Brian Cassels

Take a listen to my daily alarm clock

Well, I have almost been in Cairo for a week now and am starting to feel settled in. I arrived on Sunday night, but unfortunately my luggage didn’t make it with me due to a delay I had. It came a couple of days later and was no big deal though. On my last flight to Cairo as I was sitting down on the plane I heard a voice from behind me ask, “Are you Brian?” It turned out that my coworker, Dena, was not only on the same plane as me, but was sitting right by me, which was cool.

We started work the next morning and I have been pretty busy since I got here. The students won’t arrive until this upcoming Wednesday, but there are plenty of preparations to make before they come. Dena, who I work the most closely with has lived in Cairo for almost 3 years now and is a wealth of knowledge as well as a fun person to hang out with, so I know we will have a fun semester working together.

One of my good friends from Wheaton, Amir, is an Egyptian guy who is finishing up his last semester this spring. He is here in Egypt for Christmas break, and I was able to see him this past week. In Egypt, Christians celebrate Christmas on January 7th, so I got to experience two Christmases this year. Amir invited me to go to his church and then over to his families house for Christmas Eve dinner. It was awesome to be able to spend time with a good friend and his family on his home turf, and I’m looking forward to when he graduates and moves back here so we can hang out more.

My place is nice as well. I live on the 7th floor of an apartment building, right across the street from a mosque. I have more than enough space, with a 2 bedroom flat to myself. I’ll post a little video tour of it when I have a chance perhaps next week. I am excited about living here! Living in my own place in a different country is also kinda cool. I have been studying Arabic a lot in my free time and am really looking forward to the students’ arrival.

I updated my contact information and the site has undergone a bit of a makeover as well. Hope you enjoy, feel free to contact me with questions or just to tell me what’s up!

Well friends, it is time for a new adventure to begin.  It has been a long, but really good year since I’ve been in Egypt.  And, it’s obvious that I have neglected this site since then!  But hopefully with more international adventures that will change.

After graduating from Wheaton College this May with my degree in International Relations and a minor in Ministry, I moved back home to San Diego and moved back in with Mom and Dad.  It was the first summer I have spent home since Jr. High, what with working at summer camps and traveling the past 8 summers.  The summer was filled with good times with friends, soaking up the glories of San Diego life (surfing, diving, hiking, Jamul!) and enjoying unemployment.

I eventually got a job doing construction and learned a few things about building houses and working full time.  I spent part of every Wednesday and Sunday with our church’s High School group and got to know and love a bunch of the students, whom I am sad to leave.  And was also able to squeeze in an Arabic night class to keep the blood flowing in my brain a little.  This season in between school and Cairo has been a good one.  It ended tonight with one of my favorite people’s-Mandy’s-wedding with a guest list stacked with my closest friends and an overall very memorable night.

I’ll be waking up in under 6 hours for my 22 hour trip to Cairo.  I will miss San Diego and all of you, but stay tuned for “Adventures in Egypt”

Well, I am finally home after almost 4 months in the Middle East. Sorry about the last months lack of updates. Once I got behind in Israel, it was too overwhelming to catch you all up on everything that had gone on. Here I will write some highlights.

The time spent in Israel was intense. The first week, we didn’t really have any time to explore and tour the many ancient sites and ruins. The reason for this was that we had multiple speakers everyday who represented various views and discussed different aspects and complications within the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Two speakers a day for two hours each, plus a thick reader of articles and to brief ourselves before meetings so that we could ask informed questions to the experts took up nearly all of our time. One bright spot in the business of that week was walking back to our hostel in the Old City from hearing a speaker and on one of the many busy shopping streets I happened to see Roland and Donna Elkins (a couple from my church in Jamul). It was refreshing to see some familiar faces from home, and my roommate Joel and I took our afternoon to go take a walk on the walls of Jerusalem and reconnect a bit.

After the intense academic portion was over, we had time to do some touring. If you ever go to Jerusalem, I’ll let you know the highlights, the “don’t miss this!” in my opinion. First day, we went up to the Golan Heights in the north, and on the way back stopped in Capernaum, which is right on the sea of Galilee. Just sitting alongside the sea, with the mountains in the distance blanketed by dark clouds and the sound of thunder coming over the water was breathtaking. A good place to stop and reflect.

Next day we went around the Old City. I would say that the highlight was Hezekiah’s Tunnel, which is an old channel that was chiseled through the mountain of stone to bring water into Jerusalem. You can actually walk through this tunnel today, and it still has cool water running through it at about knee height. It is pitch black, and I somehow ended up in the front of large portion of our group without a flashlight, just feeling my way through this tunnel (not for the claustrophobic). It takes about a half hour to go through, it’s the real deal!

