Monday, January 10, 2011

Christmas in Crimea, New Years in Egypt!

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy New Year!! I know that I just wrote a blog post prior to the Winter Holiday Break but I have so much to share from my Christmas vacation and Egypt trip over New Years that I wanted to write another one!

I hope, for all those of you who celebrate, you had a wonderful Christmas! I was lucky enough to be invited down to Crimea to a city called Nyzhnohirsky, which is a bus ride down south from the Khersonska Oblast. A volunteer invited us to her apartment and hosted a wonderful gathering of 11 other PCVS and 2 Ukrainian nationals. There was a nice mix of volunteers who have been in Ukraine close to their 2 year fulfillment as well as a number of volunteers who have just arrived at site following the swearing in I attended in Kiev last month. So there was a great variety of stories from sites! Our host, Vicki, is an incredible cook and prepared an amazing turkey (I am 2 for 2 on American Holidays and delicious turkeys!) as well as mashed potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, stuffing, veggies and followed it all up with homemade peppermint ice cream topped with fudge sauce! The whole meal was a Peace Corps Volunteers dream come true and we ate happily! I was so excited to be with Peace Corps family for the holidays and we listened and sang along to Christmas songs together. Vicki had bought from the bazaar red penguin socks which I helped hang as stockings and we each received some chocolates, a mandarin (currently in season in Ukraine!) and a travel sized lotion or Purell – both scores for a PCV! Lastly we did a white elephant gift exchange – I ended with a pair of homemade earrings and gave away some markers and a snickers bar (not actually such a bad gift for an English teacher!). The day was wonderful and we traded turns to talk on Vicki’s skype, which allowed me to call the family in Annandale and say Merry Christmas! The biggest difference between Minnesota’s Christmas and Crimea was there is no snow in Crimea and walking around without a jacket is common! I liked the change! (Check out below pictures of our tree, the turkey, our dinner spread of food and our group pictures!)

Following Christmas I headed up to northwest Ukraine to visit my friend Linnea at her site, Drohobych, located 2 hours south of Lvov. We were able to spend a few days together before meeting our crew of 8 total in Lvov from where we flew to Egypt. On December 30th, leaving in the midst of a snowstorm and freezing cold, our crew hopped on a plane for Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Sharm is an up and coming resort area, only about 20 years old, located on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. The city reminded me a lot of Cabo San Lucas in that it is filled with resort hotels located sporadically along the Red Sea coastline with a downtown located a taxi cab ride away. Nothing is really walk-able, you must be shuttled or driven by taxi anywhere you want to go, but with the sun and the beach – we were in heaven! The temperature the whole trip fluctuated in the 70s and the sun shined none stop! (The sun never shines in Ukraine in winter – there is a constant haze which makes winter that much tougher!) Our crew stayed at a place called the Dolphina Country Club – a 3 star hotel which sadly caters food wise to the Russians who have over run the place. We were the only Americans at the hotel (as we had booked the package through a Ukrainian agency going through a Russian one, we should have expected this!) The food was to Russian taste rather than Egyptian, but due to the fact that we were the only Americans there, we were the most popular guests in the whole place and all the staff knew our names by day 2 (or just yelled I love America/Obama each time we passed). Celebrity status in Egypt – yeah I’ll take that! In the first two days our group made a lot of great friends who helped us throughout the week – Hassan, the souvenir store manager, took us out the first night for Hookah and tea. Along came our new friend Misha (Mohammed but the diminutive in Russian is Misha so he goes by that) who helped us organize our sand dune ride (more on that soon). Egyptians are extremely friendly and very open to helping! As Ukrainians are very slow to trust new people and open up, it was quite shocking to see how quickly an Egyptian welcomed us to share tea, hookah or just a conversation with them, transaction unnecessary! We had a number of wonderful moments sharing tea and talking with the locals!

The Dolphina Country Club hosted a special New Years Eve celebration complete with dinner and show. We dressed up and took pictures with the fire-breathing dragon placed among all the meat options on the buffet table. The show consisted of live traditional Egyptian music, a performer who spins in a large skirt which he can make shapes and designs with as he spins, and a belly dancer who really knew how to shake it (check out the picture of her below!). We had a great time dancing and were given a lot of shout outs by the DJ who catered to our American tastes to the point that he actually did play Miley Cyrus “Party in the USA” by request from my friend Kari. The rest of us were quite embarrassed but danced along all the same.

On our third night in Egypt Misha helped us organize a tour, which began with 45 minutes riding on 4 wheelers in the dessert. We were wrapped with headscarves and had to wear sunglasses, which gave us the appearance of bandits in the old West (though I don’t recall 4 wheelers in any of John Wayne’s movies!) The 4-wheeling trip took us to a site where we got to ride camels before a live show. The camels were a lot of fun – mine was named Casanova while Meaghan road Baba (short for the Russian word for grandma but we were making a joke because her camel kept trying to push its way through to the front of the line like a Ukrainian older grandma would do), Linnea was on Trotsky as he kept trying trotting up and down to bump her off and Kelsey named her camel Mr. Sunshine as he made evil grunting noises with every step! It was the first time the other girls had ridden a camel and so it was quite a treat for me to watch them hold on for dear life as the camel leaned back to stand and then quickly leaned forward to get all the way up! Until you’ve ridden a camel you just won’t understand how petrifying it is to be on one when it stands up or sits down. Luckily our efforts brought us to a live show with flame twirlers, another belly dancer and a delicious Egyptian meal complete with BBQ chicken and hummus and pita bread! Deliciousness!

