TravelStream™ news feed for member jjberttravels on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/jjberttravels en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:38:34 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1213906860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1213906860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1213906860/tpod.html Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:38:34 -0400 Egypt, Greek Isles and Eastern Europe

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Mykonos Town, Cyclades, Greece

We arose from our borrowed bed right at 5am and even tho Jenn and I sharing the twin bed was a quite uncomfortable situation, it was still hard to get up. We walked to the metro to get there right as it opened and after Jill ran back to get her camera when we were half way there we still made it to the port of Pirerias. After a quick ride, we made it to the port and got a little scared when we couldn't find the group right away. But Jenn read the e-mail from busabout and found the spot where our group was waiting. We got onto the ferry and quickly nestled into the business class seats unsure if we would be kicked out or not due to our economy class tickets on the ungodly hot top deck. After couple hours of fitful napping, we decided to go to the deck and ran into our friends who lent us their semi-extra bed. Soon after, we arrived in Mykonos and joined our actual tour. We crammed into the bus to take us to Paradise beach, fitting as many people as possible plus a few more! After a bumpy and uncomfortable hill ride, we rolled up to the camping beach. Our accomodation was a bungalo that looked more like a chicken coup or a dog kennel, but it was clean and most importantly CHEAP! We made the rest of our delicious Greek salad and hit the beach. We spent a relaxing afternoon catching the Greek Isles' rays.

Our group met up at 5:00 to get our first real taste of Mykonos town. We took another crowded bus in and saw how beautiful and quaint the town was before dinner together at the Pelican restaurant. There were actually real massive pelicans there and we pet them!! One was pink!

Mykonos town was very beautiful because all the buildings in the town where painted white. It is actually the law to have the building part white and the roof and door one of the following colors; blue, green, yellow or brown each representing an Earth color.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1211836320/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1211836320/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1211836320/tpod.html Sat, 14 Jun 2008 18:06:35 -0400 Egypt, Greek Isles and Eastern Europe

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Athens, Greece

Because we had a good 3 days in Athens before our tour of the Greek Islands were to start, our next two days in the city were more relaxing. We woke up again fairly late just in time to catch breakfast and took our time getting ready before we left the hostel. Some of our clothes were still drying from the night before and now that it was sunny and quite warm, we took some time to wait for them to finish drying.

Jill remembered the Grand walkway that runs around the base of the Acropolis and wanted to walk it again with Jennifer.The walkway boarded the grassy wooded area that runs into the side of the rocky southern side of the acropolis. The walk eventually took us in a circle back to the Plaka where all the greek shops and touristy resturant cafes are located. We walked from the Acropoli Metro stop to Monastariki square where we bought some fresh cherries, strawberries and tomatoes for our greek salad dinner. We also went back to our favorite bakery and bought spanacopida, a cheese pastery and a chocolate corrisant. We completed our walk hitting Syntegma Square and walking back to our hostel. Getting back, we got to go to the super market to buy the rest of the ingrediants for our greek salad dinner including a bottle of wine. Back to the hostel, we cut up our dinner and had a nice picnic outside on the balcony of our little dorm room and shared the bottle of white wine. The hostel had the internet and as we had not been able to really get online since Aswan, Egypt, we logged on for a bit. By the time we were done cleaning up off the internet we were very tired and just got right into bed.

The next day we checked out of our hostel even though our Greek Island tour didn't start til the following morning at 6:30am at Pierias, the port town just outside of Athens where all the Ferries leave from. Jill had been there before when she visited Crete and we decide we would just stay up all night before getting on the metro to the port at 5:30am and save on hostel costs.We got to leave our bags in the lobby for the day and pretty much just chilled out all day. First we decided to return to the Temple of Zeus to go inside the gates to get a better view. We then walked around the Plaka and decided to walk up to Omonia, the hostel district that Jill thought she stayed in before when she was last in Athens. Making it there we were starting to get very hungrey for dinner so we bought gyros for dinner and got to test out happy hour at the rooftop bar.
We watched the sun set over the acropolis with our drinks and stayed in the bar til the pub crawl started. We met some cool people and found out pretty fast that the 'Pub Hop' only consisted of one bar. But while we were there Jill overheard a girl mention Tri Delts and she met a fellow Tri Delta sister at a bar in Athens. She went to school at a place in Georgia and introduced Jill to another Tri Delt from a different she met at her hostel. What a small Tri Delta world :) We followed the girls at an attempt to find another fun bar but abandoned the plan as they were wondering pretty far from Athen's Backpackers were our bags were. As we wondered back to the first bar we couldn't any of the people we were with before, it was 2am and we didn't know what we were going to do til 5:30 in the morning. As the partying all night plan wasn't working as well as we planned we remembered what some Aussie friends we had made at the hostel had offered us. They were two brothers and one of the bother's girlfriend traveling together. They said they booked 3 beds but the couple was going to share a bed and offered us the other one if we wanted to crash for a bit. This seemed like the best plan as the alternative was hang out with our bags at the 24hr McDonalds. It was really nice even though we had to share a bed and our alarm came sooner then we expected. Thanks Clancy and Jermima!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1211803260/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1211803260/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1211803260/tpod.html Sat, 14 Jun 2008 17:12:28 -0400 Egypt, Greek Isles and Eastern Europe

