pilgrimage

We left yesterday around eleven in the morning to begin our pilgrimage to Mount Sinai. Aunt Chrissy, Abbie and I climbed in a rather spacious van with our drivers, Adel and Isam. We stopped to see the Suez Canal, slept a little, and Adel helped me with my Arabic. After about six hours, we arrived at the St. Katherine Protectorate, a National Park in the southern region of the Sinai peninsula.

We stayed at the Plaza, the Catherine* Plaza that is. It reminded me of a place I once stayed in Monjas, Guatemala, El Hotel Lopez. The linens were scratchy, and let's just say we were a little concerned about the potential for bed bug bites and/or intruders entering through our balcony, which I easily scaled in tennis shoes. Fortunately, we only slept for about two hours because we had to wake up early enough to begin our ascent at 2:00 AM. Dinner was included and was served buffet-style. Some things were more delicious than others, the chicken, for example, was great. The bread, not so much. Egyptians must not be the most talented bakers, because they even messed up the little cakes. How can you mess up cake? I didn't think it was possible.

At any rate, after a couple of hours of laughter reminiscent of the slumber parties of our youths, we got a couple hours of sleep, hopped out of bed, packed our little bag, and headed to the mountain. Adel drove us and introduced us to Mahmoud, our Bedouin guide. Think back to your SAT skills, because I'm about to throw an analogy at you:

Bedouin : Mt. Sinai :: Sherpa : Mt. Everest

Got it? Okay, so Mahmoud was this tall, skinny fellow who apparently does this five times a week or so. He carried our bag for us and helped us navigate the roughly five mile ascent through some of the especially treacherous spots. Once we hit the trail, the first thing I noticed was the stars. We were in the middle of the desert, and I haven't seen stars like that since perhaps I was a child in Alaska. The scenery surrounding us made me feel like I was on Mars or something. I'd never seen anything quite like these rocky peaks, just visible in the light of the cresent moon. After a few minutes of a gradual incline, we passed St. Katherine's monastery and came upon a couple of Bedouins offering camel rides. "You want camel?" they would say, "it is good camel and far way." We declined and continued into a small area where there had to be at least fifty camels tethered to rocks, some sitting, some standing, all chewing cud (from where, I cannot imagine). It was rather eerie, all those camels in the moonlight.

Every mile or so there was a "coffee shop," which consisted of a shack on the side of the path that sold candy bars, water, soda, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, etc. The headlamps supplied by Uncle Bill proved incredibly helpful, especially once we got to the end of the switchback camel trail and began the last segment of the climb, a series of 750 steps to to summit. Mahmoud warned us that all along the steps there would be Bedouins offering their hands to help us up the steep path, but that this help was not free. "Lah shakran," we repeated over and over again, "no thank you." Oddly enough, I heard a surprising amount of Russian, and it was pleasant to my ears.

Once we reached the point at which there were only 100 more steps, Mahmoud sent us on without him. I imagine he anticipated the crowds on the summit and was content to wait for our return after sunrise. We reached the summit just after 5:00 AM, and watched as the majestic scenery appeared before our eyes in the twilight. I thought about Moses, all those thousands of years ago, meeting with God on that very mountain top. I thought about how he had to make the journey alone, how he demanded that God show him His glory, how God had him hide in a cleft and passed his hand over it, how Sinai had been the place of the burning bush, when God first spoke to Moses, calling this place holy ground. I couldn't believe I was there.

Just as I was thinking that the sun had already come up and that we were simply unable to see it due to cloud cover and/or pollution, I looked over Aunt Chrissy's shoulder and saw it, peeking up over the horizon. It was bright orange against the dim yellows and blues of the sky, and quickly brought light and heat to the gray mountains all around us, turning them into a red-orange color.

The sun climbed into the sky with alarming speed, and it got hot fast. Though it was easier physically, the descent seemed longer with the heat and pronation of our toes, but we finally made it. We summitted Mount Sinai - probably my first internationally known mountain.

*Please take notice of the spelling discrepancy. This can be attributed to the "E-factor" (E as in Egypt).

egyptian marathon

In Egypt, a "marathon" is synonomous with a 5k at 4:30 PM in a place called the Wadi Degla Protectorate, one of Egypts National Parks. Prior to my own visit to the Wadi, it was described to me as "a giant sand pit" and "a big gulley," both of which proved to be accurate descriptions.

The Wadi is sort of like a large sandbox multiplied by the grand canyon. It was intense, but we survived. Hopefully I will add pictures to this post very soon.

