Home, sweet home (almost)

It is so So exciting to be back in the States! As I type, I'm still in Clarion, but that's close enough to home for me right now.

This update took longer than I thought, but not because anything went wrong on the way home - never fear! Since we had long layovers (5 hours in Frankfurt, 4 hours in Philly), the fact that the flights ran a little late wasn't an issue. We didn't even have any problems getting through immigration or customs, which had been my biggest concern. I just couldn't get the damn wifi to connect at our gate in Philadelphia! Nothing more exciting than that. We were in Pittsburgh International long enough to realize that it was the most accommodating and easy to use airport we had traveled in over the course of the entire trip, but not long enough for me to actually bother longing on. When I got back to Givan Hall in Clarion last night, all I was ready to do was sleep, so no update then either. Now I'm awake and dressed and fed and hanging out in the Honors Office until Domster can come pick me up, so I figured this was as good a time as any to let you all know that I made it back safe and sound. Just one more relatively short drive and then I can officially say "I'm home!" I really can't wait to be able to say that.

I dont know the German word for "hello"

Nor can I find a freaking apostrophe on this ridiculous airport internet kiosk. It"s frustrating to say the least. Just wanted to check in and let you all know we made it to Frankfurt safely. We"re just waiting around now for about another hour til we catch our flight to Philadelphia. That"s going to be a long one and I"m not looking forward to it. At Philly we"ll go through customs which will be an adventure in itself. There"s free wifi there too, so I should be updating again then. Also, the euro really stinks after spending in Egyptian pounds for two weeks. Not fun.

One more time, ya?

If things go as planned, this will probably be my last post from Egypt. Right now that's got me feeling pretty ambivalent. I've loved my time here, even with the heat and the traffic and the language barrier and all that. But I also know I am more than ready to come home to all of you (and to American food!) again.

Today was a fun one for me and probably the best way to end our time in Cairo. We dropped a small group of kids off at the zoo and then made our way to Khan el Khalili bazaar for (lots and lots of) shopping. Like last time, I'd love to detail all the stuff I picked up, but that would just defeat the whole purpose of my shopping, now wouldn't it? I did get a little selfish and spend money on myself again. I got a little metal lamp and a fantastic antique Bedouin coffee pot. It's gorgeous now and I can't wait to see what it looks like when it's all polished up. I've been eyeing both of those items up almost the whole time we've been here and I knew I didn't want to leave the country without at least one of them. And now I have both. What can I say? I had a few hundred pounds burning a hole in my pocket. What else was there to do??

We hit up another mall food court for lunch. Somehow this one wasn't crowded beyond all reason so we were able to order, get our food and eat at an actual table, all in under 30 minutes. There's a first time for everything, I suppose. Adel directed us to a little artisan shop thing on the way back to the hotel where we watched a brief glass blowing demonstration and perfume sampling. Well, "essences" not "perfume" - the proprietor made an effort to stress that distinction. They've got a nice setup there. Glass making for perfume bottles downstairs, showroom for their scents upstairs. I think only one or two people actually bought anything there as it was a little pricey, and most of us had blown the last of our money at the bazaar earlier in the day. But Adel got us the hookup - he has mad connections - and made sure there would be henna artists there too. My foot is sufficiently henna'ed now. I would have gotten the full hand, but I didn't want to be scrubbing that off in a week or two when I start work at the Science Center. The foot is less of an issue for work, although it did mean I had to walk barefoot for about 20 feet from the door to the bus. It was a perilous 20 feet, but my tootsies made it just fine. Don't worry.

We've been back at the hotel since then. I know I should be packing, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I'm taking an extra carry on on the way back, so I should have room for all the crap I've bought along the way, but I'm just not sure. I may have to toss out some clothing items here or there. When I bought them, I made sure everything was super cheap because I didn't think I'd want to wear them again after Egypt. Now I've grown a little attached and don't want to part with them. I think I'll be emptying my bags once this post goes up and repacking from scratch. Yasser informed us that we're going to be allowed two checked bags on the way home, which was a surprise to most of us. I didn't want to have to take advantage of that, but it might be happening. We'll see what happens.

Since I missed my update yesterday, I'll give you guys the rundown on that too. We were still in Alexandria at the time, so we had a few more historic sites to see there. We had another late start since the profs were taking pity on our exhausted selves and we had to pack again to head back to Cairo, and then headed out to see the catacombs. No cameras allowed there, so no good pictures to show off once I'm home. We walked around the tombs a bit, and it was only a little creepy, as it was mostly emptied out. There was one room though that was used as the tomb for winning race horses, so there was a glass case of a pile of horse bones. Not gonna lie, kinda creepy. Also kind of funny because some kids weren't paying attention and assumed they were looking at human bones. Yeah, one gigantic human. (It was more amusing at the time, I swear. Also would be funnier if I weren't half asleep now. Yeah, that's it.) Fun fact about the tombs there: they were discovered by a donkey. A donkey and cart fell into a sink hole in the early 20th century and the sink hole grew as they tried to get it back out. In their digging, they discovered several tombs and just kept excavating. So thanks, donkey. The next stop was Pompei's column, or maybe Bombay's column. Something like that. I couldn't actually tell with Adel's accent. Either way, it's an enormous Greco-Roman column in the middle of the ruins of a Roman Empire-era city. Pretty nifty, but not the most interesting thing I've seen on this trip. It was hot and we were tired, so we snapped a few pictures, listened to Adel's schpiel, and got back on the bus. Last stop was the Quaitbay Citadel which is on the end of a spit of land in the harbor, so we were able to get great views of the city and the Mediterranean Sea. As promised, Adel made sure to stop by a public beach as we left so we could all file out, stand in the water for 3 minutes, and file back onto the bus. I can now say I've been on three continents, three countries, and two seas thanks to this trip, so that three minutes was enough for me.

Another mall food court became our lunch stop and I'm ashamed to admit that I broke down and bought American food. It wasn't the best Big Mac I've ever tasted, but it was close. I also made the mistake of getting ice cream again. A mistake in that it didn't live up to the hype of the day before and because the cashier was an a-hole. I should have known he was going to be a pain when he kept pulling the sample he offered me out of my reach for about a solid minute when I first walked up to the counter. Then when I went to pay, he refused to give me my change. Ten pounds worth of change! He thought he was hilarious, pretending to not understand what I was asking and then saying I was telling lies. Lauren, one of my roommates, and I argued with him for a good two or three minutes. That's an awfully long time when someone's trying to rip you off, let me just tell you. He finally gave in when I stopped being the polite American and started being the pissed off American looking for a security guard. I feel like the ice cream (white chocolate raspberry) would have tasted better had I not been fuming. Just a thought.

