supplemental reading!

Also, if anyone is interested in learning more about sexual harassment in the Middle East (in Egypt in particular) and how it relates to veiling and the hijab tradition, this is an extremely interesting and (in my experience) accurate article. It's from August 2008, but in the last two years, the trend toward increasing conservativism in the Middle East has only accelerated, especially in Egypt. Naively, I thought I understood the gender dynamic in the Muslim world before visiting simply because I had studied it and had Muslim friends. But there's nothing like riding the gender-segregated subway deep into Cairo to make you reevaluate everything you thought you knew about the way that men and women interact here (and consequently, the way women interact with each other). The article is here: In Egypt, Some Women Say That Veils Increase Harassment (Washington Post).

Some of you might also be interested to know that Cairo is planning to introduce pink taxis driven by women, for women in the coming months. I was excited to hear about that at first; friends of mine have been harassed and even molested by cab drivers here, and the few times that I've had to ride in a taxi by myself, I've felt uncomfortable. But introducing women-only taxis to complement the women-only subway cars is just treating the symptoms of the wild inequalities and injustices in this society. I would much prefer to see the city's authorities working to make public transportation safe for all people, regardless of gender.

did you make it to the milky way to see the lights all faded?

I think I can safely say that all of the trials and tribulations I've experienced in Egypt are completely validated by the sheer beauty of the night sky in the desert. I know I already gushed about it after I camped in the Sahara, but climbing Mount Sinai this past weekend was both just as amazing and somehow better. We were not only stargazing, but climbing ever higher up an ancient mountain, into those stars. It was pitch-dark, but for a few bobbing flashlights from hikers outside our group; we felt our way along the path, concentrating on putting one foot in front of another, until we emerged out onto a ledge about two hours up the mountain. There it was: the Milky Way. The light pollution is so bad at home (and, of course, in Cairo) that I can't remember if I've ever even seen it naturally in the U.S. But it was unmistakable here, a smoky ribbon of nebula twisting across the sky. Everything on the mountain-- us, the camels, the myriad other hikers all vying to reach the summit before sunrise-- was dark and faceless in the light of the brilliant stars and the waxing moon. Sinai wasn't easy, but it was absolutely worth it.

My traveling companions (three Matts, Zak, Laura, and Ryan) and I weren't in the best shape to be climbing a mountain that night. We had taken an overnight bus to Dahab, a little backpacker-friendly town on the Sinai peninsula in the Red Sea, on Thursday night (this was a quasi-five-day weekend because Sunday, April 25, was Sinai Liberation Day, the anniversary of Israel's return of the Sinai to Egypt in 1982), and had only gotten a few hours of napping in that day before striking out for the mountain. Dahab was too amazing for us to stay asleep all day. Let me say that if Sharm el-Sheikh was exactly what an Egyptian beach town shouldn't be, Dahab is everything it should. It's small enough that we constantly saw all of our other friends from AUC who were visiting, but big enough to have lots of options for dining and having fun. It's all situated directly on the water; you can see Saudi Arabia right across the Sea!

View from the Corniche in Dahab!

So, we spent the day hanging out in the sun and playing with the precious family of kittens who lived at one of our favorite restaurants there. We had fun, but didn't exactly rest or warm up for the three-hour climb to come later. Our convoy left our hotel (Seven Heaven hostel-- it was really nice, considering it was only $8 USD/night, if you're planning a trip to Dahab soon!) around 11 pm, and when we got to the base of Mount Sinai (where St. Catherine monastery is located) at 1 am, it was very, very cold. I was excited to be able to use my Marmot parka again (second time all trip, haha). But not 20 minutes after we started climbing, we all started to shed layers.

Kitten family :)

The first two-thirds of the Sinai climb are relatively easy; the incline is gentle, but problems arise if (like us) you forgo flashlights to try to get an authentic experience of climbing under moonlight. The paths are so loose and rocky that you are liable to fall or trip often if you can't see what you're doing. I advise you to bring a flashlight if you climb it, and a walking stick if you have any joint issues (even feet or ankles). Our guide wasn't too helpful; I hear that many other people's guides weren't either. However, he did alert us when we reached the most difficult part of the climb: you spend the last 30 minutes or so on a very rocky, very dangerous Lord of the Rings-style "stairway" (I use that term loosely, as it was more like a jagged, life-threatening pile of boulders). Thankfully, we couldn't see quite how vicious the "stairs" were, so we hoofed our way up and made it to the summit about 45 minutes before sunrise.

