St. Olaf Global Semester 2017

Hi everybody! This is Peder, writing for our third day in Luxor (9/27). On this day, we woke up early, had omelettes at the continental breakfast, and got ready for a day of touring at the Valley of Nobles, the Valley of Workers, and the Habu Temple. At both the Valley of Nobles and the Valley of Workers, we descended into small, steep tombs that were beautifully painted, and incredible to see. We went on to the Habu Temple where our tour guide, Mohammed, told us the history of the artwork and the stories of the hieroglyphs. It was another beautiful, historic space that we felt so lucky to enter. After these tours, we made it back to hotel for lunch and a relaxing, free rest of our day. We spent this free afternoon eating ice cream at the hotel and making use of the pool in the hot weather. While at the hotel, we met a group of college students our age staying at the hotel for an Egyptian environmental development conference. We made some new friends and played a huge game of water...

Hello all, Rose here with Luxor day 2! As Erin mentioned in yesterday's post, LUXOR. IS. HOT. This is why we Globies agree to a 6:00am pre-blazing-desert-heat hotel departure, especially when we know we're heading out into the desert to explore the ancient Theban necropolis. We started at the temple of Hatshepsut (pronounced hat-cheap-suit: a true learning moment), where the queen used to worship the sun god. Next stop was the Valley of the Kings, a highly concentrated area of royal pharaonic remains. We explored several tombs, including that of Thutmose III, successor of Hatshepsut, which was a great workout. We were all awed by the obvious splendor of these tombs, as we dove deep into the desert rock, down long, straight passages whose walls and ceilings were completely covered by columns of brightly painted hieroglyphs and stories from Egyptian mythology (ask any Globie their personal favorite Egyptian god, and you'll probably get Anubis, the jackal-headed god of cemet...

Hello! Once again, my name is Erin and I will be your tour guide for our first day in Luxor! It seems like I’m always the one blogging about our EXTREMELY early days, and this one was no different. Waking up at 4:30 am actually required me to set a new alarm for my phone, and it was quite the struggle to get out of bed in the middle of the dark. But after a quick one-hour flight, we all arrived in Luxor (aka home to Karnak Temple, Luxor Temple, the Valley of the Kings, etc.) for a 3-day excursion. I think we all discovered a new definition of the word ‘hot’ today during our tour of Karnak Temple, and that only made our hotel pool feel all the more welcoming. However, besides the temples, ancient columns, and swimming pool, my first day in Luxor started off with quite the educational experience... After initially getting settled into the Eatabe Hotel this morning, we hungry travelers headed out in search of a pastry for breakfast. However, the very minute we stepped outside, a man...

Hello all, Will here! Today we had our second Survival Arabic course. We recapped on some phrases from our previous lecture and then moved into the good stuff- haggling, ordering, and yelling directions to taxi drivers that most likely have GPS. The language can definitely be difficult at times, but Professor AlEkhnawy has a very enjoyable and interactive way of teaching which helps a ton! After our first class, many students carried on the ritual of heading to Zooba for a quick bite. There the employees are starting to get familiar with us even though they spell Will, WLL a majority of the time. We began our second lecture for the day with Professor El Masry where we covered Egyptian society and family life. It was incredibly interesting to hear about the sociological side of Egypt and it gave us great insight on the society in whole. Near the end of the lecture, we held a debate on a contemporary issue in Egypt and opened up some great points for both sides. Overall, it was a...

Hello again friends and family of global! This is Matthew Boeker on day 23, and what a great day it was. We started the day by waking up to a morning bus tour around the city of Cairo.  This took us all the way from the outskirts of New Cairo to the West Bank by the pyramids and finally down to the southern part of the ring road which encircles Cairo. Along the way we stopped at a gorgeous cliff face overlooking the entire old city. Along the way, our tour guide/professor John Swanson helped to teach us some interesting socioeconomic trends that are prevalent throughout the Cairo area. We stopped for lunch when we got back to campus, and while I can only speak for part of the group, the restaurant Zooba has become like a second home. After an again delicious lunch, we heard from professor Swanson about the many facets of Islam in a very interesting lecture. As has been the custom, a group of us went to go play some ultimate frisbee after our three hours of lecture to blow off a l...

