salaam ya masr (peace, egypt)

salaam ya masr. ashufak f-il-musta'bal, in sha' allah

musaafara fi-l-urduun (travelling in jordan)

laura and i went to jordan for a few days after classes ended. it was a sweet trip.

Petra, a city carved into and out of the cliffs

a sunset from on top of some old tombs. we found an old staircase that wasn't quite a staircase all the time to take us there

us

!

some talmudic inscriptions on a rock in the wadi rum desert. a few thousand years old. if you can read them, you're the only one.

but we know what that says

laura's foot and the desert

our hotel room in the morning

my bed after i woke up

a dungeon in Shoubak castle, built by Byzantine crusaders

the castle itself

and more of it

the dana nature reserve on a foggy, cloudy, soon to be rainy day; pardon the scratch on the lens

laura in tie dye at the dead sea beach

it may be a dead sea, but it's a sweet beach

i didn't know what to think of the old, fat man smearing mud all over himself at first

we're ephemeral beings

agazat-ii f-isra'il wi falastin (vacation in israel and palestine)

the second half of my 'eid vacation was with my friend erin. we went to israel and palestine for a few days. we were mostly in the old city in jerusalem, which is where we stayed at night and where all the historical biblical sites are. we went to palestine twice: once to go to ramallah and the second to go to beit jala. it was an interesting experience, we never felt unsafe, and we got to see the things for ourselves. as a bonus, we managed entry into israel without getting our passports stamped, which some of the other aucians couldn't seem to swing, so we don't lose the chance to visit other countries in the area.

at the wailing wall, but not a photograph of the wailing wall; don't be misled

we met drew at our hostel and he became our traveling buddy for the day. if you want to get close to the wailing wall, and if you don't have a kippa of your own, you've got to put one of those paper ones on your head.

the dome of the rock, the rock being the one on which abraham was to sacrifice isaac/ishmael (depending on which book you read); it's a mosque now, and since sharon came to power it's been off limits to non-muslims.

a chandlier in the church of the holy sepulchre

the tomb of jesus in the holy sepulchre, where his body was laid before his resurrection. it's tiny, and there were other people who i didn't want to bother with a flash, thus the fuzzy

one of thos people lighting a candle in prayer

jerusalem looks beatiful everywhere, but especially so from the Mount of Olives at sunset

israel puts walls up along its borders with palestine

going from ramallah back into jerusalem is like being in prison for a few moments, and more than a few if you're palestinian (this picture has to be tiny; that's just how it goes)

beit jala is a palestinian town near jerusalem. there's not much in it, but there was one restaurant with the best hummus i've ever eaten in my life.

jerusalem is that way

agazat-ii f-il-aswan w-al-luqsur (vacation in aswan and luxor)

for the first part of my 'eid el-fitr vacation (the holiday at the end of ramadan), i went with some friends to upper egypt (in the south) to aswan, abu simbel, and luxor, where they keep most of the history intact. i figured i deserved something nice, since i fasted the whole lunar month.

elphantie island has ancient temples and a nubian village, but that's the part where i'm not allowed to go

part of the wall in a temple

a door to a house in the nubian village

justin, aleks, and i all have similar cameras.

a tree at the high dam in aswan

Egyptian Hohos are flat and rectangular.

I climbed a small mountain in the Valley of the Kings and got a sweet view.

and I saw this rock.

the temple (or some such similar word) of Hatshepsut.

A statue there.

Habu Temple. Not a big tourist destination; we had it all to ourselves for over three hours.

what a sweet temple.

is-sahara li-l-agaza (the saharan desert for the weekend)

my friends and i went camping in the western saharan desert for the weekend.

the desert

this is what it looks like if you stick your hand out of the window and take a picture

and so is this

erin and i got our fair share of desert running in. who could pass up something so sweet?

what we saw after one of our runs

dig it.

desert sunset

desert sunrise

the area where we camped for the night

it's a sweet desert, the sahara