The stairs (from below in the morning, after our descent)

Laura and me at the summit at sunrise!

It was very nice, if a little surreal; the peak was packed, and many of the people were singing Romanian hymns as the sun rose. I felt a little sad because I was too cold and tired (going on 48 hours without legitimate sleep) to really enjoy the sunrise. We rented blankets and mattresses, which were worth the $6 USD or so we each spent, because it was once again freezing cold at the summit. We picked our way back down the stairs of doom in the sunlight, then skidded back down the main, gravelly trail. Within the next few hours, we were on our way back to Dahab to enjoy the rest of our Saturday!

Beautiful views of the surrounding mountains from the Elijah Plateau at the base of the stairs.

My climbing group went back to Cairo on Saturday night, but I decided to get a single at our hostel and stay another night so that I could spend some time with my other friends from AUC who were in Dahab for the weekend. I felt like so far, all I had done was be tired and hike; I expect a little more than that out of a vacation! (Matt from Baylor also said I was a high-maintenance traveler because I brought a neck pillow. No, that's called being pragmatic and ergonomic. And I was sleeping more comfortably on the nine-hour bus rides back and forth to Cairo. So there.) I had an amazing time eating out and just having fun with the other study abroad kids, and I continue to marvel at my ability to stay in hostels by myself and actually be independent. Since the Zamalek dorms are as strict and overprotective as my sorority house was at USC, I'm always surprised by the level of freedom I can have when I just step outside those walls.

I'm back at school for the next week, but I only have six short days until I leave for D.C.! Those will, of course, be filled with presentations (one today, one tomorrow), papers, and quizzes, but that's life at AUC. We joke that every single exam that's not actually a final is considered a midterm. There's also a very strange policy here: namely, if a professor misses class for personal reasons (i.e. sickness or family needs), the students are expected to make it up. One of my professors has been in Europe for the past three weeks, so I'm going to be spending a lot of extra time at school. It will definitely be nice to step out of my routine here for five days or so as I visit America next week!

making plans to change the world while the world is changing us...

It seems impossible to me that I'll be home in Atlanta five weeks from Sunday. It's not that the trip has gone by so quickly; things I did in the first month here, like visiting Alexandria, seem like years ago. Rather, it's that I had been planning on and looking forward to this semester for a long time-- at least three years-- and it's so strange that it's almost over. In a lot of ways, I think I have kind of been subconsciously dividing my life plans into a "before Egypt" section and "after Egypt" section. Before Egypt, I was just a college junior, looking ahead to the next few years but not really reaping any of the benefits of my work yet. I'd only left the continent once, and had never gone more than two months or so without seeing my parents. After Egypt comes the future: senior year, the GRE, graduate school, fellowships, (probably) moving to Washington, D.C., and a whole lot of goodbyes.

Well, since spring break, After Egypt has been approaching at a faster and scarier rate than I could ever have imagined. A lot of it is great stuff. I will be interning on Capitol Hill this summer in the office of my hometown (Decatur, Georgia) Representative, Hank Johnson, on behalf of J Street, a pro-Israel, pro-peace lobby for which I worked on a few projects while interning at the Carter Center Human Rights program last summer (more on J Street here). Especially as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict comes more and more to the forefront of international politics with the Obama administration's increased emphasis on the settlement issue, I am incredibly excited to be right in the middle of everything for the whole summer! But this also marks another two months I'll be spending away from Atlanta, my oldest friends, and my family, and my first experience living alone. I've felt so ready for this experience (living in D.C.) for so long that thinking it's happening in six weeks feels totally surreal.

Two weeks ago, I was also told that I'm being flown to D.C. on May 5 for four days to interview for a huge graduate fellowship program. I don't want to say too much about it for fear of jinxing myself, but if you're a friend or family member, please feel free to ask . If I thought I was nervous about moving to D.C. in June, it doesn't even compare to how excited and anxious I am about this opportunity. It was also great to hear that I get to take a little jaunt back to the U.S. (free of charge-- the best part!), a month earlier than I thought I would be returning. My parents are going to be able to come up and see me while I'm there, which is even better, and I have other family members in the area who I'm excited to spend time with. But it's just another future destination rushing up to meet me-- so much faster than I expected it would.