Hello everyone! It's Rachael. Today was our second day in Alexandria. After fueling our bodies with yet another outstanding hotel breakfast buffet, we set out to tour four sites. The first was a 15th century defensive fortress, called the Qatay Fortress, right on the coast of the Mediterranean and on the site of the old lighthouse. Next, we saw some catacombs, which were apparently discovered when some donkey fell into it while they were excavating the site, so that was kind of funny. After that we went to Pompey's Pillar at the Serapeum, which apparently is also sometimes referred to as simply "the column" because it's pretty much just a giant old column that used to be surrounded by the rest of a temple. The fourth site we went to was Kom el Dikka which is the site of a Roman amphitheater and some other structures dating back to the Graeco-Roman Period. The sites were each pretty cool in their own way and I think it's been interesting to see sites from dif...

Hello all! This is Kate, the last time I did the blog post we had just arrived in Rome. It is hard to believe we are now in deserts of Egypt! Today we set out from our apartments at the American University in Cairo for a two day adventure in Alexandria. On our way we stopped at two monasteries, one of them being that of St. Bishoy,   where we were given tours of the buildings and a history of the monasteries by one of the monks.  It was interesting to hear about both the religious and lifestyle habits of the practicing monks. This was followed by an interesting lunch at a truck stop area and then we were back on the road.  We arrived in the city with a loud, flashing police entourage and headed for the Library of Alexandria. It makes sense why this building is internationally famous. Not only does it have a huge selection of books, maps, and other materials, there are also four museums and a planetarium.   The outside of the building is equally as impressive...

Hi everyone! This is Mikkel! This was our second day of class in a lecture hall with a hyperactive AC system (temps reached a high of 16.5 degrees Celsius, folks). But we were all kept warm by the fiery pace of the lecture. Just as she did yesterday, Professor Bertini managed to fill a 6 hour period with an incredible amount of information on ancient Egyptian history. While her lectures seemed incredibly in depth to us at the time, she often reminded us that Egypt’s history began in 3000 BC, so her lecture is really more of a skim. To thank her for her time, we made her an honorary Ole by singing a ~beautiful~ rendition of Um Ya Ya!  After a nice mid-day break, we headed back to campus to sit in on an AUC political science class. This was our first time in a classroom with Egyptian students, and we all had a blast! Part way through, the class broke off into small groups where we had some time to ask questions, learn from each other, and make some friends! A lot was learned from t...

Hi all! It’s Brodie. Today was our second day of classes and our second day of apartment living. While class is mandatory, some of us have realized that cooking our own food for every meal is not. Two days on our own, and (I didn’t think I would say this) I miss the St. Olaf cafeteria..  Anyways, this was our first full day of lecture and we had incredible amounts of information enthusiastically thrown our way by Professor Bertini here at AUC. We eased into the day with an in-depth look at the 30 dynasties which occupy the time frame of roughly 5000 BC to 332 BC. After a short lunch break at the bakery on campus or Zooba (again) and a coffee boost, we returned to the lecture hall for an afternoon filled with Ancient Egyptian Art and Architecture. Finally, we capped off our day in the classroom with a look at the cities and temples of Memphis, Abu Sir, and Luxor, to name a few. After class, many of us chose to wander over to the athletic facilities where a group of us playe...

Hello! Macy here. We woke up today for the first time in the AUC apartments we will be staying in for the next month. We took our first crack at cooking our own breakfasts. Then we walked the 15 minutes over to campus for our first day of classes and our five senior Globies' last first day of class! Our class for the day was Survival Arabic with Professor Kamal AIEkhnawy. We learned how to introduce ourselves (ana ishmee Macy is 'my name is Macy'), and ask who other people are (inta ismak A? or inte ismik A? is 'what is your name?'). We also learned how to say 'I am from America' (ana min Amriika), 'I am American' (ana Amriikiyya) and 'I live in New Cairo' (Ih.na sakneen filQahira Eggideeda). With our brains full and stomachs empty we went to what is quickly becoming the favorite food spot on the AUC campus, Zooba, which serves Taamia (falafel), ful (fava bean sandwhich), and shwarma. Then we took advantage of the AUC facilities by p...