From there the bus took us to one of the shadiest train stations I think I've ever seen, in life or in cinema. I snapped a few pictures, but we were running late (shocker!) and had to make our train. Somehow the tour guide gods were smiling on us and we got one entire first class car all to ourselves. Apparently this was again thanks to Adel and our security detail pulling some strings. They do that a lot here in Egypt, I've noticed. That was probably the most roomy form of travel we've encountered thus far or will for the rest of the trip, all thanks to Adel. I love that little man. The train took us through the delta region on the way back to Cairo, so we got to see some different cities, towns, and farming areas before the sun went down. When I woke up, we were in an even shadier train station than before. The place must have been under construction. Literally every wall, all the way up this multistory building, inside and out, was covered in scaffolding and these dingy, dark green curtains. Super sketch. And of course we had to stand around in our giant group waiting for our luggage, then waiting to get on the next bus, making the security guys nervous all over again. We got back to King Hotel, home sweet Egyptian home, around 11pm. Sure enough, they had "dinner" for us, bringing premade plates of chicken and french fries and a few other things too all of us scattered about the lobby. I know this isn't the best hotel I've ever stayed in, but the staff sure is accommodating. Kudos to them for that.

That about wraps it up for the last day or so. I've got three hours now to shower, pack and try not to panic about checked luggage weight limits. It'll be a struggle at times, but I'll manage. We leave the hotel at 1:30am - so basically 2am, given our track record. We're flying Lufthansa again to Frankfurt and then to Philly. We've got a five hour layover in Frankfurt and four hours in Philly. Not sure about Germany, but I know I'll be able to update once I'm back in the States, which should be around 5pm tomorrow. I've got a long day of travel ahead of me, but it's going to be worth it. See you all again soon!

Playing catch up

Ok, so lots to talk about, let's not waste any time.

Today (Monday): Bibliotheca Alexandrina in the late morning, followed by lunch at an overcrowded mall food court, a drive through the grounds and gardens of the former royal summer palaces and the Royal Jewelry Museum in the afternoon, finished with a delicious dinner and birthday cake back at the hotel in the evening.

The Bibliotheca, as I've mentioned before, is just full to bursting with cool stuff. You can tell they've made a conscious effort to be ultra modern and cutting edge while also reminding you of what the facility is meant to replace. I got to take quite a few pictures of the reading floors, as they call them, which is where much of the collection of books is housed and available to the public. For instance, the walls of the reading floors are covered in small black squares that resemble the pigeon holes where scrolls were housed in the original library. In this library, those squares are actually a sound dampening material. The support pillars throughout the reading floors resemble the lotus flower, a major symbol of ancient Egypt. The pillars serve a second purpose in that they house flame retardant partitions that will expand to protect the collection in case of fire. Even the windows in the ceiling are designed in such a way to keep water from pooling on the roof and finding its way into the building, as well as letting sunlight in to limit the use of lightbulbs while preventing the natural light from damaging the artifacts. Seriously techy place they've got going there. There were a few other nifty gizmos and gadgets there, like the Internet Archive and Egypt's first printing press, and some swanky art exhibitions, like the sketches and belongings of filmmaker Shadi Abdel Salam which I loved. I couldn't get pictures of those things, but trust me, they were pretty damn nifty.

I don't have time tonight to get into the craziness that was the mall we stopped at for lunch today. I will mention the ice cream though. Holy crap is Egyptian ice cream delicious. This is now the second time I've had it and I hope I can sneak one more in before we leave. It's this cross between sorbet and Italian ice and gelato and it's just so so good. I'd give it a close second in awesomeness only to old school Italian gelato like you can get at Mulberry Street Creamery or Michelle's Cafe. It's that good.

After making our way out, and seeing the second Starbucks in all of Egypt, we took a short drive through what was formerly property of the royal family. The family kept a summer resort with two palaces (yes, two!), their own private harbor on the Mediterranean, and acres and acres of gardens. One palace was meant for the females of the royal family, while the smaller was for the males. The males' palace has been converted into a hotel, while the females' has been closed since the revolution in 1952. The gardens now exist as a huge public park with tons of shaded areas for families and couples to congregate and a beautiful little piece of private beach. I snapped a few photos, but we weren't paying 17 pounds to stick our feet in the water. Adel promises he'll take us to a public beach tomorrow so we can say we've done that.

The Royal Jewelry Museum was the last official stop of the day. This was also a former palace of the royal family, the residence of a princess if I remember right. It seemed like everything this family owned was made of gold or platinum and positively dripping with diamonds or rubies or emeralds or some combination of precious stones. The palace itself is very well preserved - the wooden floors, hand carved ceilings, stained glass, murals, even the banisters obviously took skill to create. We even had to wear little cloth booties like we were in a mosque to preserve the floor. The guards there were a little pushy, but that's the first time we've encountered anyone who wasn't super helpful, so I'd say that's not too bad for a two week stay.

Dinner in the hotel was superb - no surprise there, considering the rest of the place. Adel proved once again how awesome he is by sneakily purchasing some cakes from a local bakery so we could celebrate the birthday of one of the girls on the trip after dinner. We sang to her and then the hotel staff, Adel, and Yasser sang to her in Arabic. She had no idea we were planning anything, so it made for a fun end to the night. I've been pretty lazy since then. Just a little bit of packing to do, since we catch a train back to Cairo tomorrow afternoon.

Yesterday (Sunday): Six hour boat trip on the Red Sea for snorkeling (and sunburn), more packing, followed by lots and lots of quality travel time back to Cairo for dinner by plane and continuing on to Alexandria late (late!) in the evening by bus - really it was more like early (early!) morning.

I know I've mentioned this here and there before, but snorkeling in the coral reefs of Ras Mohamed Park has been something I've really been looking forward to on this trip. We got to the harbor fairly early in the day, around 8 or 9 in the morning, to pick up our flippers and masks and snorkels before boarding the boat. We all had to laugh when we were told not to forget our boat name - how could we when it was named "Barrag"? (With the Arabic accent, it was impossible for our guides to say it any way other than "Barrack". It was probably funnier at the time. You'll just have to trust me on that one.) Romeo, our captain, drove us out about an hour to see the magic lake (I still don't know what was so magical about it), a large stand of mangrove trees (I'm not taking the courses, so I don't quite understand the importance, but I'll go with it), and then backtracked a little to get to our first dive spot. We had two master divers with us, one to lead and one to watch the back of the group for any stragglers, which ended up being quite helpful. A good number of our kids and adults got sea sick or had ear pressure problems or any number of water/diving related ailments, so our guides became their best friends.