I can't even begin to cover here all of the preparations I've been having to make for my senior year at USC while I'm abroad. From running for executive board positions in organizations to planning Homecoming for my sorority to finding a director for my senior thesis, I sometimes feel like I never left Columbia at all! I hear that from a lot of the other study abroad students here, as well. I think studying abroad in my parents' era must have been a very different experience; with email, Facebook, Skype, and international cell phones, I always have one foot back in South Carolina, even if the rest of me is here in Egypt.

I've been thinking lately about something I heard at the study abroad orientation session I attended last semester at USC. The speaker said that, while it's hard to actively feel yourself changing, everyone comes back from a study abroad experience irrevocably changed. It's kind of the point, right? And considering how much I think I've changed from semester to semester even without leaving the Southeast, it scares me a little how different I may be the time I move back to Columbia for sorority rush in the fall. Will I even fit there anymore? Even with 25,000 students, is USC going to be too small for me now?

I really don't know. I miss USC, Columbia, Atlanta, all of my friends, and most of all, my family more than I can say, and that's not even mentioning all of the tiny little things about America I never appreciated before leaving: courtesy and Southern hospitality; animal shelters; effective social services; my own cell phone, and being able to call anyone whenever I want; a non-twin-sized bed; pork (which I never really even eat at home); traffic control of any kind; weirdly, American-style Chinese food; and MARTA trains where everyone feels safe to ride together, as opposed to a gender-segregated subway. (Did I really just say I missed MARTA? Seriously?) But maybe there will be a dozen other things I actually miss about Egypt when I get back (other than the exchange rate, that is). Maybe I'll be addicted to getting new stamps in my passport, and staying in one country for the rest of the year will be torture. I don't know, so there's nothing to be done except to look forward to the bright, bright future of After Egypt, and enjoy the time I have left here as best I can.

I started on that latter task this weekend by going to Dahab, a resort town on the Red Sea, with a lot of my closest friends from AUC! The post directly after this one will have pictures and some stories, mainly about my climb of Mount Sinai. I hope y'all are still reading!

spring break part two: jordan and sharm

Looking back on the trip, my friends and I (and most of the other AUC students who visited) agree that Lebanon was the best stop on our journey. Jordan definitely had its charms, but there were many downsides as well-- the worst being the exchange rate. The Jordanian dinar is about as strong as the British pound, making the exchange rate 0.7 dollars to the dinar. Although it wasn't necessarily an expensive country, for a place much more like Egypt than it was like Europe, things weren't cheap.

I will say that Jordan was significantly cleaner than Egypt (though you could say that's damning with faint praise), and maybe even cleaner and better-organized than Lebanon. Our hotel, the Cameo in northern Amman, was very, very nice for what we paid, and the managers were so helpful with our questions and assisting us in traveling the country. Jordan was the first place I've seen in the Middle East with actual traffic control, from speed bumps to cops with radar guns to parking tickets. That could be a result of the difference between Lebanon's government (still in relative upheaval) and Jordan's strict monarchy. Unlike Egypt and Lebanon, Jordan is actually the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. However, while posters and reproduced paintings of King Abdullah II (husband of American-educated Queen Rania) are literally everywhere, the Jordanian attitude is more liberal than, say, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This could be because of the country's focus on tourism; there are so many designated sites to visit in Jordan that one group of AUC students spent their entire 12-day break there.

We stayed in Amman for two nights, but for a large, wealthy capital city, there really just isn't much to do there. We wandered the downtown area on our first day there , and while we ate some delicious mansaf (the Jordanian national food; a large piece of chicken or lamb [simply called "meat" here, which I find hilarious] over rice, with a cheesy broth/dip on the side), the sidewalk souqs (markets) were a pale and pricey comparison to the enormous Khan el-Khalili in Cairo. We went to visit the "Roman ruins"-- one of only two historical/educational attractions Amman seems to have-- and it was just a few columns right in the middle of town, its marble all weedy and the chain-link fence rickety. Our hotel was out in the suburbs (most of Amman is suburban, and all the buildings are built in the same square, flat-roofed, white style due to the heat), so there wasn't much within walking distance. However, we did go to the mall (not quite as crazy as the City Stars mall in Cairo, but close), AND (I was really excited) we saw a person with a Clemson sticker on their car! That will probably be the only time I'm excited to see a Clemson fan. (Just kidding... kind of.)