Hi! It is Olivia here. Today was an exciting day for us Globies…. WE MADE IT TO OUR FIRST LONG STAY LOCATION! That’s right, we have officially made it to American University in Cairo. After a drive through some crazy Egyptian traffic, we made it to our residence, the faculty housing apartments. And let me tell you, they are some nice apartments. They each have their own living room, kitchen, dining room, and 2 bathrooms. This sure beats the living out of a suitcase and hotel hopping that we’ve been doing for the past 2 weeks. After that, we made our way for our AUC campus tour. The campus is beautiful. It has plenty of palm trees and open courtyards in the shade. Walking around, we could see tan buildings framed by greenery and plenty of happy students milling around. We have to be careful about where we’re looking though, otherwise we will fall into the many fountains along the main walkway (I’m waiting for it to happen). It is an amazing campus and I’m excited to get to spent mo...

Hi Everyone!! Hannah here. Today we were fortunate enough to travel to Giza to see the pyramids, the Sphinx statue, and ride some camels. We were able to go into The Great Pyramid of Khufu, which is the most famous pyramid of them all. Prior to entering the extremely small pyramid passageway (hello claustrophobia) our guide, Amany, gave us a brief history lesson. Here are some quick facts that we learned today about the pyramid. Khufu was an Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh, who had this pyramid built to hold his burial chamber. To build The Great Pyramid of Khufu, it took 2 million 300 thousand blocks of stone. Each stone weighs approximately 2 tons, but as the pyramid gets higher, the stones get lighter and smaller. Every 2.5 minutes, a new stone was added to the pyramid structure. So you can see how it would take a long time for the pyramids to be built. It took twenty years to be exact. This is partially due to workers only being able to work four months each year. After our history le...

Hello readers! My name is Sophie, and I’m thrilled to take you on Global for a day! Today was our first day in Cairo, Egypt which is the first country that we’ll be staying in for a month. We arrived at our luxurious hotel, the Hotel Flamenco, around 3 am. All of us crashed until breakfast at 10, grateful for sleep and ready for the first day of touring. Our first adventure was locating an ATM and withdrawing super large sums of Egyptian pounds -- one US dollar is equivalent to about 17 Egyptian pounds, so you can imagine the huge wad of cash! We put some of the money to good use at a local market getting essentials like water and fruit. We left for the Cairo Museum around 12:30 with our coordinator Walid and our lovely tour guide Amany. It takes a village for us Oles to be safe and on time, so we also met our driver Tariq and a series of security escorts who will accompany us on tours. Amany will be leading us on tours for the rest of our time in Egypt and she is sassy and extreme...

Hey Everybody! It’s Clare coming at you from Cairo, Egypt. Today has mostly been a travel day, but we did start out with a bit of touring in Israel. At the Israel Museum, Sa’id walked us through a model of 1 st century CE Jerusalem. I believe the dimensions are about 2 cm per 1 meter for the extra curious folks reading this. We then saw some parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls. At 2,000 years old, these scrolls are the oldest known biblical manuscripts. Our time at the museum was capped off with a couple hours of free time to explore. Some wandered the archaeological exhibits, several perused the unique “Cats and Dogs” exhibit, while others found additional areas of the museum to enjoy. The model of the city After a delicious lunch of rice and chicken, we made our way to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. We then parted ways with Sa’id, and waited for a couple of hours in a very short line. Despite a delay and almost missed gate change, we made it to Athens. From Athens, we lan...

Marhabaan! That's "hello" in Arabic. My name is Maren, and today I was fortunate enough to set foot on of one of the holiest sites in Islam -- the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Getting there was easy. We plodded through the Old City in the morning in order to beat the heat. Stepping into the plaza area of Temple Mount, we watched as the sun glinted off of the gold-tiled dome. And on the far side of the courtyard lay a smaller, simpler structure -- a building literally overshadowed by the Dome of the Rock -- boasting sand-colored walls, a dark-silver dome, and a series of ordered archways. The entire space is known to Muslims as the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam. Non-Muslims aren't allowed inside of the buildings, but we could easily admire their significance from the exterior. Our tour guide, Sa'id, recounted its pre-construction, construction, reconstruction, destruction, reconstruction, and re-reconstruction (whew!). He told us of the empires i...

Hi everybody! It’s Anna, and this is our fourth day in Jerusalem! We hit the road pretty early to get to Hebron, where we visited the Cave of the Patriarchs. This site has a Jewish side and a Muslim side- our Palestinian tour guide, Sa’id, was not allowed to enter the Jewish part, which was an aspect of the day that discouraged and frustrated many of us.    The Jewish community of Hebron Later, we traveled to meet with Lutheran pastor Mitri Raheb at the Diyar arts conservatory in Bethlehem. He gave us some background on Christianity’s history in this area, as well as information on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  He expanded on his theory of "hope vs. optimism," and maintains hope for the Palestinian community, as he focuses on building bridges and restoring faith in culture through education.  We asked lots of questions about the conflict, and I think most of us feel like we could spend way longer here in order to take in all the nuances and challenges...