The first dive took us along a wall of coral reef that almost just touched the surface of the water, so we could only swim alongside, rather than above it. Probably needless to say, but it was beautiful. The coral was just as colorful and full of life as you'd imagine - very Finding Nemo. Apparently something was lost in translation though, because when our guides would point out a clown fish, they called it a "Captain Nemo" fish, rather than a "Finding Nemo" fish. Wrong pop culture reference, divers, sorry. We swam for a good half hour or so before getting back on the boat. Once I was in the water, life was good, if a little salty. Getting on and off the boat could be a challenge. This had to be done quickly because the boat was moving and we didn't want the group to get too spread out in the water. Getting in was just a simple jump, but you had to hold onto your mask and have your snorkel already in place. (For girls, you also had to hold onto your top. In a strange twist, it was actually quite lucky that everyone was so disoriented when they first jumped in. I don't think the boys would have known what to do with themselves if they realized how many bikini tops were.. misplaced.)

The second stop was optional, since quite a few people were still sick and some were just plain tired out from the first round, and they really missed out. The guides promised that the second stop would be better. They never really said how, just "better". They didn't disappoint. This time the coral was farther from the surface, so we were able to swim above much of what we saw. The guide would even dive down to point out specific interesting fish or bring empty shells back to the surface. We had to put everything back, of course, but I got to hold a piece of an enormous clam shell, which was awesome. He even encouraged us to try to touch a small school of "Captain Nemo" fish as they're apparently very friendly. I'm not entirely sure how a fish can be friendly, but I wasn't going to question the man. I didn't have one, but two or three of the girls had underwater cameras, so I'm looking forward to seeing those pictures in a few weeks once they get developed and added to Facebook. I'll add a link here when they're up.

The crew served us an awesome lunch after the second dive and we were allowed to go in or out of the water at our leisure, since we would be anchored for about an hour. About a dozen of us spent that time lying out on the sun deck. About a dozen of us are also still a nice rosy shade, a day and a half later. And me, the girl who got burnt to a bubbly crisp two summers ago, is in the same shape! I'm furious with myself. I brought aloe though, so I'm doctoring myself up and doling out aloe like a mom to a few of the other victims. With any luck, it won't be quite so painful by Thursday morning. Sleeping in a big comfy bed is bad enough with sunburn. A seat in economy class for 7 hours is going to be no picnic. Fun story: we almost left one of our kids in the Red Sea. Yep. One of our girls is a triathlete, so instead of coming on board for lunch, she went back out into the water. For, like, an hour! We do this cute thing where all the kids are assigned a number and before we leave any place they all count off so we know no one is missing. Well, Captain Romeo was turning on the engine and number 20 was missing! We all freaked out and searched the boat with no results. We actually had to get the boat moving a little ways before we saw her come up for air and were able to flag her down and get her to swim back. We joked that she knew we were leaving but decided she'd just swim to meet us in Alexandria. Minor disaster averted.

The rest of the day was mostly uneventful. We packed up to head back to Cairo by plane and met up with our old bus driver again to head to dinner. Our restaurant had a view of the pyramids all lit up for a light show they put on every evening, so we kind of said our goodbyes to them then. We didn't make it out of there til late to take the bus to Alexandria. When we started our day, Adel estimated we'd be in Alexandria by about 11:30pm. Yeah. We all know how well that went. Our bus pulled in around 2am instead and I think I was in bed by 3:30 or 4 after a shower and some quality time my email and Facebook. (I'm such an addict. It's a problem.) I think I've already mentioned how absolutely stunning this hotel is though, so I didn't mind the late night too much. I was too busy being in awe of just about everything. Did I mention our room even has a doorbell? How cute is that?

A while ago (Saturday): Quick tour of St. Katherine's monastery in the morning, travel by bus to Sharm el Sheikh in the afternoon, relaxing by the pool (relaxing? what is that?), and a super nifty Bedouin dinner experience at night.

This whole trip I've been pretty excited to visit the monastery. It's one the oldest active monasteries in the world. The first church was built there in 330AD or something ridiculous like that and thhe Burning Bush is there, for Pete's sake! It should be awesome. In reality, it's a whole lot of tourists, a lot of Russians actually, pushing around trying to see the few parts of the monastery visitors are deemed worthy to be within eye shot of. The chapel we got to see was stunning, if a little over crowded with artifacts - paintings, chandeliers, incense thingies, relics, etc. The thing that really got to me though was that it was staffed by Bedouins gesturing in broken English for you to not get too close or to keep moving or to not even think about getting out your camera. I mean, if it were a cute little old lady saying her rosary and giving my camera a death glare, I'd be cool with it. But don't have someone completely outside the faith tell me what to do in a Catholic church. Not cool. Again, I'm not the best Catholic in the world, but that rankled. I'm still kind of pissed about the whole thing. I got about a zillion photos of the Burning Bush just to make up for the lack of pictures inside the church. Again, however, something annoying had to happen. Some guy, I don't know who or where he was from, decides it's a good idea to meander to the front of the crowd behind the ropes, duck underneath, walk up to the Burning Bush (the Burning freaking Bush!), snap off a piece like it's no big deal, and walk right back out. I was flabbergasted. I mean, really. What the hell do you think you're doing? And of course there's no Bedouin employee nearby peddling alabaster vases or post cards to do anything about it. I mean, I know the folks there have to trim the damn thing every sometime, but that's not for some obnoxious tourist to do just because he can. I'm still annoyed about that too. What the heck! Anyway, moving on.

After we got out of the monastery, we hopped back on the bus to head to Sharm el Sheikh. Man is this a tourist town if I've ever seen one. It looked just like Myrtle or Ocean City or any other beach haven - tons of chain restaurants (including the first Starbucks I've seen while in Egypt), advertisements for condos, boat rentals, casinos, and hotel after hotel after hotel. We thought our hotel was pretty fly because our rooms were on the ground floor, each with a little patio onto the central courtyard and pool. Of course, we had no idea where we were staying in Alexandria, so the place looks heinous now, but it was great at the time. A group of the kids grabbed the hotel shuttle to get to the beach, but a good number of us stayed behind to avoid that sand in your bathing suit feeling and relax by the pool instead. There was already a couple of Russian guys and a hotel staff member in the pool trying to get a game of water polo going, so they roped in a few of our guys to play with them. It was a blast to watch but way too intense for me to get in on the action. I grabbed my camera and fiddled with the sport setting so I could get some action shots. I haven't put them on the computer yet, but I'm sure I got some good ones.

