Sunrise over Mount Sinai

Now to tell you of my favorite part of my trip to Egypt. We left Luxor by way of a night long train ride. We were put in pairs and given 1st class cabins on a Egyptian train for the trip home. I have always wanted to do that type of thing and I just loved the experience. We have an odd number of students and boys here, so I was the lucky one that got my own cabin on the train. I would not have had it any other way. Night had already fallen when we arrived at the train station. We boarded our train and I was served dinner and had some personal time to read my scriptures and write in my journal before the Train attendant (what do you call a flight attendant for a train?) came and pulled my bed out from the wall. I laid down in it and turned off my light and just stared out my window at the lights passing by. Every now and then I could see the flash of a street lamp and the beautiful blue and green lights from Mosques and Minarets in the dark in front of me. I don't know why, but it was such a memorable experience for me. I had a great nights sleep and woke up see a beautiful sunrise through the mist of Egypt. We arrived in Cairo at about 7 in the morning on the Muslim day of prayer, Friday. Since we were in Egypt, we had our Sabbath meeting on Friday in the dining room of our hotel. The whole time the elevator background music of the hotel was playing through speakers in the ceiling above us. After this we visited the famous Cairo museum. They have a whole section of it dedicated to the riches found in Tutanhkamun's tomb. Things like 4 solid gold sarcophaguses and a solid gold face mask. We didn't have much time in the museum because we got stuck in traffic on the way there and our bus driver pulled a U-turn in the middle of the freeway to avoid it and went against traffic back to the nearest off ramp to get us to an alternate route. I was pretty crazy. Another cool thing about the museum was the mummy rooms. They have the mummified remains of Ramases II, Seti IV, Hapshetsut and many others. That also was a crazy experience. For lunch, we went to the Hard Rock Cafe. They started playing "We will rock you" and so we sang along. Then they put on the YMCA and we had a spontaneous dance party on their dance floor with all 80 of us. It was so much fun!
To finish the day, we went to a huge bazaar in downtown Cairo where the old quarter of the city it located. We went into an awesome Mosque they had there that was built into the old city walls. The man at the entrance made us tip him for watching our shoes at the door after taking them off to enter. It was ridiculous, but the Mosque was amazing. The next day we returned to the old quarter and visited two Coptic Christian churches, one built on the site where traditionally Jesus and his parents stayed when they came to Egypt. After that we visited the old Synagogue. All these buildings had amazing architecture. It was the coolest blend of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim art. I loved it. To finish our time in Cairo, we visited the old city Citadel where the Muhammad Ali Mosque is located. That is also another building with breath taking architecture. It's high domes and minarets just take your breath away and it sits upon a high mount overlooking the rest of Cairo.
We left from there to drive the whole day back across Egypt to a hotel near Mt. Sinai. We got in late and had to wake up early the next morning (2:00!!) to hike Mt. Sinai and see the sunrise. We arrived there in the dark with a beautiful, moonless starlit night sky above us. Our whole group was led by two Bedouins, one in front and the other in back to guide us up the mountain. Other Bedouins had positioned themselves all over the mountain to give camel rides or to sell refreshments to the hikers from small shacks. I had wanted to have a personal experience hiking the mountain, so I went out in front of the main group with some others until I was by myself. I paused often while hiking up the mountain (it was a really hard hike, so the rest stop was welcoming) and would just turn off my flashlight and stare up into the starlit sky. The Milky Way could clearly be seen and if I waited long enough, the light from the stars our shine upon the path in front of me enough that I could walk without my flashlight. I remember thinking of the same hike that Moses made thousands of years ago to speak with Jehovah, the same God who created the very stars I was looking at in the night sky. As I sat there, I was impressed by the faith of Moses, to climb this high mountain to find God, to stand before Pharaoh and demand that his people should be released, to believe that God really would smite Egypt with plagues, and to wade out into the Red Sea and command the waters to part. Other miracles like leading millions of people out into the desert, the splitting of the rock to bring forth water, and similar events also went through my mind. What an amazing prophet he was! After a long and tiring hike, I reached the top of the mountain and watched an amazing sunrise after which we had a testimony meeting and climbed back down the mountain. From there we made the long drive to the Egypt/Israeli border (the Israelis made us wait there for 3 hours just to show us they could. It was ridiculous) and swam in the Red Sea at an Egyptian beach. We arrived home at the Jerusalem Center late at night. It was the coolest vacation I've ever been on and also the most tiring. We were constantly on the run the whole time, but I learned so much and experienced so many things. I also have many cherished memories from it that I will not soon forget.