Hey there! My name is Adam and I am the next Globie to guide you through our latest experiences abroad. We had an unforgettable day today, so let's get started! Our day began at 5:30 AM (oh the life of travelers!) to pack and get prepared for our trip to Masada. The bus ride may have been long and winding, but the journey was definitely worth the nausea and fatigue. We learned all about these ancient ruins and the stories they tell of the final moments of the Jewish Revolt against the Roman empire, dating all the way back to 70 CE! On our way back to Jerusalem we decided to take a little dip in the Dead Sea ... what an experience! Because of the high salt concentration we were able to float on top of the water with zero effort and enjoy the wonders that the Dead Sea mud does for our skin. In the photo I, Kate, Ellie, and Hannah proceed to cover our bodies with the mineral-infused mud. It's all fun until someone gets salt in the eye! See you tomorrow!

Welcome, everyone, to your glimpse into the life of a Globie! My name is Alexandra, and I will be your tour guide today. I have, after all, learned from the best guide in Jerusalem (or so everyone on the street says as we queue up behind Sa'id). Today was a particularly somber day of touring as we spent the morning at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem and during the afternoon, we walked through the Old City following The Way of the Cross. On our walk, we were surrounded at every turn by the holiest sites in the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish traditions. We started our walk very near to the Dome of the Rock, took a moment to pause at the Wailing Wall, and followed the 14 points that create the story of Jesus' crucifixion, ending at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Yad Vashem was set up in a similar way, with a zig-zag path through the museum that walked us from the beginnings of the Anti-Semitic movement in Nazi Germany to the end of the Second ...

Hi everyone! This is Ellie and I will be taking you through day 9 of Global Semester and day 3 in Israel/Palestine! We started off our morning in Nazareth with a shrieking 6:30 am wake up call. After packing up our rooms and breakfast at the Sisters of Nazareth, we started our journey by bus to Jerusalem led by our bus driver, Sami, and our guide, Sa'id. Throughout the ride, Sa'id talked about the biblical history of places we passed and discussed the current Israel/Palestine conflict. He shared his views on the one, two, and three state solutions. Sa'id shared that he believes that peace will only come once there is acceptance from both sides. On our bus ride, we also crossed an Israel/Palestine checkpoint. Our first stop was at the sight where John baptized Jesus: the Jordan river. At the river we saw people from various cultures who had traveled here to be baptized. It was amazing to see how important this sight is to so many people. After hearing the explanation f...

Hello from Nazareth city, my name is James and I will be telling you about our first day after a goodnights sleep in Israel. Our morning started out with an early phone call, 6:15 to be exact, to wake us up for the day. After some bread, fruit, and well needed coffee we were off to Capernaum. About 45 minutes after gazing out of the bus windows onto mango and banana tree fields scattered around the outskirts of Nazareth city, we loaded off the bus in Capernaum. Capernaum was the home of the apostle Peter and also believed to be a temporary home to Jesus as well. Capernaum along with two other churches we toured throughout the day were located on the coast of the breathtaking Sea of Galilee. As one could imagine touring all day in the hot sun (getting as hot as 105 at one point) one would work up an appetite. But don't worry, we were well rewarded when we got to St. Peter restaurant. They had a full salad bar, which in Israel consists of: hummus...

Hello to everyone from Nazareth! This is Peder, posting for day number 7! Coming off of a 12:50 AM flight from Rome, we arrived in Tel Aviv excited to spend a week touring and learning in a new country. Soon after landing, we were met by our tour guide, Sa'id, and we all hopped on a bus with our driver, Sami. After a few minutes on the bus, Sa'id bought everyone a fresh, delicious breakfast from a nearby deli and we got ready for the day ahead. The day consisted of touring Caesarea, getting our feet wet in the Mediterranean Sea, eating a lunch of hummus, naan, and lentil soup, and touring a recreation of 1st century Nazareth. After touring, we arrived to our hotel and wandered the neighborhood around us, drinking freshly squeezed juice, exploring the market shops, and weaving through shawarma and falafel shops on the corners. The day was a test of everyone's endurance as we were unable to get much sleep the night before, but people powered through to have a memorable firs...