For dinner that night we took a little trek into the desert. And by "little trek" I mean we drove for a half an hour and then pulled off the road and followed a mysterious Jeep for another 20 minutes into the desert. We arrived at a legitimate Bedouin tribe's camp, passing pens of sheep and goats and squat stucco houses on the way in. We sat on rugs and pillows around low tables all around a small cooking fire in the center. There was a stage set up and there were a few performances, but these were clearly tourist-oriented presentations that the tribe essentially contracted out. The authenticity came later. One of the men brought out what looked like a giant wok, a board and rolling pin, and a bowl of dough and coarse flour. The wok-type thing was set directly into the fire, like setting a bowl upside down over a candle, and he began rolling out the dough and tossing the dough. When he was through with one, a little boy would take it and stretch it over the surface in the fire and flip it by hand until it was browned on both sides. Yasser told us we could move closer and pretty soon I found myself rolling and tossing an enormous fresh pita to go on the fire. So. Freaking. Cool! And it was delicious, if I do say so myself. There was a whole spread of food already prepped for us to eat while we watched a few more touristy performances. Yasser, being awesome once again, let some of them know that we were more interested in their own experiences and asked them to perform for us themselves. So, when dinner was through and they took another pot of tea off the fire to pass around, about half a dozen Bedouin men sat down by the fire with drums and a lap harp to sing us some of their songs. Three young boys, ranging in age from about 6 to 11 or 12, also came out and started to dance around the men, eventually grabbing a few of us girls closest to them to dance to. Again, before I knew it, I was standing by the fire, holding hands with an adorable child who was leading us all in a circle around the fire, hopping and spinning and dancing around. There was no other light but the fire and the candles at our tables, and a few flashbulbs from the kids still seated. It was a beautiful, joyful, wonderful, once in a lifetime experience. We finished dancing and returned to our seats and they asked for quiet. They simply ended the night that way. We sat with only the fire still lit, listening to the desert and looking up at one of the clearest night sky's I have ever experienced. Yasser told us later that if he hadn't told us to leave, the Bedouin men never would have. Their traditions are too hospitable to ever ask a guest to leave. We could have stayed all night and they would have fed us in the morning. I know it was meant to be a kind of staged performance night - I mean, this is what this tribe does to earn a living - but we could not have had a better experience.

Forever ago (Friday): Travel by bus from Cairo to St. Katherine's Protectorate super early in the morning (5:30am wakeup call, anyone?), minor (?) catastrophe that I still can't talk about yet, late arrival (shocking), and a little hike up this kind of important mound of dirt in the middle of the desert.

That really does feel like a long time ago, and it's only been four days - sheesh! It's insane how quickly I can fall behind without the internet for a day or two. Wow. Anyway. Ages and ages ago when we left Cairo at the crack of dawn, we ran into a little mishap - it's not really a catastrophe just yet. Hopefully this mishap will be resolved sometime Wednesday when we're back in Cairo, but I don't want to jinx anything too badly, so I'll just leave you guys hanging with that one. Remind me to tell you about it, yeah? Ok, good. Well, because of the mishap, we got a bit delayed in getting to St. Katherine's, so that's why the tour of the monastery was pushed to the following morning, rather than in the afternoon before we went on our little hike.

You know, no big deal. I just hiked Mt. Sinai this week. Totally run of the mill trip I'm on right now, don't you think? Ha! Hardly! Ohmygoodness. I was whiny and sore and exhausted and caked in dust and weighed down by bits and pieces of the summit that may or may not have found their way into my bag before I started the hike down, but I did it! I hiked Mt. Sinai. I could go on and on about the religious significance and the grandeur of the views and beauty of seeing a chapel and a mosque sitting side by side at the summit, but nothing I could type, nothing I could say would probably do it justice. I took photos almost every step of the way on the way up to try to capture even a little bit of that experience to bring home to you guys. We stayed at the summit til sunset, so much of the journey down was done in the dark. I'm not the most patient person in the world, so I darted around the guides leading people down the mountain slowly and with flashlights. I ended up doing most of the descent on the switch backs completely alone with no light but the moon and the stars. Yeah, it was amazing. I would just stop and look around much of the time. I felt like I was strolling at an easy pace, but somehow the few of us that got around the guides met up and made it to the bottom a good half an hour before the first guide. We just sat and recuperated and tried to process what we'd done and where we were. It's still kind of a lot to fathom. It probably will be that way for some time and I'm perfectly alright with that.


I think that gets me up to date and all of you up to speed with what's been going on here on the other side of the world. Sorry that meant you had to read a novel this time around. We have a few more sites to visit in Alexandria tomorrow, but I won't even pretend to remember what they are. We'll catch a train in the afternoon back to Cairo and will probably arrive late and be told to head straight to bed. We all know that won't happen. I'll try to get one more post up, since I know we're going back to the same hotel we started in. The following day is that free day I mentioned a few days ago. I think we might be going to the zoo in the morning and then to see some artist demonstrations and shopping at Khan in the afternoon. Until then, I love you and miss you all. I have loved this trip but I can't wait to be home!

Prepare the search party

I know I'm going to need one! It's off to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina this morning and I am so outrageously excited for it. I may get lost in there. I'm kind of hoping I do anyway. I think we're visiting botanical gardens in the afternoon and then a local theater performance of some kind in the evening. Those parts of the itinerary are still a little shaky, but I've got to be used to that by now. I mean, yesterday we were told we'd be checking into the hotel by 11:30pm and we rolled up at 2am instead. And I thought my family was good at being late for things - ha! Yeah right. We're almost rudely early when compared to how Egyptians operate.

Anyway, time to get my backpack together and get my butt out the door. Hopefully since wifi is so easily accessible here, I'll be able to catch you all up on the last few days when I get in tonight. There's Mt. Sinai (spectacular), St. Katherine's monastery (let down), Sharm el Sheikh (touristy), and snorkeling in the Red Sea (I'm on a boat!). Also, I'm kind of a lobster right now thanks to the aforementioned boat, so I'm quite thankful today's itinerary is mostly indoors and that Alexandria is on the water so the temperature will max out around 77F today. That is a glorious weather day in Egypt, my friends!