After the relaxation of the first day, we took our second day in Amman to visit the Dead Sea. Because of the aforementioned exchange rate and the relatively large size of Jordan geographically, it was too expensive for us to drive to multiple places in one day, so we missed out on seeing places like Mount Nebo (where Moses is buried), Jerash (the impressive ruins of a Roman city), and Wadi Rum (a desert with beautiful natural formations, much like the Black and White Deserts I visited in March). But the Dead Sea was definitely our top priority! We descended about 1800 m in elevation over an hourlong trip, from the high hills of Amman (1400 m above sea level) to the depths of the Dead Sea, the lowest land area on Earth (-422 m below sea level). Our first words upon getting out of the car were "Oh my gosh, that's Israel!" Since the Arab-Israeli conflict has been the focus of my studies for the past three years, to actually see Israel for the first time was amazing. It looks pretty much the same as the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea, but the lack of visible resorts and hotels on the Israeli side (most of the Israeli shore of the Dead Sea is located in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank-- i.e., the West Bank of the Jordan/Dead Sea) and constant drone of military planes overhead added gravity to the otherwise idyllic atmosphere.

The Dead Sea, as you may know, is named for its hypersalinity: because the lake's water is 33.7% salt, making it more than eight times saltier than ocean water, no life can survive in it. However, this unique environment also means that human bodies are less dense than the water, and naturally float rather than sinking, as they would in a normal lake. The thick, black mud on the lake floor is also prized for its exfoliating qualities and sold in spas around the world. These aspects of the Sea made it fun to play in for several hours, although John did accidentally put his face and eyes into the water. Don't do that if you ever visit the Dead Sea (there is a sign outside that warns you not to, but clearly it's easy to ignore). We laid out by the pool at the resort for the rest of the afternoon. This was the first place I visited in the Middle East where I saw people (mostly Europeans and Americans, of course) wearing Western swimsuits, and they made an odd contrast with the Jordanian and Saudi men sitting poolside in their keffiyehs and galabeyas (traditional scarf headdresses and loose robes).

On our last full day in Jordan, the Cameo arranged for our same driver from the day before to take us to Petra, about two hours south of Amman, wait for us while we toured, and then drive us another hour south to the coastal city of Aqaba. This was great, because it would have been hard for us to find a bus to Aqaba in Petra, and we wouldn't have been able to guarantee the security of our bags while we hiked around the ancient city. We were visiting on a very hot and sunny day, and also on the same one chosen by at least five or six other groups from AUC. While the city is beautiful and it's mind-boggling to think that these intricate buildings were carved out of solid rock and actually built into the mountains, I'm still not sure whether the visit was worth the $50 USD (33 dinar) and vicious sunburns. Petra is, however, one of those places in the Middle East that you absolutely have to visit, and is one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, so I'm sure in hindsight I'll be glad I went.

I'm not kidding when I say it wasn't an easy trip, though. Petra, an ancient Nabatean city taken over by the Romans and differentiated from other cities of the time by the fact that its buildings are carved entirely into the mountains of Wadi Musa in southern Jordan, has been left unpaved, and walking through thick sand can make a leisurely stroll into a tough hike. It's also a real city, and of proportional size to a real city; you can spend up to three days just visiting its attractions. We wanted to be done in four hours, which required a lot of speedy walking and climbing. There are also locals constantly harassing you, asking if you would prefer to ride a donkey through the city; some of our friends did this, but we resisted. The Treasury at Petra (see picture) is by far the most impressive and recognizable sight in the whole city, and many of the other buildings can just seem like less-well-preserved renditions of the same architecture. But I am glad that I went, as rigorous a tour as it was. And anyone else who has the chance should go-- just come prepared!

The beautiful, ancient tectonic canyon that forms the path into Petra.

In front of the famous Treasury at Petra!