In other news, I have decided to extend my stay in Egypt until Wednesday so that we can fit in a short trip to Mount Sinai before I leave.

new york minute

Delta only flies to Cairo out of JFK Int'l Airport in New York, and the late morning flights were all overbooked, so I opted to leave at 7:50, which turned out to be an excellent choice, and this is why:

On the plane, I sat next to a guy from Kennesaw State University whose father also works for Delta. Branden and I immediately hit it off, somehow managing to skip the small talk and discussing only important-type things. He was headed to South Africa the next morning to work on a service project with a leadership organization he is involved with through his school for a month, then to work on a Buddhist farm for a while after that. Early on in the conversation, he asked me if I had any religious affiliations or beliefs. I told him about Jesus and how I felt compelled to love him and oftentimes do so by loving and serving others (or at least attempt to do so) because of his Love and sacrifice for me. He told me that he was really interested in Eastern religions and, more recently, Lebanese philosophy.

We talked about cultures, languages, food, our families, science, faith, sustainability, and stuff white people like, including, but not limited to the following: religions their parents don't belong to, farmer's markets, organic food, diversity, yoga, nonprofit organizations, international travel, Manhattan, veganism/vegetarianism, architecture, bicycles, being the only white person around, study abroad, beards and scarves (well, we didn't actually talk about these two, but he had a beard and I was wearing a scarf despite the warm weather), integrity, native wisdom, platonic friendships (we were the embodiment of this), acoustic covers, books, following their dreams, and public transportation that is not a bus.

By the time we began our initial descent into the New York area, he asked if I wanted to head over to the city for lunch since I had about 6 1/2 hours before my next flight. I decided that since I was apparently already crazy for going to Egypt on a whim, that I would go. Neither of us were especially familiar with public transportation system, but we jointly navigated our way to Manhattan by train, arriving at the 53rd & Madison stop, just a block south of Central Park.

We ate at a place called Smiler's on the corner of 54th & Madison. It was a little market with a cafeteria-style feast of fresher produce than one would expect in the middle of a mega-city. I wish I had taken pictures. After lunch, I still had a little time to kill before I needed to head back to the airport, so we wandered around for a little while, continuing our five-hour-long conversation about nothing and everything. We exchanged contact information, and he promised to write me a letter about his experiences in South Africa. Finally we parted ways with a friendly embrace, and I descended back into the depths of the Subway system as he headed to the park to read.

I don't think I'm making this up, but it is still moderately difficult for me to believe that it actually happened.

call me crazy

On Monday night, I was lounging on the love seat in the living room of my father's house using his Macbook to check the flight availability of his trip to Milan this weekend. We had tentative plans to take the train to Lake Como and go for a picturesque hike, perhaps a picnic, and of course a photo-shoot. Unfortunately, the flight out of Atlanta had only four seats open, so it was a little risky. Out of curiosity, I checked the flights to Cairo, and found that there were over thirty seats open on the flight out the next day. I mentioned this to my dad, to which he replied, "Call Aunt Chrissy. See what they're doing this week."

Given that this conversation took place around 9:00 PM EST, it was 2:00AM in Cairo, so in leiu of calling, I sent an f'book message:

Re: call me crazy

No seriously, please do call me crazy because I was looking up flight availability for my dad's trip to Italy this weekend because I was trying to go with him, and on an absolute whim I checked the flights to Cairo to see what they looked like because I cannot stand the fact that I will be missing you guys this summer...

The flights are wide open for me to leave tomorrow (I would arrive on Wednesday morning) and return on Monday. I do realize that it would be a lot to organize and at such late notice, and that you guys have lives, so feel completely free to say no kirby, you are crazy, but I would love nothing more than to spend a long weekend with you guys.

Call me first thing in the morning, even if it's the middle of the night here - if this is going to happen i will need to leave pretty early. If not, that is okay, really, no pressure.

Around midnight, my cousin Abbie called me. I finished packing, slept for a couple of hours, and was on my way to the airport by 5:00 AM.

where i'll land

And I'm waiting for it to come
And I'm hoping for better times
When it comes, I will open my mouth
I'll write songs to make you cry
And I'm learning how to travel in time
How to make right the things I've done wrong
And when I do, I will open my mouth
I'm going back, back, back in time
-Travel in Time by Marching Band

Just a few minutes ago, I began my last 24-hour period of residence in Athens, Georgia, the locus of my soon-to-be Alma Mater. I'm not sure how I should be feeling about this, so I'm just sort of going with it. I've never been good at goodbyes - I prefer to casually leave things off as an assumption that you'll see one another again. Others might spend a night like this celebrating with friends, but being my socially awkward self, I went to the first half of a review for my Statistics final tomorrow, and left at the break without intending to. I walked from the Chapel on North Campus and wound up at Starbucks, where I ordered an iced coffee and kept walking.