I'm alive!

Don't worry. Egypt hasn't swallowed me up yet. Just got into our spectacular hotel in Alexandria about 40 minutes ago. It's nearly 3am, breakfast is at 10am. I can't wait to sleep in a bed that doesn't have fleas or mosquitos or malfunctioning air conditioning. I have a hotel room with more than enough room for three beds, wireless internet in my room, a bathroom with separate shower and tub, and, oh yeah, a balcony as large as our last three hotel rooms. The Radisson BLU is the greatest thing to happen to travel. Possibly ever. I'm going to bed now.

Keep on keepin' on

It was, not surprisingly, another super busy day in Cairo. Thankfully it also ended up being one of our shortest, which I know everyone appreciated. Once the students wrapped up their mini-presentations this morning, Yasser and Adel explained the schedule for the day. Yasser had a list of monuments the groups still needed to see in order to complete their geography projects. Adel had a route that could get us to almost all of them on foot, assuming we packed enough water and snacks that we wouldn't have to break to find a place for lunch. We moved along at a pretty good clip throughout the day. I think we hit at least four mosques, two more restored houses, one house that technically wasn't even open to the public yet because it hasn't been finished, and a few more market streets. To make up for not having lunch, someone - I don't know who, exactly; Yasser and Adel are good at finding helpful locals - picked up about eight boxes of individually wrapped cookies and snack cakes for everyone to try throughout the day. They made a point of buying Egyptian snacks - no hoho's or twinkies here! I snagged up the Egyptian equivalent of a fig newton and some wafer cookies like the ones you can buy at home that come in packs of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry, only these were orange. (I know. You're surprised. An orange-flavored snack for Danielle. May wonders never cease.) I, of course, took a picture before I demolished them, so there is evidence of their delicious existence. Spread out over the course of the day with three bottles of water, plus lots of sitting because going into a few of the locations was optional, those snacks made skipping out on lunch not such a bad thing. Because we didn't have to slow down for lunch, I think we were back to the hotel by 5:15 with dinner at 6:30 - the earliest we've eaten dinner this whole trip.

After dinner I hit the streets around the hotel in search of gifts and souvenirs with 5 of the other "adults" on the trip, Lynn, Brent, Nathan, Joe and Tricia, while the students gave their larger presentations to their classmates and faculty. Those who went with me knew I hadn't had as much time as I'd needed at Khan, so they helped me in my search for jewelry and scarves and other similar touristy gifts. Turned out that the shops around the hotel were geared more towards the locals. The jewelry and things were lovely, but they looked like jewelry you could get anywhere. Nothing really screamed, "Look at me! I'm from somewhere interesting!" I mean, they don't really need to scream it, but I was hoping for at least a murmur. No such luck.

However. About that mystery free day in Cairo: as it so happens, that free day isn't until the last day of the entire trip. Meaning a large group of us can head back to Khan for a late afternoon and I don't have to scramble to buy and then lug around ten people's worth of souvenirs to Sinai, Sharm, and Alexandria in the meantime. And that really sounds like the best plan to me!

I don't know what the next hotel is going to be like, so I'll give you the run down in case internet isn't easily available. Tomorrow morning we leave the hotel by 7:15am - ouch! - to make our way towards Mt. Sinai and St. Katherine's Monastery. It's something like a five hour drive, so I'll be catching up then on the sleep I'm not getting now. (That makes it ok, right? Right!) They've already told us we only get two potty stops. Lynn clearly knows where our collective priorities lie. We'll tour the monastery first, I believe, which I'm really looking forward to. As much as I've loved experiencing Islamic Cairo, I'm still a Catholic girl at heart, regardless of how infrequently I manage to drag my butt to church. As a minor change in plans, we'll then begin our hike up Mt. Sinai in the afternoon, in order to reach the summit for sundown, rather than sunrise. The peak won't be quite so cold this way and the views will be just as spectacular. This way, we'll be able to hike back down and get some sleep in a new hotel for the night, and make our way to Sharm in the morning. According to the original itinerary, we would be hiking Sinai starting at 1am and then driving to Sharm immediately afterward. And we thought we weren't getting enough sleep in Cairo! Heck no, that wasn't going to work out. This is now the second schedule change I am unquestionably happy to hear about, and all in one day!

After saying goodbye to Sinai that morning, we'll head back on the bus towards Sharm el Sheik. We'll visit Ras Mohamed National Park, take a boat ride across some portion of the Red Sea, and then go either snorkeling or scuba diving among the reefs there. They supposedly rival the Great Barrier Reefs around Australia. As some of you know, I passed on a trip there when I was younger. This is soo much better! Now where are those dorky, mid 90s, underwater, disposal cameras when you need one? I can't recall if we're in Sharm for one night or two. Either way, we move on to Alexandria from that point, and I believe it will be by train. Which will be awesome! I'm going to feel like Harry Potter. Can't wait. Where's my Hogwarts letter? I'm sure I can find a robe and a cat in no time around here, and I'm fairly certain I saw a magic carpet at the show last night, so who needs a broomstick? I think Alexandria speaks for itself, but I'll add my two cents before I head to bed: Lots. Of. Books! Like, eight MILLION books! Think about it. If I refuse to come home from Egypt, I already know why and I haven't even seen the place yet except in pictures. Aside from books, the facility also houses several specialty libraries, art galleries, museums, exhibitions, and research facilities. I'm giddy with excitement and it's days away. Can't freaking wait! Ah!!

. . . Ok. I'm fine. No need to panic. I'll try not to embarrass myself too badly, I promise. After that little outburst, I think it's time to call it a night. Time for sleep (aka, a nap) then more sleep (aka sleep) on the bus to Sinai. Update again when I can!

Good morning, good moorrrr-ning!*

Ah, sleeping in til 9am - who knew I'd be able to do that on this trip? Not me! Not only did I sleep through the typical 7-8am breakfast, but I also kept going straight through the geography class work time from 8-9am. It was glorious. One of the geography groups is actually giving their presentation right now, so I learned/remembered the name of the super duper important mosque we saw yesterday, the Al Azar Mosque. I forgot to mention yesterday that, because of the filming that was going on, we weren't able to use flash inside, so I don't have too many pictures of that one. I got a few of the courtyard and a handful of the film crew, but you guys might need to use your Google skills if you really feel strongly about seeing what this mosque looks like.

I don't have a whole lot of time until this presentation is over so I'll try to give you a concise rundown of what else happened yesterday. I use the word "concise" quite loosely, of course., but we'll give it the old college try.