We drove into Aqaba, Jordan's only coastal city (at the juncture of the Red Sea, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia) that night, ready to celebrate Leo's 21st birthday and set sail for Egypt's Sinai the next day. I had several applications and emails to take care of, and internet had been so intermittent throughout the trip that I needed about three hours in our hotel's business center to get my life together. Aqaba seemed nice, but we didn't really have a chance to do any sightseeing, and it's not a historical attraction in the way that Byblos or Beirut are. Our hotels were also getting progressively nicer as our journey went on; the Days Inn in Aqaba was the first one to have a shower with a bathtub!

The ferry across the Red Sea from Aqaba to Nuweiba, Egypt was the only reasonable way for us to travel from Jordan to Egypt without paying for another flight (other AUC students took it, too), but it was honestly pretty awful. I don't have much ferry experience (the only one I've taken, I think, being that from the North Carolina mainland to Ocracoke Island), but even Staten Island native Leo was surprised that we weren't allowed to go outside at all for the entire four-hour ferry ride. The boat was very crowded (although being in second class rather than economy helped), but the worst part was that we sat in our seats for a full two hours after we reached Nuweiba. Why? Who knows. We were definitely back in Egypt. Also, John was told that his visa was invalid for reentry, and only after going to the bank at the dock, paying for a new visa, and taking it to the immigration office for approval was he told that his visa was actually valid and he'd done all that for nothing. We had expected to spend the whole day traveling, but hadn't realized just how annoying and taxing that travel would be. Haggling for a microbus to take the four of us and our luggage (plus our friends Emily and Amy, who we ran into at the dock) to Sharm el-Sheikh (a two-hour drive) was equally unpleasant, although we did eventually get the driver down to the price we had been told by Egyptian friends was reasonable to pay.

Haggling here is a complex art, and extremely common-- if something doesn't have a price tag on it, it is open for bidding. You're at a disadvantage if you don't have a clear idea of the item's value beforehand, and in the case of taxis, bus rides, and the like, it is always best to ask a friendly, trustworthy local (i.e. someone who has no monetary interest in ripping you off), or a travel official/tourist police officer what kind of price to expect. The driver/salesperson will always go into the sale asking for significantly more than the item's value, and you should ask for less than its value. Stand your ground, even when he starts yelling and cursing you, and eventually most salespeople of any kind will come down. Or, he'll drive away, and you'll bargain with the next one to come along. No problem (mafish mishkala).

The main issue we faced with bargaining in the Sinai was that there are very few Egyptian residents living there, and the swarms of Eastern European (and some Italian and British, but very few American) tourists buzzing about the beaches of Sharm meant that taxi drivers and other salespeople (restaurant managers, grocers, internet cafe owners, etc.) were accustomed to being easily able to rip people off, to the point where all prices were incredibly inflated. A taxi ride that would have cost perhaps 10 LE (Egyptian pounds; around $2 USD) in Cairo cost 40 LE ($8 USD) there. All food was both very mediocre and very expensive. I was aghast at the prices of things like pretzels in stores. I'm sure this is the same kind of exchange-rate shock I'll experience when I get home, but I feel the difference is that the expensive stuff in Sharm was still Egyptian expensive stuff (i.e. produced for, worth, and usually sold at a much, much lower price). Considering how poor we all were from the expenses of Lebanon and Jordan, we had been looking forward to getting back to the Egyptian exchange rate (5.5 LE to 1 USD), and the cost of Sharm put us in an unpleasant mood for the rest of the trip.

This isn't to say that Sharm el-Sheikh wasn't beautiful; it was. The Red Sea was gorgeous, and snorkeling to see the magnificent coral reefs and huge schools of fish was awesome. Our hotel was very nice, and thanks to John's hotel-booking skills (and maybe also the fact that we were sleeping five people in a two-person double room), relatively cheap. Thanks to a scheduling mix-up, our friend Rosie found herself with extra time during break, and hopped an overnight bus from Cairo to meet us at the beach (accounting for the fifth person in the room). It was so fun to have a fresh face in the group for the last few days of the trip! I think in the future, though, I will definitely be choosing Dahab, the cheaper, more student/backpacker-oriented Red Sea resort area, over Sharm. Speaking of the future, I'll actually be going to Dahab in four days, but more about that in my next post!

The main pool at our resort in Sharm.

The beautiful Red Sea-- there are huge coral reefs right along the shore!