Hello, family and friends of Globies 2017, this is Rose Doda with an update on our last day in the Eternal City. Of course we are all hopelessly lost without the historical genius of our guide Francesca, so after packing up our luggage in the morning we met her for one last tour in order to further explore the Vatican after our little glimpse on Sunday. After taking advantage of the Vatican cafeteria to fuel our bodies and minds, we plunged into the depths of the Vatican museum, which holds such treasures as Raphael's School of Athens and the Gallery of Maps, not to mention Michelangelo's (or is that Mikkel-angelo's? We're not quite sure anymore...) breath-taking frescoes in the Sistine chapel, where Francesca braved the security guards to bring us back out safely. Of course no trip to the Vatican would be complete without exploring St. Peter's Basilica. While we've seen a lot of large and impressive buildings in the last few days, this one undoubtedly takes t...

Buongiorno, everybody! My name is Erin, and I'm here to give you a little glimpse into our incredible excursion today to Florence, Italy -- the City of Lilies! Keeping with the theme of the past week, there was a lot of walking, beautiful architecture, wonderful artwork, and of course a fountain of historical knowledge spewing from our incredible tour guide. The day started a wee bit early, with most of us rolling out of bed at 5:15 to catch an early train to Florence. However, after some sugary croissants and espresso from McDonalds (yes, they have that over here), we were ready to go. Our entertaining and funny tour guide, Patrizia, was there to meet us at the station, where she soon led us to the Church of Santa Croce to see the tombs of Galileo, Michelangelo, and Machiavelli. After a quick panini stop for lunch at Caffe Mario and some of Florence's best gelato, it was off to see the heart of city and Santa Maria del Fiore (a.k.a. Il Duomo, the largest freestanding structu...

Buon giorno, Globie friends and family. Will here with today's adventure filled blog post. Not only did we tour some fabulous above ground spots like the San Giovanni di Laterno and the Jewish quarter, but we also were able to descend underground into the Catacombs of Saint Sebastian. What better way to understand Rome than to trek down to the core of it. We arrived at the catacombs early in the morning with our famous tour guide, Francesca, by our side. Though I'm sure Francesca would've adored for the opportunity to give the tour herself, she complied and allowed the site tour guide to have a go. The tour lasted for 30 minutes as we wound our way though the narrow maze of tunnels, walking past the ancient tombs of persecuted Christians. It was quite a surreal experience. We also were able to tour San Giovanni di Laterno, referred to as the Arch-basilica of St. John Lateran. Francesca was back in the reigns as we learned that the basilica dates back to the 4th century...

Hello family and friends of Global! This is Matthew posting for day number three. It is crazy to most of us that it is only day three because we have packed so much into this trip already. Today we started off with a walk to St. Peter's Basilica to listen to the Pope speak to the crowds. It was an incredibly moving experience and incredible to see the crowd that gathered around to watch him speak. We continued the day with a tour of the National Museum of Rome led by our fearless tour guide Francesca. Even though we were exhausted by our long day we learned so much about all of the pieces there, and debated which would truly win in the mosaic of a giant lobster fighting a squid (the squid obviously). We finished off the day by going out to dinner along the river at a wonderful place that managed to fit all 24  of us at a single table. We also stopped at a gelato place on our way back to the hotel, because the day is not truly over in Rome until you have had gelato. I am constantl...

Hello, this is Rachael Bentley with a day two update. Yesterday brought more tired, jet-lagged touring with our dear tour guide, Francesca. We kicked off our day with a class meeting and an excellent group lunch at Le Terme del Colosseo. Then, we toured the Colosseum as well as the Roman Forum, the Palatine, and the Arch of Constantine. Francesca amazed us with her unbounded energy and bottomless well of knowledge, and she entertained us with her soft yet cutting critiques of the modern art displayed within the ancient ruins. After that we were on our own for dinner. I enjoyed some eggplant parmesan as well as my first gelato of the trip! To be honest, I thought beforehand that gelato was pretty overhyped but it's not. It's exactly as incredible as people claim it to be. We finished off our night exploring the bars and cafes near the river, then went to bed to prepare for more tours with Francesca tomorrow. Ciao!