Umm awesome

Again, I find myself using and re-using the words "awesome" "fantastic" and "amazing," but that's just all I've got.

I spent my 3rd consecutive birthday out of the country (Chile 2005, Morocco 2006, Egypt 2007), and it just keeps getting better.

On June 14--the day before THE DAY, I saw St. Catherine's Monastary in the Sinai desert. It was really cool to be at this little place in the middle of the desert that has survived the harsh conditions of such a climate, not to mention the different conquests the penninsula has seen the past 1500 years.

I saw the burning bush (or allegedly a part of it) and Zipporah's family well (that's Moses' wife), and lots and lots of ancient texts the monks preserved at the monastary.

We left at 2am on June 15 to climb Mount Sinai and got there in time for sunrise. The landscape was so austere in it's beauty, it isn't hard to see how someone could have a spiritual experience or how a people could become so vitally attached to the land.

I recommend Bruce Feiler's Walking the Bible to say it all better than I could hope to.

Then we went to Sharm el Sheikh.

Yeah. My birthday rocked.