The trip was worth every penny, and any small frustrations (or significant sunburns) we had were nothing compared to the daily frustrations of Cairo. The clean air in all three places we visited was reason enough to leave the Nile Delta, one of the most polluted regions in the world, for two weeks. I added several new stamps to my passport, and can now say I've visited four continents (Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America)! I got to know John, Leo, and Chelsea so much better, and really felt like a world traveler rather than just a student in Cairo. But in the end, I was happy to come "home," to my little dorm room on its leafy, familiar street in Zamalek, the other AUC friends I'd missed, free internet, and, of course, that good old Egyptian exchange rate.

life is beautiful around the world! spring break: lebanon

Not that I haven't developed a complicated affection for this city, but I never expected to hear myself say the words "I can't wait to go back to Cairo." And as much as I was completely blown away by the places I visited on my spring break trip to Lebanon, Jordan and the Sinai, by the last leg of my 12-day trip, I was ready to go "home." Sure, Cairo may not have clean air, or my friends and family, or even Diet Coke, but my time away made me realize just how comfortable I feel here. I know where everything is, how much taxis should cost, and the local dialect (the huge changes in Arabic from country to country are ridiculous), and here in Zamalek I have free wireless (SO hard to come by, even at nice hotels), laundry facilities, a shower with a curtain, and my Cairo friends and family, who I really did miss while I was gone.

Sorry that I haven't been able to blog in a while. For the two weeks or so leading up to spring break, which began March 26, I was drowning in midterms, and wasn't able to leave Cairo for any fun weekend trips. There wasn't really much to write home about, haha. But now, I have finished my tests and gone on the trip of a lifetime, so I have a LOT to tell you about. I may split this up into two posts so it doesn't get too long.

I started planning my spring break trip back in February with three of my best friends at AUC, Chelsea, John, and Leo. Most of the AUC kids spend spring break traveling to multiple places within cheap flight or bus distance from Egypt: Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Greece, and the European resort-style beaches on the coast of Egypt's Sinai Desert. After a lot of thought (and research about flights, bus routes, and ferries), we settled on visiting Lebanon for four days, Jordan for four days, and Sharm el-Sheikh in the Sinai for four days. We decided to fly from Beirut to Amman rather than crossing through Syria, since obtaining visas into Syria can take many hours due to the lack of diplomatic relations between that country and the U.S. I'm sad, though, that I wasn't able to visit Syria; all of my friends who went over break (and who have gone in the past) say it's beautiful and the people are extremely hospitable. Insha'Allah I will have another chance to go in the future!

We set out for the Cairo airport (those of you who may have traveled with me before will be shocked to know that my bag weighed the least of the four of ours, and that's with two boys in the group!), running into two other groups of AUC students before our flight even took off. As soon as we stepped off the plane in Beirut, we could feel a palpable change in the air, and it wasn't just the refreshing lack of pollution. The customs officers were largely female (because the Egyptian military/police operates on an all-male draft, this would never happen in Egypt), and they were all wearing perfectly tailored uniforms and high heels. The first woman I saw out of uniform was wearing a tight pencil skirt that hit above her knee! It was honestly like surfacing after having been underwater for two months.

I need to mention that the Lebanese people are gorgeous almost without fail. The women are beautiful, the men are handsome, and the babies are absolutely the most adorable babies I've ever seen. Plus, they're all very well-dressed, thanks to Beirut's substantiated reputation as the "Paris of the Middle East," and because there are no taxes on foreign cars here, you can't walk a block without seeing multiple Range Rovers and Maybachs. It's just an aesthetically pleasing place, and a nice change from the trash- and animal waste-filled streets of even the wealthiest parts of Cairo.

Our hotel had a view from the balcony of the Mediterranean, but that was where the amenities pretty much ended. The manager of the hotel was so rude to us that we just found it hilarious (he told us that other guests had complained because Chelsea took a shower at night, and it was "too loud"). Add to that the spider infestation, towels that smelled like a Cairo sewer, and a tiny TV nailed to the ceiling. Mumtaz (excellent). We were, however, getting the rooms for a very low price, and other AUC groups who passed through said they didn't mind the manager as much. It didn't matter to us in the end; Beirut was awesome, regardless of the hotel.