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Athens, Attica, Greece

We woke up just in time the catch the end of breakfast, which was the best hostel breakfast we had encountered because not only did it have toast, Nutella, jam, and butter, but it had hard boiled eggs, YUM! During breakfast we were asked if we would like to do the walking tour around Athens and we remembered our wonderful tour in Edinburgh so even though it cost 5 euro each, we decided to do it.

Our first stop on the tour was Zeus's Temple and then we saw the soldiers in old-fasioned uniforms who had to wear skirts with something like 400 pleats and they have six hour shifts where they can't move at all except to walk accross the square in a methodical dance/march every thirty seconds. It is supposed to be a great honor, but it did not seem like a fun way to spend six hours to us!

We walked along the prettier parts and Athens and entered Placa. The Placa is a market that is huge and easy to get lost in, but great for finding souvenirs and a lot of great stuff. It is also built around the ancient ruins of market and a library, which was cool to see in between stores. Compared to the Egyptian ruins that were so well preserved due to lack of rain, the Greek ruins were not as impressive as we had pictured, but it was still amazing to be there and see where one of the greatest times in ancient history occurred. The Placa was close to where our hostel was so it was just a short walk to end the tour. Again this tour was not led by a local, but the girl who led it was English and had only been living in Athens for a couple of months.

After a quick lunch of gyros, we went to see the Acropolis. It did not fail to amaze as we spent 2 hours walking around it and reading about the Parthenon and the Erectheon. Jill kept talking about how it was when she was there last. She made Jenn take a picture of her in the same spot that she had 2 years ago when she was there during study abroad. What was a little disappointing was the acropolis museum was closed because they built a new one that still is not open. 2 years ago Jill loved going from Greece and the acropolis to the British Museum in London a little bit later and seeing the freize that the British currently own. Not being able to see the greek museum was a little disappointing but Jill remembered that 2 years after seeing the acropolis that she got gelato and walked through the placa so we did just that! We wandered around, almost getting lost, but were able to find what would become our favorite bakery. After sharing five delicious scoops of gelato, we went back to the hostel to go do our laundry becuase at this point in our trip we had worn almost all our clothes at least twice.

The laundry was more expensive than we would have liked, and while our clothes were drying, on our balcony, we had a nice dinner at a restaurant in the Placa. We were practically dragged into the restaurant by the owner and promised great prices and free wine with our dinner. We agreed and got our wine, but it seemed like forever before our waiter took our order. As we waited for our food, Jill was becoming increasingly disatisfied with the service. She said that if salad or bread did not come in five minutes, we would just get up and leave. Luckily for Jenn who was starving and knew it would take forever to find a new restaurant, the salad and bread came. But after that we waited a long time for our main courses. When they finally came we ate them fast and were engaged in conversation by two French guys who were seated next to us. The language barrier proved difficult, but not impossible, we told them they could meet up with the party hostel and go out. We finished up and left to get ready to go out.

On the rooftop bar of our Hostel we met a guy from Chicago, Nico!!! He actually went to Northbrook and Knew the daughter of the Opthimologist Jill worked with two summers ago, Abby Berman! He even went on the same IES Barcalona study abroad program Jenn is going on Spring of 2009!

The bar closed at 12 and we left for the pub hop and on the way we saw the french guys Thomas and Ulrich. But when we got to the first bar and found out it had 5 Euro cover, Jill, Nico, and Jenn decided to just turn back. The French guys were sad, but there were plenty more girls from the hostel for them the make friends with.

