I'll need a train ride to catch up on these blogs, haha. I figured I'd keep the pictures coming though. Here are some pictures from our day in Luxor. Karnak temple is the largest ancient temple in the world. The magnitude is incredible. The Luxor temple, though it is much smaller, is equally as cool because the condition of the statues are so much better. Also, you're able to see the Roman influence and the temple walls where Roman paintings were chipped away to find the ancient Egyptian carvings underneath. One of the coolest things of today was a group of Egyptian women traveling from Alexandria stopping to thank us for traveling to Egypt. A man at the temple translated for us, because Michael and I did not understand, but the women wanted a picture with ... read more

I woke up before Michael. I glanced at my watch and it was 9:00am. It wasn’t a bad night’s sleep at all considering we were on a moving train the whole time. Almost as if the conductor was listening for movement, he knocked on our door and asked if we were ready for breakfast. I replied yes and Michael jumped right out of bed at the mention of food. Men. We were given assorted pastries, jam and tea. Not too bad. As we ate we admired the view out our window. The farms along the Nile were luscious and green. Egyptians were hard at work towing the fields. The handmade scarecrows made me laugh to myself. They were literally t-shirts on a cross with some metallic ribbon tied to the top. It is simple, yet probably ... read more

Michael and I are all safe in Cairo :-) Here’s a recap of our first trip here via Paris! April 1st/April 2nd At 3:43pm on April 1st, 2011 I had finally sent out my final work email, enabled my out-of-office reply, locked up the apartment, call Mom and Dad for some final farewells, hailed a taxi and officially embarked on the trip of a lifetime to Egypt. Michael and I had been planning this trip since November 2010 and, as you can imagine, there has been a roller coaster of uncertainties about the trip since then due to the spring revolutions. To do a final check and see our flight status remain ‘On Time’ was really a blessing considering our flight to Cairo was 2 days away from the March 28th suspended service to Cairo for ... read more

Today I brought my camera to breakfast to look at the pictures taken yesterday. I realized its not working right - I have to squeeze it for it to turn on and I can only take one picture. It won't let me take another! O no! I don't know what happened to it at all. Thankfully, Karolina has a camera so there will be pictures for the remainder of the trip - I know you were worried blog readers. This is so sad though. I love this camera, it was a gift from Michael this Christmas, and I'll definitely need it in Egypt starting April 1st. Well, after breakfast we headed to the pool. I even went in the pool because at 9:00 there was absolutely no one in the pool. I did a few laps ... read more

It's March 7th, which means exactly one month until my birthday. Woah, time flies! Today, Karolina and I washed up and headed to breakfast at Paradise restaurant, which has become our routine. We were greeted with a big smile from Poly, the head waiter, and he lead "his princesses" to a nice table overlooking the pool. I finally tried the yogurt that Karolina was raving about for the first few days of our trip. I had mango yogurt and mixed in granola, flax seed, wheat germ, coconut and strawberries. She was right -- so good! I also had some salsa, chicken and eggs mixture that was incredible. We finished up and quickly hurried off to the port to catch our 9:00 boat out to the Las Marietas Islands. Today we plan on whale watching (I've never ... read more