Friday, October 30, 2009

Alexandria

Again, I was going to post this awhile ago, and then didn't. Sorry!

All 30 MESP students are completely stressed out right now since we’re trying to write 4 papers before we go on travel component – in a week! We also have finals in Arabic and ITP coming up. It’s been interesting watching everyone become more and more exhausted – after devos this morning Dr. Heather commented that we all “look so fragile”, which is a pretty good summary. If we actually survive this week, we’re all going to be useless when we get to Istanbul. Yay finals week – especially when you know there’s another one coming after travel.

On Friday most of us went up to Alexandria, which was amazing. The train took 4hrs to get there – it’s supposed to take 2 ½! We were all pretty frustrated, and it cut our time short but it worked out in the end. We went to the catacombs and I climbed around in tunnels and tombs where I wasn’t really supposed to be. We lost the “tour guide” as quickly as we could because he didn’t know anything anyway. It was great. So was the library. It’s huge - so many books!! And the shelves weren’t even half full! The whole thing was really open, with lots of space. It’s got a slanted roof so that the sun is always reflected onto the reading desks. I also really loved how many different languages the books were in. English, Arabic, French…it was so sweet. Oh, and they have a museum in the basement. With some of the earliest Iliad manuscripts. And 3rd century New Testaments. And really amazing combinations of Greek and Ancient Egyptian art – Horus sculpted in Greek style. Greek Gods wearing the double crown. It was crazy. Seriously, that library was awesome. I WANT one. We also tried to go to the Greco-Roman Museum. It took us a really long time to find it, and when we finally made it, we discovered that it had been closed for 2 years. Oops.

I also felt very cultured this weekend, because I helped other white people figure out what their train tickets said! Why yes, I can read Arabic numbers!

No comments:

Post a Comment