We went back and went to bed so we could get up early the next morning and another plus was that we didn't spend any money on drinks!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1211599800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1211599800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1211599800/tpod.html Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:39:56 -0400 Egypt, Greek Isles and Eastern Europe

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Rome, Lazio, Italy

We woke up at around 10am and had a final breakfast with our friends Vince, Jon, Carolina, and Felipe. We had just enough time to pack up and catch our noon shuttle to the Airport. We had some time to bum around in the airport, so Jenn fell asleep while Jill read. Then we had the lunch we had packed from the buffet and went through security. They almost did not let Jill through because she had a bungee cord in her carry-on (Can you imagine Jill trying to take over the plane with a bungee cord as a weapon?) The manager of Alitalia said we could go through, so we boarded our plane. About three and a half hours later, we arrived in Rome. We had a couple hours in the Rome airport where Jill bought some rechargeable batteries for her camera and then we boarded our plane to Athens.

We landed at around 1:30am and got on the bus to the city center at around 1:40am. After an hour bus ride, we set out with our luggage to find our hostel. After a 15 minute walk, we knew we were in the right area, but were having trouble finding it. We found and Australian couple looking for the same hostel and we were able to find it together, whew! By the time we checked in and got to bed, it was almost 3:30am. Goonight... finally!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1211547600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1211547600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1211547600/tpod.html Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:17:27 -0400 Egypt, Greek Isles and Eastern Europe

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Cairo, Egypt

It was hard to wake up this morning to the man knocking on the door to serve us breakfast. We didn't want the gross train food and we were just so tired from the day before. We got up eventually and made it off the train for our final day in Cairo. We got to see two Mosks and Shirriff demonstrated to us how Muslims wash and pray 5 times a day. The mosque was beautiful and of course we took lots of pictures. We also had to remove our shoes before entering the mosque!

The second mosque we went to was the citidel and it was more of a tourist location with a lot more people visiting as opposed to the first one which was where the everyday person went to pray. In this one we had to have our elbows covered so they gave us a cloak to cover up with. It was massive inside and very beautiful with marble floors and alabaster walls.

Our next stop was the bazaar where we could get some end-of-the-trip souvenirs. We perfected our hagling skills to get some good prices. It was crazy to be in the middle of the bustling everyday life of Cairo. We then met for a nice lunch of traditional Egyptian kababs and got to see everyone pray in the streets afterward during the call to pray which is normally ignored except on Fridays, their holy day! Then it was back to the Oasis hotel for a relaxing afternoon in the pool. We had a big farewell buffet and played a few last drinking games as some of our friends had to leave that night for their flights. It was sad to see them go, but we were just about ready to go to Greece!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1213262100/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1213262100/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1213262100/tpod.html Thu, 12 Jun 2008 06:42:21 -0400 Egypt, Greek Isles and Eastern Europe