Last day (best), we went to Masada and En Gedi. Someone told me that Masada is like, the feature story of national geographic this week, so that tells you it’s awesome. Basically it is a fortress/palace on the top of a mountain right along the Dead Sea. Herod built it as a winter retreat for himself and it ended up becoming the last remaining stronghold of the Jews in the 3^rd Century. We hiked up to the top, rather than taking the gondola-because we are hardcore, and it has an incredible view from the top. By the way, the end of the story of the Jews that were being besieged there was, the night before they knew the Romans would take the city and enslave them, they decided that it would be better to die freemen then live as slaves and killed each other. They actually found the lots that the cast for who would be the last person to kill himself after killing his comrades. The Romans entered and found everyone dead, my memory sucks right now off no sleep, but my gut says it was about 500+ people.

En Gedi is where David hid when he was fleeing from Saul. There’s a good chance I was chilling by the cave where David cut part of Saul’s robe while he was hiding. This was a little paradise! It was full of critters! Ibex were abundant as were these weird rodent like creatures (not gross). It also has multiple waterfalls and pools where you can swim, and this is all in the desert! You just find this little canyon and it is a lush treasure. The sign said they even have leopards there, but alas, I didn’t see any.

We also got to go to Tel Aviv in Israel, which felt more like California than the Middle East. I went body surfing and chilled on the beach most of the time, which is always a favorite activity of mine. And the next day we drove to Cairo. A good border crossing story can be found on my roommate Joel’s blog if you get a chance to cruise over there (link at the bottom of the page).

Last weeks in Cairo were grand. Had to write about 40 pages worth of assignments, but got it all done in a timely manner, so I’d rather not talk about that and put it behind me. One afternoon a few of us went to the Cairo Zoo, and let me tell you that this was well worth the 20 cent admission. They had all the important stuff-lions, tigers, hyenas, elephants, sea lions, falcons, monkeys, zebras…but one cool thing is that you could just go feed most of them. They had zookeeper dudes out by the cages who would give you some food on a stick or something to pass off to the hungry animals. Another thing about the zoo in Cairo is that things happen there that don’t at our zoos. Three examples:

1. When we arrived, we went straight to the lion exhibit because…obviously. And what we found was a little shocking. They were feeding, and it was the real deal. Cairo zoo doesn’t want you to ignore the fact that these are real ferocious beasts, so they just throw some fat hunks of raw meat on the bone in these cages and the lions go for it. So they were all roaring and growling and ripping and tearing and breaking bone, blood dripping down their faces on their paws. All taking place 6 feet in front of us.

2. Hyena house. Think about a prison cell. Think about the bars that are containing the inmates. Can you get your arm through those bars? OK, perfect, that’s the hyena house. My flat mate, Thomas, touched one.

3. Back to the lions. Yeah…we were walking to leave and some shady zoo keeper asks me if I want a picture with a baby lion-I am not really feeling it, because I know this guy is trying to scam me somehow. I ended up having a change of heart and bribing him for $2 to let us hold the baby lion and take pictures. It was one of the sketchiest things ever when he had to go get the key and take us to this back room which is like, the reserve lion storage place, and pull a decent sized “baby lion” from out of the cage and place it in my hands.

There were plenty of other good times to be had, as well as bad times, considering my last day in Cairo was spent in bed/bathroom with one of the worst illnesses I’ve had in my life. But all in all, it’s hard to believe that this semester was school. Not because I didn’t learn a lot, because I definitely learned WAY more than I learn in school, and I worked hard as well. But because it was so fun on top of it all, being able to see so many new places, have crazy experiences, hear from experts on important topics, and make incredible friends. It was sad parting ways with everyone in the airport in DC, but, I’m sure I will see some of them again. Now that I am home, it will be good to see you and talk to you. I got pictures from friends and now have over 2000, so I guess I could put some of them up on the site as well. Thanks for journeying with me! It’s good to be home.

Sorry that it is difficult at times to keep a regular update, especially when we are constantly on the move. I will just start where I left off and try to catch you up with some of what I’ve been up too.

Loved the rest of the time in Istanbul! Our free day most everyone took a ferry to some islands in the Marmara Sea which is located just south of the Black Sea. Some of us rented bikes and we all kinda split up to dominate this island. My little group ended up riding around the perimeter of the island until we found a sign pointing to a beach. We hid our bikes and climbed down the cliffs to the perfect spot. It was how I’ve always imagined a little Mediterranean paradise, nice forest on the island and then rocky craggy cliffs, crystal clear water, and islands off in the distance. It was so awesome that we swam and chilled too long and I missed my ferry back to Istanbul for the soccer match. Well worth it!

We went to Ankara, which is the capital of Turkey to hear the most prominent human rights legal scholar in turkey and see Anit Kaber (the burial place of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk-Father of the Turkish nation). Although it the capital, Ankara is not near as impressive as Istanbul which was possibly the nicest city I’ve ever been too as far as charm goes. But it was a good time to goof off and relax in a nicer hotel that we were used to. After a couple days in Ankara we drove back to Istanbul to catch a midnight flight to Aleppo, Syria.

