After Israel we went to Paris and met the Treismens again (the ones we met in Crete and Japan).

We walked to the Eiffel Tower and and it was super cool.

After we walked to lunch and it was delicious. Then we went to the Louvre and did this cool scavenger hunt were you have to find specific pieces of art and it was hard but fun. After walking around for three and a half hours though we were all really tired!

The next day Quincy made amazing pancakes and we hung around at the house all morning. When we finally left the house we went to Notre-Dame Cathedral and it was amazing! It was huge and so pretty!

Then we went to lunch and walked around going in to all the candy and macaroons stores.

After that, we went the scenic walk back to our house and even passed the yellow vest strike. The next day they left and we were all really sad. From there we went and met my mom’s friend who lives in Paris. We had lunch there and they were super nice. We had walked to their house, but we were now going to the Pompidou, so it was too far to walk. Our new friends told us that there was an electric scooter app that let you rent them and there were two already in the neighborhood. So we spent ten minutes trying to find them and when we did it took us a while to figure out how to use them.  Eventually we where on our way and we got to the museum.

It was amazing and I liked it because a lot of the art was hands on and super fun.

We spent the night at our house and then flew back to the US.

From the border crossing we drove to Tiberias, Israel, a town on the Sea of Galilee. We spent two days touring everything religious.

Next we went to Jerusalem. We walked the Via Dolorosa, the path that Jesus walked to get to his crucification. We went to the Wailing Wall, the most holy place for Jews. We did this cool 4D video that is a tour of Jerusalem and at the same time also a history lesson. Nice move dad. There was a cool playground close to where we stayed and we went there a few times. We also went to a market that sold everything and was really cool.

We stayed in Jerusalem for 4 days and then drove to Tel Aviv. When my mom and her good friend Stephi traveled around the world, they met this guy who lives in Israel. My mom found him on Facebook and we arranged to meet them. His name is Yuval and he has two kids and a wife. We had them over for a beer and chips. They took us to ice cream. We took them to a burger joint. And they played catch with us. All is right with the world. Until… Just kidding.

We spent two days in Tel Aviv and then flew to Paris!!!

After Petra we drove to this weird little camping place. We slept in a little cabin. There were the cutest puppies ever!!!! They were only a few weeks old and could barely walk. There were two of them. There was also this really cute cat that was fun to play with. We stayed there one night and it was really fun because we got to hang out by the fire and talk to these other people. It rained all night and into the morning. We left early and drove back to Amman for four days. In Amman we didn’t do much. We just hung out, went to dinner, and went to a movie. On the fourth day we packed up all our stuff and took an über to the border to get into Israel. We had to go through these crazy steps that included a bus, a taxi, a few security checkpoints, a customs building, a fee building, and some very overpriced food.

Imagine that two thousand years ago, some people decided to build a giant treasury that looks like a castle into a huge rock cliff and the only way to get there was to walk two kilometers down really tight canyon walls. Then once you got to the giant treasury you would walk another something miles to an even bigger treasury, that is actually a monastery that also looks like castle, carved in to the walls. And on the way there would pass a city square, an amphitheater, and a bunch of giant tombs. And if that wasn’t enough, you could walk a whole different route around all of that stuff and pass the High Place of Sacrifice. Then imagine two thousand years later you bring your two kids to that very place, and you walk that whole thing in one day. There are people you can pay to give you a camel ride, a donkey ride, or a horse ride, but at the end of the day when your nine year old son is too tired to walk after walking 14 and a half kilometers and having a total elevation gain of 2,400 feet, you are too cheap to get one. So you end up carrying him.

Now, the day before when you got to Petra at 2:00pm, you decide to do the night walk. The night walk starts at 8:00pm so you have a lot of time to kill. You hang out at the hotel till dinner and then eat some camel to fuel you up. You then drive the car to the entrance, scan your tickets, and walk through that very same canyon when it’s dark. Candles are lighting your way, you are in a crowd of people, you don’t know what the heck the night walk even is, and you’re amazed by the beauty of it all. How skinny the canyon is and how tall it is. And then when you finally get there, you are greeted by rows and rows of candles with people of all sorts sitting cross legged in the dirt, very kind people handing out warm tea, and a tuba player. And in front of it all is that very same treasury carved into the wall. It’s lighted by all of the candles and is one of the most magnificent things you have ever seen. You sit down in the dirt and just take it all in. Suddenly, the tuba has stopped and a guy is talking, you can’t understand him because, you know, you’re in a different country. When he’s done the castle is lit by giant disco lights and everyone stands up. People are all leaving and you go to get some tea. You walk back down the canyon, drinking your tea, and talking to your family about how incredibly awesome that was. When you get back to the car you are wondering what tomorrow is going to be like.

The night show

The Treasury

The Monastery

Eating lunch at the Monastery

High place of sacrifice

On the 16th of November we flew from Luxor to Amman, Jordan. We got there at night so we just drove to our hotel. The next day we did school and then we took a taxi to the citadel but it was closed. So we took a taxi to Beit Sitti. It’s a Jordanian cooking class. My parents had signed us up for it a few days before. We cut the vegetables and mixed the dough. We made Maaloubeh, Moutabbal, Farmer’s Salad, and pita bread. Maaloubeh is dish with rice, eggplant, chicken, and tomatoes. You make like a cake in a big pot and then in the end you flip it upside own. Moutabbal it eggplant cooked over an open fire mashed up and with tiny diced vegetables and some fruits. Farmer’s Salad is like Greek salad but smaller vegetables. We made our very own pita bread. We also made desert. All of it was delicious.