If you are at all interested in visiting the Middle East, Beirut (and the rest of Lebanon) should be a top priority. It's cheaper than Europe (not by much, but still), but very European in atmosphere; right on the Mediterranean, with beaches, etc.; great food, from sushi to hot dogs to amazing, traditional Lebanese; excellent shopping; and lots of sights to see. It's very sobering to drive through the city and see bullet holes and other damage left over from the Lebanese Civil War and the more recent conflict with Israel in 2006. As Chelsea said while we were there, "If you live here, what is there to fight about?" It's that beautiful.

I was lucky enough to have a contact in Beirut through my friend Karim, with whom I interned at the Carter Center last summer in Atlanta. He attended AUB prior to the 2006 war, and still has many friends in the area. One of them, Sarmad, hosted us for a night; he picked us up at our hotel, introduced us to his friends, and gave us a great tour of the famous Beirut nightlife! Because of him, we had such a unique and authentic experience. It was great. During the days we spent in the city, we visited the National Museum of Beirut and the newly-built Blue Mosque in downtown, some lovely churches (Lebanon is around 35% Christian-- another refreshing change!), and the breathtaking campus of the American University in Beirut. We AUC students were green with envy upon seeing the rolling hills, lush flora, and private beach that AUB boasts. It reminded me of the climate and look of Stanford.

The National Museum of Beirut!

"Sarcophagus of the Drunken Cupids." Haha.

The beautiful Blue Mosque.

We had to wear special robes and headscarves inside. This is not always the case with mosques, but if they do want you to cover your hair they usually provide a scarf.

The AUB campus football fields, sloping down to the Mediterranean.

On our days out of Beirut, we visited Jeita Grotto, a network of caves full of otherworldly stalactites and stalagmites, including the largest stalagmite in the world (8 meters long). The mountains that form the western coast of Lebanon (on the Mediterranean) make for a beautiful drive, and the Grotto was embedded in the mountain range. The top cave area is walkable, and guides drove us on motorboats through the lower area. It's considered one of the natural wonders of the world and is worth seeing for sure.

With Chelsea at Jeita Grotto. No pictures were allowed inside the caves :(

After Jeita Grotto, we went on to Byblos, one of the (if not the) longest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It's a coastal town with an ancient castle and excellent seafood. We only had a few hours there, but it was really fun-- I'd definitely go back. The next day, we made a lengthy expedition to Baalbek. Although this city is the site of the largest intact Roman temple remaining anywhere in the world, we had debated going there because it is located in the Bekaa Valley east of the aforementioned mountain range, also known as Hezbollah territory. We had heard from AUC friends, though, that it was very safe, so we took the plunge. We really didn't have much to worry about; short of a sudden prevalence of stores selling weapons and ammunition, campaign signs for the political party, and salesmen hawking bright yellow Hezbollah t-shirts to tourists, it was pretty similar to any other rural Middle Eastern area. The ruins of the temple of Jupiter at Baalbek were so, so worth it. As you can see from the pictures (although they don't even do it justice), it is massive, and it's mind-boggling to think that it was constructed in Greco-Roman times. It's also shocking to think about the distance between Baalbek and Rome. Even though I studied Latin for all of middle and high school, I think this was the first time I had actually grasped the sheer size and impressiveness of the Roman empire.

Byblos!

Huge remaining segment of columns from the inner room of the temple of Jupiter at Baalbek.

We flew out of Beirut the next day, and it was awesome for two reasons: first, Royal Jordanian Airlines is the best airline I have ever flown with (the flight attendant even handed me my muffin before John got his, saying "Ladies first!" I have never heard that phrase here and am rarely served first in Egypt if there's a man present). Second, the sky was clear and the flight brief, so I was able to watch the landscape below the whole time. The mountains we had driven through the day before were just as impressive from above, and I could even see the exact road we had taken most of the way to Baalbek. Syria looked just as beautiful. I think perhaps the most enlightening aspect of my trip so far has been the realization that the Middle East is geographically diverse to an extent we don't even see that often in the U.S. There's a Western perception (and I'm not saying I haven't been guilty of it) that the Middle East is all arid, unbearably hot desert, from Morocco to Iran. That couldn't be further from the truth. With beach resorts, snowy mountain skiing, wide agricultural plains, hilly seaside towns, and deserts, Lebanon is a perfect example of this.

I'll discuss the legs of our trip spent in Jordan and Sharm in my next post!