getting Christian, capitalistic, and caaraaaaazzzy.

these pictures are of some of the Christian Churches in Cairo. One of them is the Church of St. George, and is Greek Orthodox. The other is the Coptic Church of St. Mark. Coptic Christians believe that St. Mark brought the Gospel to egypt and established this church. they sold postcards with pictures of dead popes on them. i wish i had bought them (not the normal pope, but coptic popes. the current one is Baba Shenouda 3). Then theres a picture of Khan Al-Khalili, which is a fairly famous outdoor tourist market in Cairo. And the last blurry picture is the watching of the World Cup final on a fancy boat on the nile. that was awesome....i hate italy (the soccer team, the country and i have no disagreements currently), and they didn't deserve to win, they weren't the best team. they weren't.
oh, and by those Christian Churches there was also a really really old Sinagogue, that may be one of the more beautiful buildings ive seen in my life. i really really liked it.

ins and outs.

one of the things that i really enjoyed taking pictures of were the ceilings of the mosques. so thats what these are... sorry. actually only one of these is from a mosque. It was from the Muhammad Ali (yes the boxer...no.) Mosque in Egypt. The rest of them are from traditional homes in Egypt. the picture of me outside the mosque is also the muhammad ali mosque... i just woke up my brain is mush

gar!

it wouldn't let me post all the pictures i had for that post. so here are the rest. theres one picture that will look like it doesn't belong. It will just look like the side of the road. Click on the picture, and look closely. Cairo is a primate city, or a city that attracts poor workers from rural areas that come looking for work. As such the population of Cairo is way larger than it can actually support. So the poor workers from these rural areas began to make their homes wherever they could, including inside graveyards. Thats what this pictures is of. This area is called 'the city of the dead.' Look closely and you'll notice small houses that are directly next door to graves. especially if you can zoom in. yep. cool.

Mosques Galore!!

this day we went on a huge tour of Islamic Cairo. In other words we went to a lot of Mosques, admiring the architechture. On top of all that we went to some of the more traditional houses that are still in Cairo, we went through the Old City of Cairo, we were in Khan Al-Khalili for a while. It was a really long day because we went to see so much, but to be truthful it was one of my favorite days. As much as i loved the pyramids and all that, i really geeked out over these buildings. i wish i could have taken more time to see a lot of them, but it just wasn't in the cards. Since coming back from Egypt there have been riots inside the Al-Azhar mosque (which is one of the photos). Al-Azhar is a huge part of Egyptian/Islamic history. It's also a University that is considered the center for Orthodox Sunni Islam, at least doctrinally. My favorite story was that when Napoleon rolled into Egypt and declared himself in charge, he and his cronies rode there horses into Al-Azhar mosque during prayer time just to show that they were conquerors. Rad. Napoleon also contemplated converting to Islam (because of his love for Alexander the Great, the endearing conqueror), but was unwilling to give up wine. Most of these pictures are of Mihrabs, which are niches in the wall that indicate the direction of Mecca, and thus the direction of prayer.

tomorrow

ill do pictures of egyptian mosques...then i think im done with egypt. if we're lucky.

more egypt...im almost done... i think

well. this was pyramid day. but on this day we also went to see the valleys of the kings and queens (the day before i forgot to mention that we went to the temple of Hatshepsut. or however thats spelled.
these are me and some pyramids. the step pyramid is found in the city that was called Saqara. It is the oldest of the pyramids, and was built for a Pharoah named Djosser. Both he and that pyramid have a role in my newest comic. its different from the other pyramids, cause its not actually a building per sé. the tomb is actually underground, and the pyramid is just a monument over the top. the other pyramids are actually buildings, with rooms and chambers in the actual constructed part of the pyramid.
there are also pictures of me on the Nile in Cairo (which i love. i love cairo), theres me and the sphinx. and theres me standing on the great pyramid, to demonstrate how large a single row of blocks is on that thing. i cannot believe how big that silly thing is.

Egypt...more.

I was really hoping not to waste all of your time with tons of pictures of Egypt, i just needed to put a few pictures to prove i was there and then be done with it. You wanna see pictures of ancient egypt? good thing you have the internet. i dont know what order the pictures are in. but in one of them i am at the temple at Luxor (Al-Uxor), then there is one of me at the Agamemnon Statues with some dude, he was rad. Theres one of my boat trip on the Nile as well. And some statues that were either at the Luxor temple, or Karnak... i can't remember.

Egypt Day One: Mt. Sinai

i cut out all the actual travel pictures and the story of the abusive small child that wouldn't let me sleep. but we did climb mt. sinai. i really enjoyed it. it got really cold on top of the mountain, and i got a little tired of hearing "you want camel?" but overall i really enjoyed it. i think moses is rad. i hope to give him a high five some day.
coming down from the mountain on the other hand was terrible. terrible.

Wadi Mujib

this is a canyon with a river running through it, and some waterfalls, and its super fun. what more need be said?

camels, me, and the dead sea.

yeah. thats it.
the camels were part of the military parade celebrating independence day.

this is Jerash, its a city near Amman that has super impressive ruins...at least i think so... its amazing to be able to go there and feel like that was actually a place where people lived and worked, etc. They also do these Gladiator show there where they have chariot races and stuff. it cost too much money, i didnt go.

Some Mosques in Jordan that i like

these are some mosque im into.
one is called the Abdulli Mosque (which is right next to the Bus station)
the other, if i remember correctly is the Abu Darwish Mosque and is the second oldest mosque in Amman, dating from the 11th century?? i may have made that up though.

Um Qais

We tried to go up to an area that was fairly heavily populated in the 1st and 2nd centuries, but we were prohibited from going up there by the military, they had a bunch of dudes with guns running around up there, so, yeah, sightseeing was a no-go.
but these are some pictures from nearby... still kinda interesting
dudes hold hands in the arab world. it indicates nothing more than a friendly relationship.
this other picture is interesting in a couple of ways. the first being that the body of water behind me is Lake Tiberias. So scope out what happens there in the bible.
Further the land behind me (and behind the lake) is the Israeli occupied lands of the Golan Heights. They officially belong to Syria (and some to lebanon) but they were occupied in Israeli military actions and now are a continuous source of conflict. the road up to where we were was interesting cause there were still remnants of blown up bridges and stuff.

baptism.

next we went to the baptismal site of Jesus. Im sure lots of people will think 'that has to be in Israel,' well, chances are, you're wrong. if you read the bible it says that he was baptized 'beyond jordan' which implies the East bank of the river or beyond. soooooo. we visited the river and the area that was probably the same area where John the Baptist kicked it.
so one of these pictures is me chillin by the river.
the other is a church from around the 1st century AD. many people claim that the river used to have floods that would fill in that area with water, and that this is in reality the baptismal site.
the other is just a dried up patch of dirt which shows the landscape nearby. no wonder john the baptist was rough, that fool and locusts.

Mt. Nebo

the first trip that we went on got around to a few different places.
the first of them was Mt. Nebo. according to the bible this is the place from which Moses identified the Holy Land after the Israelites had wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. i really enjoyed it up there. its got a special feeling to it. at the same time its interesting to think that while moses climbed that mountain and identified that place, he never did cross the jordan river or go into the holy land. nope, he, like i, just kicked it in Jordan.
the body of water over my shoulder is the Dead Sea (which you should visit in your life. i think its awesome) and the other foto is the restored mosaics of a Byzantine Church that still stands on top of Mt. Nebo.