We got in and did our usual custom of passing in all our passports for immigration. After about a half hour of waiting, some of the guards came out calling for Barret, the program intern. He has been to Israel a few times since he has been living in the Egypt for over a year total now. Some Arab countries will not allow you in if you have been to Israel before, so he has two passports. However, they saw that he had some Egypt stamps in his passport that were at an Israeli border and would not let him enter the country. So he had to fly back to Turkey at 2:00AM and then the next day catch a flight to Amman Jordan to meet us in 5 days.

It was a bad introduction back into the Arab Middle East. We got a few hours of sleep before catching a bus to go to Damascus. At breakfast in the hotel I was able to use my Spanish with some tourists visiting from Spain, which was pretty fun. Our first stop was the Krak de Chevaliers, which is the best standing Crusader castle in the region. It was so vast! I could have explored in there for half a day, but used my hour to run through as much as possible. It’s situated on top of a hill that overlooks a ton of the country. You can see Mount Lebanon from it. We had the best lunch I’ve had in my life. Some typical Lebanese food where they just brought out some flat bread and all sorts of spreads to eat it with. Not to mention the most flamboyant waiter I have ever interacted with in my life, which made the experience that much more memorable.

We arrived in Damascus and after settling into our place walked down to the old city. We walked through baab ish sharqi (the Eastern gate) onto Shaara il Mustaqiim (Straight Street). This is the same straight street where Saul was after Christ appeared to him on the Road to Damascus. The time spent in Syria was the freest time I have had the whole semester. We had 2 speakers scheduled, but 1 cancelled and the other was a visit to our Embassy to talk to one of our diplomats. The rest of the time was spent exploring Damascus, which has to have the cheapest goods in the world. Cairo is a very cheap city, but Damascus is even more so. The markets there go on forever, so we had lots of good times. Everyone became obsessed with buying movies when we found out that they were only 50 cents. One student bought 66 movies as of yesterday, but I think he bought more on our way out of town (final confirmed # is 71)! One other awesome experience in Damascus was the hamaam, or bathhouse. It was one of the manliest experiences I’ve ever had. We go in and they have a big room with marble basins under spigots lining the walls. Everyone gets a sponge and soap and shampoo. You can spend time in there cleansing yourself, or cruise into the side room for a blast of steam in the sauna. Meanwhile there are 2 guys coming around and taking turns violating us. The first guy makes you lay on the tile and he has a sponge…actually, come to think of it, it was steel wool…and SCRAPES you down, when he’s ready for you to roll over he gives you a good hard slap. Man number two gives you the most aggressive massage of your life, which actually felt really nice. A favorite move was when he takes his fist behind your knee and then slams your leg over it.

Now I am sitting in the bus road tripping down to Jordan. We should get into Amman in a few hours. There is not too much going on there, we have a speaker in the morning and we are going to the Dead Sea. But we should be in Jerusalem in a couple days. Unbelievably I have just over 4 weeks left here; it has really flown by for me.

…Amended since I had no chance to update in Jordan…

Jordan was a very quick trip and we did not have time to see the legendary Petra, where Indiana Jones went to find the Holy Grail. But swimming in the Dead Sea was amazing, the lowest place on earth at 1300ft below sea level. You feel like a buoy floating in the water! It SUCKS to get that water in your mouth or eyes, it is 33% minerals.

Today we came to Jerusalem. We sat at the border forever while they checked our passports. I think I may have been a major reason it took hours because I have been to a lot of places and my passport went through the wash, so most of my stamps are really sketchy looking. When I went through my passport after they were done, I saw little notes and “approved” stamps on all my pages that they didn’t trust. The security here is pretty ridiculous. We are staying in the Arab section of the Old City. The location is unbelievable! We are about a 2 minute walk from the Wailing Wall and Dome of the Rock and the view from our roof is a tourist destination. We will be staying here for the next two weeks, so I am anticipating lots of time spent chilling on the roof with the amazing view. We went on a little walking tour to get our bearings of the neighborhood. After we checked out the Wailing Wall, we headed up the hill to a Jewish shop and the owner talked to us about his worldview. After he finished, I heard a random voice call out, “Brian Cassels?!” I saw a familiar looking girl, but had no idea how I knew her. So I walked up and tried to ascertain through small talk who she was, it was failing miserable so I swallowed my pride and asked who she was. It was a girl from Wheaton who is doing a study abroad with students from Westmont College. There are actually 2 girls from Wheaton who are there, so I may meet up with them sometime this week.

I am really excited about being here in Jerusalem but also overwhelmed. There is so much historical and spiritual significance to this place and I want to let it affect and change me. At the same time I am going to be struggling a lot through the political issues related to the conflict that has been plaguing the region since the beginning of the Zionist movement. I know the next two weeks will be extremely intense, so I appreciate all your prayers. Love and miss you, and it would be great to hear from you.