Well my semester really is winding down now....in less than two weeks I'll begin my final exams, and about just a couple days after those are finished I'll be khaless (finished...I realized maybe I should start to show off some of my Arabic skills ;D).
But before I can focus on all that, I figured I should take advantage in my one day lull in homework to tell everyone about my AWESOME SPRING BREAK!
So on March 29th, the time had come to Jordan and I to have some time apart. I do love this country, but sometimes I get restless and there are so many things to see outside of it as well! The first stop on my trip was to Beirut, Lebanon!
Landing in Beirut was quite the experience....the airport is literally right next to the Mediterranean Sea! As you descend you almost wonder if the plane will land in the water instead (obviously not, but it's pretty cool to see!).
My friends and I made our way to our hostel, which was very conveniently located to some of the main attractions in the city. That night we walked around and explored the nearby Mohammad Amin Mosque:
Alexandria is a very beautiful city, and full of many interesting things to see! But, it is also very conservative and not cosmopolitan like Cairo....so the we got to experience the legendary harassment of Alexandria. While we visited the Fort, we literally could not stand in one place for too long or a crowd would form around us, taking pictures on their cell phones, asking to be in pictures with us, or cat-calling. As we walked along the Corniche, we were constantly followed and called after...I know I should maybe be used to the attention and harassment after living in Amman, but it was much more aggressive and honestly, I can't get off my pedestal that NO WOMAN (or man, but let's face it, it's mostly women) should be harassed or made to feel uncomfortable.
I won't let my feminist rant go any further than that, but all in all, I hope if I go back to Alexandria I can find some trick to ward off the attention. Because it does detract from the experience.
Still, it is beautiful:
But before I can focus on all that, I figured I should take advantage in my one day lull in homework to tell everyone about my AWESOME SPRING BREAK!
So on March 29th, the time had come to Jordan and I to have some time apart. I do love this country, but sometimes I get restless and there are so many things to see outside of it as well! The first stop on my trip was to Beirut, Lebanon!
Landing in Beirut was quite the experience....the airport is literally right next to the Mediterranean Sea! As you descend you almost wonder if the plane will land in the water instead (obviously not, but it's pretty cool to see!).
My friends and I made our way to our hostel, which was very conveniently located to some of the main attractions in the city. That night we walked around and explored the nearby Mohammad Amin Mosque:
Later, I met up with some other friends from CIEE staying at the same hostel and we explored the bars in the neighborhood we were in (it is Beirut after all....the party/club capital of the Middle East. To all the adults in my life, don't worry, I ALWAYS made Good Choices!)
The next morning I woke up early and we explored as much of the city as we could! We went to the American University of Beirut, got food on Bliss St. (a cute street near the university with lots of food venues), and walked along the Corniche (like the boardwalk along the Sea).
So Beirut has beaches, but where we were, it was mostly moss covered rocks. That was not going to stop us though, so we climbed down onto them. And since I wore my swim suit that day, I had to take the opportunity:
And although Beirut is pretty Western, a white girl swimming at the beginning of April in her bikini is still enough to gather a crowd:
Not kidding, all of these men (and more later) were just standing there, watching me.
So after my dip in the Sea, we wandered around the city more, finally stopping to rest at the Pigeon Rocks:
Now, Beirut still shows many signs of the Civil War, which only ended in 1990, and the political strife that is rampant outside of the city. We saw many buildings with bullet holes or still bombed out, as well as interesting war/peace/violence themed graffiti.
That night we went to Hamra St. which has alot of bars and clubs, but it was super crowded and the people kind of stuck up, so we went to Buddha Bar instead, which still gave us a taste of the Beirut clubbing scene.
The next day, it was museum day! We went to the Beirut Museum, which holds many Phoenician artifacts, and a jewelry museum. We also went to Martyr's Square, a memorial to those who died fighting against the Ottoman's, but now is riddled with bullet holes from the Civil War.
The third and final day we took a cab up to the Jeitta Grotto, a beautiful cave outside of the city. The Grotto is one of the most beautiful natural wonders I have ever seen (we weren't allowed to take pictures, so here is a link instead):
The next leg of my trip was to a city that would fulfill of a dream of mine since I was 7 or 8 and first saw the movie "Prince of Egypt:" CAIRO! Mere word's can't describe what I did and saw, so here are some of my favorite pictures:
The Nile!
The Pyramids of Giza!!!
Success!!!!
Sphinxing it up!
Outside of the Cairo Museum, where I saw so many Ancient Egyptian artifacts!
The Hanging Church of Coptic Cairo
Graffiti wall dedicated to some who died during the Revolution last Spring.
View of the Nile from a felucca (boat)!
In Cairo, I stayed with my friend Macarena who had come to visit me just a couple weeks before in Amman. Once again, I loved being with her in a foreign country! But what made it even better was that our other friend from college, Maura (who is studying abroad in London) came to Cairo too! The day after she got there, she, Macarena, and I went to Alexandria.
Fort Qaitbey; built on the ruins of the Lighthouse of Alexandria.
Reunited! Yay!
Alexandria is a very beautiful city, and full of many interesting things to see! But, it is also very conservative and not cosmopolitan like Cairo....so the we got to experience the legendary harassment of Alexandria. While we visited the Fort, we literally could not stand in one place for too long or a crowd would form around us, taking pictures on their cell phones, asking to be in pictures with us, or cat-calling. As we walked along the Corniche, we were constantly followed and called after...I know I should maybe be used to the attention and harassment after living in Amman, but it was much more aggressive and honestly, I can't get off my pedestal that NO WOMAN (or man, but let's face it, it's mostly women) should be harassed or made to feel uncomfortable.
I won't let my feminist rant go any further than that, but all in all, I hope if I go back to Alexandria I can find some trick to ward off the attention. Because it does detract from the experience.
Still, it is beautiful:
Now that this post is finally up, I should get back to my finals! I will have another post up soon though....this time for an opportunity to give back to a special community to me. Stay tuned....
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