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Luxor, Egypt

Ring ring!! Our phone wake up call came at 430am. We had to be downstairs and ready to go by 515am. It was definitely still dark as we were getting ready and we received a box breakfast from the ship filled with tons of food for breakfast. We were picked up by a bus and found the boxes full of 4 cheese sandwiches, 3 peaches, tomatoes, zucchinis, a juice box and bananas. We didn't know what we would do with all the food but it was alright anyway.
Soon we arrived at the place on the Nile that we needed to cross. We took a felluca across and got some tea on the way. Once across the river we loaded into vans that took us to the site of the balloon take-off. When we got close we could see some of the balloons that had already taken off and we got really excited! Once we arrived our balloon was already full with about 25 men holding it down for us to get in. Our captain gave us some safety instructions and we climbed into the basket almost immediately. It was good cuz the morning bugs were really bad. The basket was pretty huge and I think we had about 20 people in four different sections. We were still very sleepy and a little out of it and just remember hearing the sounds of the captain giving the balloon men orders and the loud KUSSSHHHEEEHHH sound of the ignighted gas filling the balloons around us. The gas was VERY HOT! Standing beneath the area where the gas shot up, the heat was so intense Jill thought her head was getting burnt but we realized it was our sunburn getting heated up and stinging. While ducking away from the flaming gas we barely realized we were starting to float up. The men started walking with us as the balloon began to move and rise and they were able to guide us up till we were out of reach....then we had nothing but hot air and a balloon lifting our huge basket up. As we were floating higher we saw the sun begin to rise. It was absolutely amazing. We could see about 20 other balloons on the horizon and on one side of the balloon was the green Nile River Valley and on the other, the desert Valley of the Kings. We flew over another temple of Ramses the III and could see the Temple of Queen Hapshetsut off in the distance. This was cool cuz we both studied this in Mr. Pages art history class in highschool. Our captain steered the balloon and out toward a Nubian village and we could actually see the local people in their beds waking up and waving to us. It was a little awkward because the Nubians were totally in their homes that dont have roofs because it doesnt rain and we were just flyng over them and it felt like we were invading their privacy. As we flew over them and heard the roosters crowing the people were waking up and seemed happy to see us and waved from their beds and shouted out to us. It was awesome and a unique view into how the Nubians lived. They even had roofs for where the animals slept but not where the people had their beds. They all slept in similar wicker like beds with colorful weaved blankets. All the people lived in their village on the edge of the Valley of the Kings near the Nile River Valley. After flying so low over the village, our captain really turned up the gas and took us really high. The sun was much brighter now and at our peak height, were the highest balloon in the sky. We were up in the balloon for about an hour total and we see our crew driving to the desert area where we would land. They all got out of the vans and had to run and estimate our point of landing and catch us as we came down. Jill got almost all of the take off and landing on video so we'll be posting that later. As the crew caught our balloon and the top was deflated, the 25 men grabed the cloth and wraped it up to fit in a big bag. We got out of the basket and they all sang and we danced to celebrate the safe flight. We were all in high spirits when we noticed a bunch of little kids mostly boys around hanging out in the background. We were given T-shirts and certificates before they had us get back to the vans so our tour bus could pick us up. Just as we got into the vans the kids began calling out to us asking us for food. As we had our huge box breackfasts that we had merely picked at and did't want at all we decided to give them to the kids. As soon as we held it out to them it was immediately snatched away and the boys attacked the boxes to get at the food. It was one of the saddest things we've seen. The kids must have been starving. Our crappy breakfast leftovers were like gold to them and they ran next the the vans as we pulled away begging for more. It broke our hearts to see the little kids running and begging like that for food. We have soo much that we can travel and take hot air balloon rides and these kids don't even have enough to eat. It was really heart breaking and really made us feel helpless. It really makes you appreciate what you have and makes you feel bad that you would ever complain about anything when we have it so good.

Our van ride was pretty silent til we got to where our tour bus picked us up and we rejoined the rest of the group. The balloon ride was optional and not everyone did it. The bus then drove us right to the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, a magnificent temple that was dug and built directly into the side of the mountain. It was beautiful and we took tons of pictures. We walked up the long central walkway where they carried the sacrifices and where it was shaded and protected from the elements, we could still see the vivid colors that used to cover the entire temple.

The bus then took us to the Valley of the Kings. It was a burial ground for all the pharaohs after they figured it wasn't so smart to bury their kings in obvious places like the pyramids due to the tombs getting robbed by tomb robbers. Even as the tombs were dug deep into the desert almost all of them were still destroyed by tomb robbers...except for one, the tomb of King Tutankahum.We got to see the entrance and his tomb which we very cool because a few days prior we saw all the treasure that was stored within. We also got to see the tombs of Ramses III, and few other pharoahs. They were all pretty deep in the ground and beautifully painted. It was extremely hot tho going deep into the airless tombs and standing in the hot desert sun. King Tut's tomb was the tiniest of all the ones we saw and it housed a massive amount of treasure. We couldn't even imagine how much treasure was stolen from the rest of the tombs!! The only reason King Tut's wasn't robbed was because he died very young and they used a tomb that was located underneath onther larger tomb. Because of its location the robbers never thought to look under a previously robbed one. Howard Carter found his tomb in 1922 and we got to see exactly what he found. It is also funny because London is having the Tutankaham exhibit in the British museum that we will see when we are there. There is soooo much treasure that was found here to fill about 5 rooms of the Egyptian museum while still having enough leftovers for a traveling exhibit in London. Crazy!

