I apologize for not posting this earlier but as soon as we were back home in London (that's weird to say London is home!) we learned about the Malibu fires and then had a regular week of class on top of being sleep deprived and sick. So please forgive me.
Okay, so in case you haven't heard, I went to EGYPT this past week!! It was absolutely amazing!! I know I'm not going to be able to cover all of the amazing sites we were able to see in as great of details as I would like to, but I'll do my best.
So we arrived in Luxor (also known as Thebes) Monday evening and headed straight to our hotel...I mean, resort. Pepperdine paid for us to stay in the Jolly Ville Movenpick resorts of Luxor and later on Cairo. Let's just say it was beautiful! Buffets of breakfast, lunch, and dinner were always available, along with a couple of pools, lounge areas, gift shops, gardens, and the one in Luxor had a zoo! How crazy. Not too shabby for Natalie :-) Here are some pictures:
The next day our adventure began!We started by going to the Valley of the Kings were all of the New Kingdom pharaohs were buried. We were able to go inside 3 of the tombs. It was so neat because all of the paintings and hieroglyphics were still on the walls of the tomb. Sorry, but no pictures were allowed inside the tomb. Fortunately we were able to buy professional photos from inside, so if you would like to see ask me when I come home.
Next we headed off to the Valley of the Nobles. Nobles were able to fund a pretty elaborate tomb as well. Commoners would just cut holes out of the hills on the West Bank as seen in the second picture below.
Next we able to ride donkeys! It was quite uncomfortable but super fun! I named mine Alex Dwight (Alex after my brother and Dwight after the Office character). He was a sweet donkey. It was very similar to riding a horse so he was easy to control.
After the Donkey Rides, we headed over to the Temple of Hatshepsut (hat-ship-suit). She was a lady pharaoh who always represented herself as a man in statues and drawings. Her temple can be seen from the other side of the Nile (all of the tombs are on the West bank towards the rest of northern Africa and the ancients lived on the East bank in the direction of the Red Sea--this is because they saw the sun rose in the east and sets in the west). Hatshepsut's architect and lover had his own tomb built not to far away with a tunnel connecting from his tomb to hers underground. There was also an amazing view from her temple. It's so funny but there really is a line that splits the green around the nile with the sand of the desert. 
We next had a brief photo opp. stop at the Colossi of Memnon. I honestly don't remember the significance of them, just that they are really big statues. Sorry.
We finally were able to have lunch (yes, this is all on one day before lunch!!) and then we were off to Karnak Temple, the largest religious site of the ancient world. All of the pharaohs contributed to the temple so some of the architecture is different at points. The columns you will see below are huge! Each takes 10 people in a circle to go around it. There was also a well that if you circled it 7 times clockwise and had a wish it would come true (I'll let you know when mine does). One of the statues built during Hatshepsut only took 7 months to build and carve. Some engineers have calculated that it should have taken, I think, 3 or 4 years with it's given weight and height and the available technology of the time. Crazy!
Can you see me? This helps you imagine scale.
The 10 people trick.
The sacred pool where the priests would purify themselves before rituals.
Next we went to the Luxor Museum were we saw more ancient artifacts, including two mummies!! Sorry, but again no pictures. We then headed back to Crocodile Island (that is where the resort was), had dinner, and crashed!Remember, this is only day 1. More to come!
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