The Khan el Khalili bazaar, or simply Khan as locals refer to it, is one of the largest, if not the largest, such bazaar in Cairo. It's as if all the back alley shops in Chinatown were condensed into about a half mile in each direction, occasionally two stories high, and filled with every remotely Egyptian souvenir item you could ever imagine, plus more feral cats than people. Throw in some unpleasant smells, calls of "Hey, lucky guy!" to any male walking with more than one female, and one of the coolest coffee shops I've been in, and that's Khan. This place I do have tons of pictures of! Do you want tunics, dressed, scarves, or tshirts? Knick knacks, shot glasses, bottle openers or keychains? Handmade leather goods, jewelry, copper and brass items, new or old? The cafe where Naguib Mahfouz wrote parts of his Nobel Prize-winning Midaq Alley, nestled within Midaq Alley itself? Khan has it and then some. I bartered like a pro for items for myself and a few of you. I'm quite proud of myself and you'll see why once I'm home. I'm still looking for an antique tea or coffee pot for myself. I saw quite a few beautiful pieces, but I'm having a harder time parting with a large amount of pounds than I thought I would. I keep having to remind myself that 100 pounds isn't all that much money for an item that's hand crafted and at least twice as old as I am. We have another day and a half, so hopefully I'll get over that mental block and come home with an amazing souvenir with a great story.

I didn't pick up as many items as I had planned, but I definitely had an adventure in the process. This was the first time we had been able to split up into smaller groups and explore on our own, so I adventured with a group of three other students, Kayla & Doug from Clarion and Seth from SRU. I started as the lead in our group as I was the one who wanted to get the most shopping done. Kayla & I pushed Seth to the front after we made it about ten feet and had been approached by at least 6 different vendors asking what the beautiful ladies wanted, here, you break my heart, take one for free. (They use the term "free" about as loosely as I use "concise".) Seth was also ordered to take the lead when one of the vendors, after being asked if we could see tunics, began to lead us out of his shop and up a stone staircase that about as old as it was creepy. If the place didn't remind me of Chinatown already, it certainly did after that. Seth joked with the vendor who seemed incredibly amused by our hesitance to follow him. Past the top of the stairs, we passed an alley (yes, the bazaar is so large that there are alleys on the second floor) where the Catman of Cairo must live. This little old guy looked like Jafaar from Aladdin. Not regular Jafaar, but the Jafaar in disguise in prison with Aladdin with the crazy teeth and too-skinny limbs. Yeah, you know the one. That guy was just chilling on a step a few feet into the alley, eating some bread and sharing it with at least a dozen cats. Mind you, this alley is about four feet wide, so it doesn't take long for the number of cats to look excessive. Kayla and Doug are both insanely allergic and Kayla is now constitutionally offended by the sight of cats, so we scurried in and out of the shop room upstairs as quickly as possible.

Since the kids are wrapping up, I'll hit the last few interesting items at Khan: I was told more than once that I could be Egyptian. A shop vendor began speaking to me in Spanish, and he looked shocked when I answered him in English. The vendors will do anything to keep your business, even if they aren't selling what you're buying. More than once, students watched a vendor leave only to come back with the desired item from another store. This even happens in the cafes and restaurants. We ordered "Egyptian pizza" at a cafe near Khan and the waiter came back with a stack of boxes from the Gad location a few blocks away. I took a few pictures of the meat, and later dessert, "pizza" to better explain it. As Yasser put it, it's like American pizza but completely different! Made with filo and stuffed with your choice of fillings (not toppings) and plenty of grease, this stuff is delicious. I also have some food and drink photos from the Mahfouz cafe on Midaq Alley. The strawberry orangeana was clearly made of the freshest orange juice and packed with huge bites of fresh strawberry and banana, and the strawberry ice cream.. Oh. My. Goodness. The strawberry ice cream! It was more like a sorbet in that it tasted like they picked a few dozen strawberries this morning, blended them up with a little sugar and froze them into the shape of a perfect scoop of ice cream and placed it in front of me with some chocolate sauce, whipped cream and a few of those mini pirouette rolled wafer cookies. So. Good! Kayla tried the chocolate ice cream and had similar rave reviews. I know I could tell more stories about Khan, but I feel that would give away some of the fun things I'm bringing home, so I'll hold off on that.

I'd love to give you a preview of what I'm about to see today but, like I mentioned last night, we don't like itineraries here in Egypt, so even if I had an idea about what we're seeing, it probably wouldn't be accurate. But hey, maybe we'll get a real dinner today! Off we go!

*For my choir kids (and maybe a few other people), I hope that song is stuck in your head now. I know it is in mine!

This is harder than it looks

This blogging thing. When did I ever think this would be a good idea? Yeah, the kids will have to work and do projects and time will be set aside for them to work and that's when I can update. Yeah, that'll work out just great, Danielle, you're right. Brilliant idea. And why don't you take something like 200 to 500+ pictures each day? And don't write down the names of the places you visit - that'll take time and you'll need to pack a notebook and writing utensils. Don't worry, you'll remember.

wrong. Wrong. Wrong! I'm now behind by a solid two to three days on updating this thingy and even more behind on photos. As much as I love having the netbook (thanks, Dad!), it doesn't have any of my photo editing software, so I can't crop or straighten or otherwise make my photos look the way I want you all to see them. All I can do is rotate them (because heaven forbid the computer recognize to do that on its own) and try to narrow 500+ photos down to 200 or less so that Facebook doesn't break when I try to upload. I at least have them all saved to the computer and organized by date, rather than floating around on a handful of memory cards, but still. I could be doing so much better. Maybe our "free day" the first half of Friday will allow me to go back in time again to update you all on the past two days. Tonight I think I'm just going to tackle what happened today (which was a lot) and get today's pictures on the computer in some semblance of an order. Picture uploading to Facebook will probably also happen on that mysterious "free day". I refer to this "free day" in such a skeptical manner because it is scheduled as a free day and we don't like to stick to the schedule here. We're going on Egypt time. It's like Island Time, only instead of not worrying about the time because you're lying on a beach sipping fruity cocktails, you're not worrying about the time because you refuse to stick to any kind of schedule. Who needs an itinerary when you can be on Egypt time!