After the Valley of Kings we got to visit the Temple of Karnak. By this time in the afternoon in Luxor we were told it was 130 degrees outside. The heat was very intense as we saw the largest temple in all of Egypt. It was over 200 kilometers long and wide and had a lake inside. It was so big because every pharoah of Egypt was supposed to make an addition to the temple. It was very big and we saw some of the most important parts before racing back the the airconditioned bus. Shiriff warned us about our cameras because in that extreme heat the LCD screens of digial cameras can explode. Our cameras stayed safe but...woah!!!

By this time we started feeling the extral long length of our day but it was only lunch time. We stoped at a place on the road that had a McDonalds that Jenn was very happy to see. Jill still opted for the other resturant that had paninis and things cuz she's not as much of a fan of the McDonalds. Jenn enjoyed her chicken nuggets and Jill had a nice lunch too. We got the get back on the bus and return to the boat to pack up our things, and shower before our overnight train ride. After a nap and some speed packing we left for one last temple visit. Luxor temple was right in the city and was beautifully lit up at night. We got to take some pictures and grab some dinner so we could avoid the sketchy train food. The bus then took us to the train station and we boarded the train. The club car was full of dirty smoking men and after our extremely long day we decided it was best to just fall asleep to the rocking of the train car. Good night Egypt for the second to last time!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1211277600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1211277600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1211277600/tpod.html Thu, 12 Jun 2008 05:09:08 -0400 Egypt, Greek Isles and Eastern Europe

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Abu Simbel, Egypt

We got a wake up call this morning bright and early this morning at 6am and ate some yummy breakfast before getting on a bus for the Aswan airport. We decided to go on this extra excursion our first night in Egypt as it involves an airplane ride to the otherwise inaccessible site of the temple of Ramses II and the Temple of Nefertiri. It was really special because the entire site had to be physically moved to escape the flooding waters from the Nile after it was dammed creating Lake Nassir, the largest man-made lake in the world! The dam was built to protect the Nubians (native african villigers who actually have black skin as opposed to the more Egyptian looking brown skin) whose villages would be destroyed by the flooding of the Nile that came from the heavy rains in the North comming down the river and spilling over. One of our friends, Larissa who had lighter black skin was often called out to as "Ahhh Nubian" as we were called out as "Ahhh Shakira." Didn't make much sense to us as last time we checked we're not Colombian.

So the site was pretty amazing and well preserved. Shiriff told us how it was a world project to save this temple from the Lake. NESCO world organization decided to cut it up and number the pieces to move it to a safe location. We could see the cuts up close but from far away it looked perfect. The seated stautues of Ramses were carved right into the mountain face and the entire inside of the temple was ornately decorated with hyroglyphics on every surface. It was pretty amazing and was aligned with the sun on the soltice to shine on the face of Ramses in the inner-most chamber 2 times a year as the sun rose. Pretty amazing that they could do that 3000 years ago!

The other temple next to Ramses was the temple of Nefertiri, the only Egyptian temple ever erected for a woman. It was decorated as well and we really enjoyed walking through it. It really just blew our minds how old these temples really were and how advanced the egyptian civilization was. We had time to walk around and then caught a bus back to the Abu Simbil airport to depart back to Aswan.

Back on the boat, they kept lunch out late for us (it was about 3pm by the time we got back). We had most of the afternoon to relax before seeing Kom-Ombo Temple. We caught some sun on the top deck of the boat and waded a bit in the
pool while we were served tea and biscuits at about 4:30pm. The boat makes a special stop there en route to Luxor before passing Edfu which we will do tomorrow. Kom-Ombo Temple was a cool, very well preserved temple that was built in honor of the crocadile so they would be protected from them. The place where it was built was notorious for having large numbers of crocks because it was one of the warmer areas of the Nile. It was also one of the first medical facilities and the hyroglyphics showed the Imhotep the architect who was well respected for building many temples and also pictured many of the medical and pharmaceutical devices that were used then. (Imhotep was not actually evil as he was dipicted in the Mummy.)