The next day we picked up our rental car and drove to Aqaba, a town on the Red Sea. We went down to the beach and swam in the water. The next day we drove to a different hotel on the beach and went snorkeling. It was so cool! The spot we went to was called the Japanese Gardens because it was giant clumps of colorful coral and fish. It was one of the best snorkeling places. The next day we drove to Wadi Rum. It’s a nature reserve in the desert we’re the Bedouins used to live. They have made it sort of touristy and you can stay in a tent like the Bedouins. It was amazingly pretty! It was just red as far as you can se with amazing rock cliffs and sand hills. We got there pretty late so we hiked on the cliffs till it was dark and then had the Bedouin dinner they had prepared for us and then went to bed.

The next day we woke up early and got in the back of a pickup truck. Our driver drove us to a sand boarding hill and we sand boarded for a while. We drove around Wadi Rum and hikes through a canyon, walked on a giant arch, hiked in  another canyon, and then drove back to our car. At the place where we parked our car were these adorable puppies! They were the cutest thing ever! We then drove to Petra.

On the night of the 5th our grandma, Deedee, came! The next day we went to the Cairo museum and it was awesome. It had all the treasures of King Tut, mummies, statues, sarcophaguses, and much more.

King Tut’s sarcophagus

Mummified hawk

Kid mummy

After that we went to the airport and flew to Aswan. In Aswan we stayed three nights in the Old Cataract hotel. It was built in 1899 and is where Agatha Christie wrote Death on the Nile. It was fancy but had a lot of character and history. It has an awesome pool and Decker loved it because it had robes.

On the last day we packed up and a guy drove us to a boat named the Zekrayaat. This is what Decker had picked for his one thing. He first wanted to do a cruise ship with a pool on top on the Nile but Deedee’s friends had told her about this boat. It was smaller that any cruise ship so it could go to other places and was super cool so Decker agreed. The Zekrayaat had four rooms and two suites. On the deck were a hammock and chairs and beanbags and a table. My parents and Deedee got the two suites. They were in the back of the boat and there was a cool balcony. The Zekrayaat has two sails but when it wasn’t windy a tugboat pulled us. There were four other people on the boat with us, two guys from Australia and Germany, Göertz and Craig, and an aunt and niece from Belgium, Jane and Vicky.

When we got to the boat Decker and I were so excited! We all hung out on the deck and played Rumikub and swung in the hammock. We motored for a while and then stopped at the temple of Sobek and Horus, the crocodile and hawk god. Our guide Abdullah told us lots of interesting things about the temple. Apparently this is the only place in all of Egypt with a calendar. It was really cool!

Horus

Calendar

Horus and Sobek

Sobek

After the temple we went into the tiny museum. It had like 12 mummified crocks and even some baby ones! After that we hopped back on the boat and motored on to where we would stop for the night. We had a wonderful dinner and then went to sleep. The next day we had breakfast and then went to the quarry where the Egyptians got the stone for the tombs and temples. We also stopped at a really big tomb for King Horemhep. We stayed there for a long time because Abdullah told us about everything. He also said that there are quite a lot of wolves in the area. He even showed us tracks!

It was a really long excursion so we didn’t do anything else that day. We had a great lunch and another wonderful dinner and then went to bed.

The next day after breakfast we took a horse carriage to Edfu Temple. It was so awesome!!! It still had a roof and was like a maze. Abdullah explained about the temple and the hieroglyphs. Then he let us explore for half an hour. We took the horse carriages back to the boat, set sail, and then had lunch.

After lunch we got off the boat in this tiny village where all the kids were trying to sell us stuff and hiked up to some more tombs. They were super cool because they still had some color. There were lots of them but only three were open for visitors. We hiked back down, tried to avoid all of the haggling kids, failed, and then hopped back in the boat.

We had dinner on the side of the river in a grassy field the crew had set up an amazing candlelight dinner. It was delicious! My mom said that is was the best chicken she had ever had! After the delicious dinner we went to bed. When we woke up we were all really sad because we would have to leave after breakfast! After our last good meal on the Zekrayaat we all said goodbye and drove to our hotels in Luxor. Decker said that the Zekrayaat was his favorite part of the whole trip!

In Luxor we stayed in the Hilton! It was really nice. The next morning we had another tour for the Valley of the Kings! It was awesome! The tombs were really colorful! They were pretty big! After that we went to the Temple of Hatshepsut.(Americans nicknamed her Hot Chicken Soup!) She was the only woman pharaoh!  It was so cool but it wasn’t real. They build a new one that they guessed the old one looked like. After that we had lunch and then went to the Tomb of the Workers. It had the old remains of the of the village the workers lived in. They were the ones who built the tombs of the kings.  There were a lot of tombs but only three were open. There tombs were so, so, so, so, awesome! The king couldn’t know that workers were making tombs for themselves because if they were better than the kings he would kill you. The tombs were really small but they literally looked like that were painted yesterday!!! You would think that the paint the Egyptians used would be really dull, but it’s so bright!!! It was one of the best tombs!

After Tomb of the Workers the guide drove us to a tiny boat. We said goodbye to Deedee because she was being driven to the airport. It was so sad! We then took the boat back to the Hilton.