped again at the red sea. it was plenty hot outside and so we really enjoyed the refreshing water. this is just a few of us chillin on the beach.

play in the red sea with best friends....

check

i love being able to check things off my bucket list.
i love my fun in the sun

my awesome best friend gave me these sweet pink sunglasses. they have gone everywhere with me this trip. this picture is for megs....the glasses really enjoyed the pyramids. they thank you for giving them the chance to go to egypt

the drive to egypt was long and hot. we arrived late afternoon and after a few hours chill time at the resort we ventured out for the sound and light show. not as exciting as it sounds but still entertaining. it was fun to see all the pyramids at night with fun lights shinning on them.

eariler in the day chappy had told us an entertaining story about himself. we were slightly mocking him and reenacting his story while holding our sound and light show tickets in this picture.
on our last day we visited old ciro. it was a totally different part of the city. i learned a lot needless to say. we were able to stop and visit muhammed ali mosque. the fun thing about this mosque was the fact that you had to take your shoes off to enter. my feet were super gross after days in the sand but this didn't stop me from dancing in the mosque. thanks to kelynn for this artistic shot.

sorry i didn't realize all my pictures were so out of order...
anyways our first night we stayed at a kibbutz on the israel egyt boarder. our night was free and so we decided to party on the shore of the red sea. this is us just chillin in the water. may i remind you that this is the very same sea that moses parted. i attempted to part the waters myself but no such luck. i was amazed with how big the red sea really is. warm water, nice breeze, frozen treats and great friends equal an incredible night.

this would have to be one of my most favorite pictures from the trip. this is another one from on top of mt sinai.

chappy and i decided it would be cool to take a jumping picture. well there isn't much jumping room when you are on top of a mountain. we finally found a sweet spot to jump.

mom don't worry i was safe.

check out the sweet back drop and my ecstatic face. yep i loved every minute on top of that beautiful mountain.

day one was a long one. we started on our trek to africa bright and early. on our way we stopped at a ton of random historical sites. to be honest i'm not sure where we were in this picture but the story of the this and the next picture....
as we were about to get off the bus at this stop bro. huff told us about some great picture opportunities. we had about an hour to run around and take random pictures. we started climbing over all the ruins. picture after picture we were on, under and standing on ruins. we had so much fun. upon returning to the bus we found out that what we had just done was illegal. apparently the other bus was told not to climb on anything and had even gotten in trouble for standing too close to a ruin. bro. huffs response

"oh well, its better to ask for forgiveness than permission"

breaking the law in israel is so much more fun. for those of you who care...we didn't break anything.

despite the fact that i was sick i enjoyed my trip to egypt. there are so many stories and such to share but i don't have the time. i hope these few pictures can express my new love for africa.

greater friendships
amazing world wonders
hilarious stories
sweet new stuff

yep it was a great week.