We got back on the boat in time for dinner and our much anticipated Egyptian Night. We caught some sun on the top deck of the boat and waded a bit in the pool while we were served tea and biscuits at about 4:30pm. Dinner was great again as usual before we doned our Egyptian belly-dancing costumes and had our Contiki Egyptian Night!! Jenn wore a green belly-dancing skirt and Jill had a white one both with silver beads and coins for the jingle effect. We had some drinks and played some crazy Egyptian Games. The boat hands joined in by playing the drums and other traditional instuments for authentic music and they taught us the tradtional dance. It was much like the Jewish dancing you see at Bar Mitsvas and stuff where we danced in a circle and came together and shouted "HEY" in the middle. We had fun. The other games seemed more juvenile like wrap the Mummy with TP, hot potato, freeze dance and musical chairs but with spoons. At the end when we had all started to get a little bored, we got to just dance a bit and chill out on the top deck. Our guide encouraged us to sleep out on deck under the stars because the following day was just a day on the boat to realax. We gathered our alcohol and played some games before grabbing sweats and the blankets off our beds and curling up in sunchairs on the top deck. We woke up with the sunrise only about 2 hours later and moved down to our beds just as we were passing Edfu.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1211536320/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1211536320/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1211536320/tpod.html Fri, 06 Jun 2008 06:21:51 -0400 Egypt, Greek Isles and Eastern Europe

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Luxor, Nile River Valley, Egypt

We woke up at around 10am this morning, ready to relax and catch some sun on the boat. Lunch was yummy again. In the dining room, the meals were served buffet style with large spread of great looking food. They always had tons of different breads first, followed by salads. There was always feta and tomatoes which we liked best! The other salads were sometimes quite interesting and we attempted a few and some were good. Next was the soup that never failed to impress (our other favorite!) There was always a rice dish and some sort of cooked, flavorful vegatable dish. They also always had a potato dish of some sort followed by freshly cut meat (chicken or beef, NEVER pork!) There always was an interesting fish dish and it seemed that the favorite spice of Egypt is Coriander a.k.a. CILANTRO!!! Needless to say, we love cilantro and almost all the dishes they prepared. If there wasn't enough flavor in the food for us they had out dishes of extra spices you could sprinkle on top. We would experiment with them in the soup and on the rice. The food was definitley the high point of the boat! The desserts were pretty good with different geletins, cakes and sometimes bakclava! Unfortunately there was no chocolate so we sometimes had to supplement with Mars bars from the markets.

Our entire day was spent in the sun on the top deck, swimming and relaxing. All our Contiki group were there too hanging out with us. The afternoon tea was good again but only Jenn got to enjoy it because Jill was fast asleep in the shade. We arrived in Luxor before dinner and ventured off the boat to the market to buy some water and MARS BARS!! This was Jenn's new favorite candy bar. Where we were in Luxor, there was not much right off the boat, but we did see an Egyptian albino man!! He had the bluest eyes, the lightest skin and hair, it was weird to hear him spear arabic even though he was 100% Egyptian!!! Back on the boat we had another feast, unfortunately the Goodbye dinner and all the staff sang their goodbye song. During dinner we discussed whether or not to splurge on the hot air balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings. We decided to do it because it was once in a lifetime even with the 4am start time! After a refreshing shower, we saw a real belly dancing show, but first, a man came and spun around in a slirt to give the illusion of a lotus flower. He spun around in place for about ten minutes and did some sort of balancing act with plates. Then the Belly dancer came in. She was not what we expected because she a bit large and shook it all. She got the crowd involved and picked two of our guy friends to dance with her, quite a funny sight!

We decided to turn in early because of our extremely early balloon ride in the morning!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1212450720/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1212450720/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1212450720/tpod.html Fri, 06 Jun 2008 05:09:07 -0400 Egypt, Greek Isles and Eastern Europe

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Aswan, Nile River Valley, Egypt

Today we woke up to the knock of the train cabin door letting us know that the sketchy breakfast was here. Were were given a tray of 3 types of bread and some tea. The tea was quite nice and Jill ate the provided slices of bread before the train slowed to a stop and we disembarked and boarded a bus. The bus seemed just like all the others we rode on in the trip so far and before we knew it we were at a quarry admireing the large hole in the ground. We could see all of Aswan behind it which was kinda cool but the quarry was less impressive. It supposedly was the place where all the granite used in the temples of ancient Egypt was taken from. Shiriff old us how heavy the rock was and how difficult it was to transport (impressive, right?). He had a special sample of the rock that we could pass around and feel how heavy it was. We held it up and it felt like a rock...crazy!!!
We later found out how much the granite in this quarry was used in the various temples. It was remarkable how important this hole in the ground was to ancient history was, even though it was not much to look at and we just played and climbed around it like little kids. Of couse as you exit any tourist site there is no other way out then through the mini bazaar where you are attacked like a flock pigeons. Jenn got seriously grabbed and dragged into a shop and cornered with this crazy Egyptian shoving mini Egyptian figurines in her face and inquireing after her marital status. Jill had to run in and rescue her by yelling NO! NO! NO! Get away from us!" and pulled her back out into the throngs of other Egyptian salesmen. We got through the rest of it by not making eye contact and practically running out. We finally made it to the bus, whew safe and sound.