On January 2nd I headed by bus with Linnea, Meaghan and Kelsey to Cairo to meet up with Linnea’s university friend Megan (from Edina none the less!) and her boyfriend Mahmoud. We had been invited to join Megan and her boyfriend in Alexandria to see the city and enjoy a bit of time outside the Russian tourist frenzy that was Sharm. In Cairo we were able to visit the old market, which I have attached photos from. In the market there were tons of stands of spices, scarves, hookahs and jewelry. The whole place was a rainbow of colors and a wonderful array of smells! Amongst all the traditional Egyptian items and souvenirs were a number of knock off purses, sunglasses and shoe stores for all your Chammel and Dlor needs! For dinner we had a traditional Egyptian dish called Koshary, which is a bowl of noodles covered with rice, chickpeas, lentils and a tomato sauce. It sounds quite strange but was really good! Below is a picture of Linnea and I with our dishes (mine doesn’t have the tomato sauce on it yet). Kelsey, Megan and Linnea got henna done at the restaurant, which somehow overnight, managed to stain Kelsey’s face, Linnea’s other arm, and all of the bed sheets – note to future tourists, beware of black henna!

Alexandria, our next stop, is located on the northern border of Egypt on the Mediterranean Sea. It is named after Alexander the Great, the Roman emperor. The city boasts the largest library collection in the world along with the largest reading room. During the time of Alexander the Great, all those who wished to see the Emperor, had to gift him manuscripts and documents to be placed in the library, thus it quickly became the largest in the world. Sadly a lot of the collection burned, but today the structure is beautiful with lots of natural light in the reading room and a gorgeous exterior of hieroglyphics and a reflection pool. Check out pictures!

On our third day of excursions Mahmoud, the most amazing Egyptian guy of them all!, arranged a personal driver for Kelsey, Meaghan and I for the day. If you were watching the news last week you may have heard of a bombing which occurred in Alexandria outside a Christian Church. Sadly that church was located just a few blocks from Megan and Mahmoud’s apartment, but luckily no one was hurt. When we arrived in Cairo, riots had broken out by the Christians protesting against the bombing. This, Megan explained, was very abnormal as Egyptian Christians and Muslims have been living in harmony for many many years. However, due to the riots, we felt unsafe traveling alone back to Cairo for the pyramids, and thus paid a wonderfully smiley man named Farouk to drive us. Farouk took us from Alexandria to the Pyramids of Giza, our first stop. The Pyramids of Giza consist of 3 large pyramids for the pharaohs and 6 smaller sized ones for the wives and servants of the Pharaohs. The best part of the Giza Pyramid complex is the Sphinx which catches your eye even before the massive pyramid located right behind it does. Prior to arriving at the pyramids a random guy in his 20s, named Mohamed, jumped into our van and started talking to our driver. After I pushed off men trying to get us 3 to pay $80 each to ride horses throughout the pyramid complex, I elicited the services of Mohamed to be our personal tour guide throughout the complex. Mohamed ended up being a friend of Farouk our driver. Mohamed told us he was studying tourism and the ancient history of Egypt and was a great tour guide (until he had us walk through archeologist only closed off areas which resulted in us getting chased by guards who Mohamed claimed were his friends – oh well). Unlike in Mexico, these pyramids are not for climbing and apparently the last man who made it up had to wait for a helicopter emergency rescue to be brought back down – so we didn’t even try. We did, however, go into one of the pyramids, which is a pathway of long, steep staircases with short ceilings down to a crypt in which the sarcophagus would have laid. Though all treasures have been removed and taken to the Egyptian Museum, the stone carving where the sarcophagus would have laid still remains very prominently! (See photo below) Following the pyramids, Farouk drove us to the Citadel, a fortress built to protect Cairo, but which now is visited by tourists for the site of the Mohammed Ali Mosque – the most beautiful and I believe one of the largest mosques in the world! Inside the mosque we heard all languages from all over the world being spoken which was a fun and overwhelming feeling coming from the land of only Ukrainian or Russian. I got to eavesdrop on a little bit of Spanish too! In the end, Farouk took us to the Hilton Cairo, located across the street from our bus stop where we thanked and paid him – we were able to get a picture with Farouk and our personal blue minivan of the day – check it out below as well as one with Mohamed at the pyramids!

Our last two days in Egypt were spent back reunited with our crew in Sharm. We were able to soak up the sun near the poolside of our hotel and on the last day, visit the old market. We were so sad to have to leave Egypt! It was an incredible week of sun, great food and good times. Highlights were definitely the pyramids and the sphinx as well as getting to visit Starbucks (brought some coffee grounds back with me to Ukraine!), and being able to eat hummus every day! Definitely a vacation I will not forget!

Please enjoy the pictures below, I’ve also included a few from the beach, Starbucks, our hotel and crew, Borios (the knock off Oreo), seeing the making of papyrus paper and our last meal in Egypt – Burger King!

I hope you all had a wonderful New Year and that 2011 is going well! This semester will be the semester of project implementation for me and I look forward to keeping you all updated on these events as they unfold!


Love, Megan