I suppose the term "walking" implies purpose, so perhaps a better word is "wandering." I wandered for a few minutes, contemplating the fact that thousands of students had walked under these magnolias before me over the last 200 years or so. I climbed a few of the trees. As often happens, I found a reflection of the over-arching themes of my present life-stage in these moments and actions. I'm kind of wandering these days. It's not that I don't have purpose or Guidance, it's just sort of like it's 4:45 and you've finished your work responsibilities for the day because that's the kind of employee you are, but you can't clock out until 5:00. So what do you do? Run down the clock. A wiser move would be to study for your exams, but when you're a nerd that's kept up with her reading all semester, this option seems a little bit pointless.

I don't think that the Lord isn't directing my path, I'm just on a section of trail devoid of intersections for the moment. Somehow, most probably as a result of this big thinking, I ended up at the SLC, typing this post.

I guess I have some plans for the next couple months and years, really, but after that, I don't know where I'll land. It's strange, considering the compulsive planning addiction I fought as a younger version of myself. This is all I've got so far: June-August in Colorado, perhaps a family vacation to Hilton Head, then to North Carolina for a couple years. After that, who knows? Anything could happen.

six miles

pilgrimage- any long journey, especially one undertaken as a quest or for a votive purpose, as to pay homage.

I went for a run this morning. It was my last run in Athens, at least for now. Typically I run on the trails at the IM fields or botanical gardens, but I needed to get rid of some of the dirt caked on my shoes (white people love new balance). So I ran around campus on what turned out to be a cognitive pilgrimage of sorts.

First I ran up River Road, where I used to ride my bike home from Linguistics. I continued up East Campus Road until it intersected with Baldwin, where I took a left then a right to run between the old art school and the library, past the North Campus Parking Deck, and toward Tasty World. I made a left at Broad Street and entered North Campus by the arch, making note of the fact that this would be the last time I would go past it and not through it. I zig-zagged my way to Herty Field and made a couple of loops around the fountain before heading to Gilbert Hall and Lumpkin Street.

When I began this run, I didn't have a route in mind really, so I just allowed my memories to string together and I always sort of knew which general direction to head in next. At this point, I was heading for Brumby. I passed Caldwell Hall, which houses the department of Environmental Design and is known as the ugliest building on campus. I found a new treasure tucked between this building and Lumpkin, which, in my opinion, totally redeemed it: The Founder's House and Memorial Garden. It was beautiful, and I found myself regretting the fact that I didn't discover this place my freshman year, because I could have spent countless hours studying there on fine spring days instead of locking myself in my depressing shoebox of a dorm room to forget what the sun looked like.

I ran past the SLC, which apparently is now called the ZMLC (Zell Miller Learning Center), where I spent a great deal of time my first semester here reading for Astronomy and Educational Psychology before my late afternoon Spanish class. I crossed that intersection of Baxter and Lumpkin and ran past the Mell Community and Bolton Dining Commons before coming to the high rises: Creswell, Russell, and up that hill that never gets any easier, Brumby. I spotted my old window in room 442 on the south wing, where I spent my weekends cracking up over bad korean food with my high school sweetheart, who I had already begun to outgrow without even realizing it.

I ran past the West Campus Parking Deck and through my old parking lot and took the same backroads I used Wednesdays on my way to a night class in the Rivers Crossing building on College Station spring semester of freshmen year. When I reached South Lumpkin, I ran to Wesley and cut across between the Georgia Center and the South Campus Parking Deck. I ran past Snelling and the Pharmacy Building, where I realized that I wanted to be a Speech Pathologist during a Survey of Special Education class I took with my sister. I ran past the Turtle Garden, my very favorite place on campus and said goodbye to the turtles and coyfish, past the Forest Resource building, where I frequently slept through statistics. I ran past my climbing tree, where I did a lot of my big thinking sophomore year. I ran past Aderhold, which still looks like a giant waffle to me, and down East Campus Road until it connected with College Station Road.

When I reached the 5 mile mark, I was a little shocked, and thought for a moment that my pedometer was in kilometers instead of miles, because I was feeling really good. Finally, I ran by the health center and IM fields, past the Ramsey center and East Campus Parking Deck, and then home.

I got a really good professional idea on this run: Cognitive Maps for patients in the early stages of Dementia. I'll let you know how that goes.