I digress. Let's talk about today, shall we? I'd love to give a detailed account of all of the mosques and monuments we visited today, because we easily stopped be a dozen or more. It was such a ridiculously long day though, that I can barely remember what we did 6 hours ago, let alone 16 hours ago when we started our day. (It's 1am as I type this, just for reference. If my math is correct, and I make no guarantees because it's one in the morning, that indicates that we started our day at 9. I think that sets up the timeline well enough. Moving on.) We took our bus into a new part of the city this morning and as we disembarked we were reminded to grab an extra water bottle because we wouldn't be back to the bus until after lunch, maybe around 1:30. No big deal, I said, I've got two bottles with me, almost a whole liter, I should be just fine. That was a little before 9:30am. Ten hours later when we're getting shuffled into the theater to watch a folk music and dance performance and we have yet to see the bus or our dinners, everyone was close to revolt. In that span of time, we had seen no less than four mosques (maybe more, I can't remember), two or three preserved homes, a variety of sabils and kutabs (free water dispersal units and schools attached to mosques), the biggest bazaar I've ever encountered and probably 50 or more feral cats.

The mosques were all beautiful and serene as before. These were all incredibly old, most around 1000 years, so they had seen some better days. That didn't stop me from feeling that same sense of peace (or from taking an excessive number of pictures) as I did in the mosques on previous days. We did stumble upon something interesting at the last mosque of the day. Mosque #6327 (as I'll call it because the name is both difficult to spell and pronounce and we've seen so many that all the names are running together) is the most prominent mosque in not just Cairo, but all of Egypt. Students come from all across Egypt to study, whether the subject is religion or any of the other universities attached to the mosque, such as engineering or medicine. Yasser instructed us to be as quiet and conservative as possible in this mosque and it was a good thing to do. Once we crossed through the courtyard, we had to stop short before we entered the main worship area. (I haven't been taking the classes with the other kids, so I don't know the technical term for this. Sorry!) A lesson was being filmed and broadcast live of the country's most important religious leader. I don't think Yasser gave us his name or title, but he is quiet to begin with and was making a point to whisper so I could have missed it, but this leader is regularly called on to consult with the president. Yasser couldn't stress enough how important this man was. I wish I knew more about him than those few vague statements, but he did make quite an impression.

I did not take quite as many pictures or find myself feeling anything near serene when it came to the restored homes. We've seen five by now, two yesterday and three today, and they all share some basic characteristics: ornate wood working, pretty courtyards, lots of stairs, and labyrinthine in design. It took a group of us about 3 minutes of lagging behind to completely get ourselves separated, turned around, and altogether lost from our group. And I swear I saw the same room about 6 times in the same house. Also, for as mathematically perfect as the pyramids are, it's amazing these homes are still standing. They apparently regressed considerably, what with all the uneven steps, crooked door frames and slanted walls. Adel may have, in fact, taken us into some kind of carnival fun house at one point or another. I don't know!

I still need to tell you about the cats and the Khan el Khalili bazaar, but that will have to wait until the kids are giving their presentations in the morning. It's 2am here! I may get to sleep in tomorrow, but that's still not a whole lot of sleep. Off to bed!

Sleepy..

Note to self: Five and a half hours sleep is just not enough. I know, I know, I need to get my rest if I want to feel better, but why would I want to go to sleep when I've got so much to do and see all the time? Cairo doesn't even really wake up til dusk, so I'm just adjusting to the culture. Yeah, that's it, that's what I'm doing. Right. A few of the groups from the geography class are presenting their preliminary research before we see their assigned monuments today, and I just cannot keep my eyes open for them. Hence, updating here to keep me occupied and, more importantly, awake. I'm fairly certain I'll be napping on the bus because I really want to be energized for the shopping experience later today. Woo! Off we go!

Let's go back in time

But only back in time a little bit, so don't worry. The last time I made a legitimate post, it had been cooling off from a ridiculously hot day and I was heading for the Opera House. Update on the ridiculously hot status: I think I claimed it was around 105 or 106 on Sunday. Oh, no. Laurie, the anthropology professor, and her husband checked the weather at the end of the day and it had actually been 47C. If Google Converter is accurate, that's right around 116F! Holy heat stroke, Batman! That's hot!

Anyway, with the help of Lynn, Brent, Yasser, and our guide Adel, about half a dozen of us girls made our way to a nearby metro station to catch a ride to the Opera House. The walk to the station was only about three short blocks and was majorly uneventful. The metro itself was another story. Everyone discovered how much of a workout the pyramids must have been when we descended the three or four flights of stairs into the station and our knees all started screaming at us to stop. For some reason, I decided this was some sort of challenge and decided it was a good idea to take the stairs every time instead of the escalators. But, really, if I'm going to be hiking my butt up and down Mt. Sinai in a few days, I had better be able to handle a few stairs without complaint. And I only complained a little, so I counted that as a victory. To make things a little more interesting, a few of us girls & Lynn chose to take the all female car. Yes, there are train cars only for women. The only males permitted are their children and occasionally husbands, if they are in a large family of women. Some of the older women looked at us like we were a couple of odd ducks, but the girls our age seemed just as curious about us and they way we were dressed as we were about them. The women in the car seemed to represent the entire spectrum of Egyptian women. Teenage girls, fully covered but clearly expressed their own sense of fashion and not afraid of heavy-handed eye makeup. Other women dressed simply in modest cuts and colors. Still others wore the full veil, including gloves. We didn't get too many strange looks aside from some of the older women seated behind us (we were standing) that Lynn noticed. The Opera House was only one stop away so we didn't have much chance to interact with the other women other than to make eye contact and smile, which all of them returned.

By the time we made it to the Opera House and the various art galleries included there, most ticket offices were closing down. The modern art gallery would have been open for another hour, but they had begun installing a new exhibit and were closing early, so that got ixnayed almost immediately. Adel, of course, tried talking them into letting us in, but with no luck. Instead, we spent about a half an hour wondering around the courtyards surrounding the galleries and perusing the promotional fliers outside the ticket office. Turned out there would be a Spanish ballet of some kind showing on Tuesday night with tickets still available. I'm fairly certain I already mentioned the ridiculously inexpensive ticket prices. Adel got the box office phone number for us, one of the girls decided to take the lead on organizing a group to go, and we headed back out. We stopped by a statue of a woman in front of the opera house before making our way towards the Nile bridge to head to a different metro station. Both Yasser and Adel began talking with what I almost have to call reverence about this woman. I can't remember her name, but she is quite possibly the most famous singer in the Arab world. She died in the late 70s I believe, but people still talk about her concerts. They said she could start singing one song and perform it for hours and people would beg her to continue, to keep singing. Yasser couldn't remember because he was young, but Adel quickly recalled that she gave a radio concert the first Thursday of every month, and that all across the Arab speaking countries, it was practically a holiday. Everyone would drop everything to get near a radio to listen to her sing. I don't think I've ever heard of an artist with that kind of impact in the States before. Even years after her death, she clearly has an immense impact on the musical culture here.