As we continued the bus ride further through Aswan, we saw more and more of Africa at it's purist. Soon after our quarry visit we arrived at our boat and got to see our rooms and have a buffet lunch. It was at the least amazing! The food was supurb and we had most of the rest of the day to chill out, go on the internet and meet back at the boat around 6pm. At 6pm we had our felluca ride where we saw the Sahara and Arabian deserts meet at a point on the Nile. The felucca is a traditional Egyptian sailboat that has been in use for centuries for transport down the Nile as it moves a little too slowly to just use the current. We made a stop along the Nile to see a giant sand dune. The Nile is home to tons of Crockadiles and we got to meet and hold two baby ones that were being held captive near the dune. The ones we held were about a foot or so long and we found they can grow up to about 10 meters long. Woah! We then had the opportunity to run up and down a sand dune. It didn't look so hard to run up but the Sahara desert is hotter then you may think and it took our breath away. It was slow going up and the dune was really steep. The view at the top made it worth it tho! It was amazing as we could see the nile valley run for miles behind us. On the otherside was just massive seemingly endless desert! It was quite a sight! Shiriff told us that if you were to go that way through the desert, you would see nothing but sand for 400 miles and you would hit ocean before anything else! That would be the Eastern coast of Africa!! After returning to the boat and having another scrumptous dinner, we were told the secret place where we could buy some duty free alcohol. We also had the chance to take a ride on the local ferarri...aka horse-drawn carriage ride to the Aswan Bazaar. It was a nice ride...not quite how I imagined my first Ferrari ride but goood all the same. It was more scary than anything else tho as the traffic around Aswan and all of Egypt is insaine. We were reminded of our brush with death, 2 years prior, during the rickshaw ride behind a Chinaman riding a bicycle in Beijing. We later found out that some of our group members had their own brush with death when a car hit their horse and their buggy tipped over! They were able to jump out to safety, no harm done, we hope the horse was okay and at least got a day off! Our buggies took us to the local bazaar (much bigger than the ones at the tourist sites!) Our mission was not souvenirs (we don't have any space, or money, for them) but were buying authentic Egyptian attire for our Contiki Egyptian night bash. We spent about an hour in the bazaar. We haggled and fought to get the best price for our bellydancing skirts/scarves (they jingle when you shake it). After also buying some "Egyptian cotton" scarves that we know were actually from China (like everything else they try to sell) we could not take anymore men trying to pull us into their stores. Between the two of us we were offered around 100,000 camels shipped to Chicago for our hands in marriage. What do you think Dad? As cool as that sounds, are we really only worth a bunch of nasty camels?? In the end we really think that they just yell out the camel thing to get attempt to get you to buy something. Sheesh!!! Our other favorite line was "I give you money to just come in and look!" Trust us...they don't! After our escape from the bazaar, we bought some duty free alcohol and some special extra strong beer. It actually tasted a bit like wine but it was good and fun! Back on the boat we had a fun night of learning new international drinking games (Bagawk) before retiring to our cabins for the night. PS did I mention they were really nice!?! Compared to the Carnival cruise lines these had a balcony and were quite spacious. At least we get a shower before our next tour Abu Simbal tomorrow morning at 6am! Goodnight!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1210770720/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1210770720/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jjberttravels/1/1210770720/tpod.html Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:54:52 -0400 Egypt, Greek Isles and Eastern Europe

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London, England, United Kingdom

We arrived in London at about 7am local time...I think 4am Chicago time and we had 2 hours til our flight to Edinburgh. We got Jenn's bag just fine and got on the 45min plane ride to Scotland. It was great being at Heathrow airport again for Jill. It was a little strange for her because there was no Andy waiting to meet her in the arrivals terminal. The last two times she arrived in Heathrow he was there to meet her and it was different being there without him. Next up Edinburgh!!

Jill and Jenn
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