As much as that was academically interesting, it was quite another experience to walk the extra block or two to the next farthest metro station. The bridge we crossed, the Qasr El Nile Bridge, was clearly a local hangout for young men and couples. The group of us, after about four or five of our boys caught up with us, made quite the spectacle for them. I know for a fact that I was not dressed well. It had been as hot as Hades all day, I hadn't bothered with hair or makeup, and my clothes were fit for a mosque, but for some reason I was still appealing to the Egyptian guys, as were the rest of the girls in our group. American guys at least pretend to be subtle when they're checking you out. Egyptians? Not a chance! They openly stared, turning not only their heads but their entire bodies to watch us pass. They reached out to grab our hands, actually touched a few girls' hair after they passed, and blatantly to pictures on their cell phone cameras. If they really wanted our attention, they certainly got it. But it was not the kind of attention that was going to get us to respond to, "I only live a block away!" Yeah. Someone said that. Classy fellow, right? The girls who felt particularly bothered (not me, of course, I can cold shoulder with the best of them) stepped to the outside of the sidewalk. This put them closest to the death defying Cairo traffic, but somehow they were more comfortable there than near the locals. I'm not sure what that says exactly, but it's certainly something.

We again took the women's car on the way back to the hotel. This time, a young mother made a point of pulling her maybe 3 or 4 year old son into her lap so that one of our girls could have a seat. It was such a sweet thing to see. There were actually quite a few toddlers in this car, so they were fun to interact with a little bit. Waving back at them when they pointed at us or giggled or any of the number of cute things all toddlers do, regardless of culture. Their mothers also seemed happy as we interacted with the kids, smiling and laughing too. After feeling uncomfortable out on the bridge, it was a calming, comforting change to be so silently welcomed by the women on the subway.

Sadly, that only catches me up to Sunday night. Monday was a big day with a morning in the CultNat Institute, a short trip to a papyrus gallery after lunch and then late afternoon in Old Cairo to see the Coptic religious sites. We saw the oldest synagogue in Cairo, the oldest church in Cairo (possibly the oldest in Egypt, I can't recall), along with two other churches. The biggest moment for me though, was seeing the Church of the Holy Family or the Church of the Crypt. I may not be a very good Roman Catholic, but I couldn't help but be moved just standing in that church. If the history's accurate, this church was built over the site where the Holy Family hid for three months or more when they fled to Egypt so the king would not kill the infant Jesus. Think about that. I was standing over land where Jesus, Mary and Joseph stayed. Jesus! My heart physically hurt to think of it. I nearly cried and probably would have let loose with the tears if the place wasn't closing for the night about 12 minutes after we walked in. So many of the kids looked so tired and worn out that I don't think any of them really took the time to think about what it meant to be there. I understand, I really do. It's a struggle to keep my eyes open at a lot of places, but just, wow. To be in such a place and not just two minutes to think about it? I dunno, I would feel like I missed out on something. We also visited one of the oldest (maybe the oldest?) mosque in Cairo. I'd never been anywhere near a mosque before so this was a very new experience. I cannot possibly express in words how peaceful and serene this place was. I'll try my best when I get around to a full post about Monday, but it's going to be difficult. Pictures will help, and those should be up tomorrow sometime as well.

Tuesday/Today was another busy, religion-filled day. We moved on to Islamic Cairo to see quite a few historic mosques. I think we saw four or five in total, along with the Citadel. Really some amazing, amazing architecture. If my friends thought the number of pictures I took in Boston was bad, then you don't want to even think about how many I've taken over the past two days. I truly may not be able to upload all of my pictures before I come home. There's just too many! The mosques, again, were moving, beautiful, peaceful places. We even were allowed to stay and watch during the noon Call to Prayer. On a different track, lunch today was as authentic as we could ever experience. We ate at this little restaurant where we advised to only order three or four items that would be "safe" for us to try. I tried kushari for the first time. I thought I loved shawerma and falafel, but kushari is another new favorite. So simple, so cheap, so filling, and so delicious. It's essentially just noodles, chickpeas, brown lentils, maybe rice and/or fried onions, and then a tomato sauce/salsa on top. I think it may have cost me $1 US. The staff at the restaurant was wonderful to us. They did so many funny little things, I'll have to save it for another post. We had our own police escort at one point as well, but I'll just leave that as a teaser.

It is super late here and we've got another amazing day planned for tomorrow. It's finally (finally!) time to hit the bazaars! These pounds have been burning a hole in my pocket and with the exchange rate and my Chinatown-honed haggling skills, I am going to come back with so much stuff that all you'll be able to do is shake your heads at my mad skills. I've already got a few specific items in mind for some of you, but for others, myself included, what comes home will all depend on what I find. And I am So excited for that!

Sorry!

I am so So SO behind on updating, whether it's writing or pictures or anything. I've got a little over two days worth to try to make up tonight. (That's nearly 1000 pictures. Yeah. I have a problem. I know.) Some of the students are presenting their class projects soon and then we're having dinner, so I'll be able to work on all that then. Just wanted to check in so you all know I'm still alive and/or haven't run off with Aladdin yet. (It's a tempting thought, but I've resisted. You're welcome. I know you were concerned.)

Sadly, I couldn't run off with him, even if I wanted to. I am feeling like quite the sick little international tourist today. I should be getting ready to head to the ballet tonight, but I just don't feel up to it. It's one of those 'I know I have to eat, but eating makes me sick but not eating makes me more sick.' It's a cruel cycle. Apparently, I was so fast asleep on the bus this afternoon that I missed the tally for ordering tickets, so luckily I'm not paying for a ballet ticket I won't use. Just another example of how outrageous the exchange rate is: Tickets to the ballet were either 50, 75, or 100 pounds. That's only a little under 9, 14, or 18 dollars! Just crazy!

Another day, another adventure

I'm not sure if today could be classified as an adventure or just an experience, but, either way, we fit quite a lot in again. We started the day a bit later, with breakfast at 7 and the kids starting class at 8. Class was held in the rooftop restaurant, which would have been a great idea if the high for the day weren't 106F! It was in the mid 90s for class but we all knew that it would only get worse from there. I sat in the back to take advantage of the good wireless signal and upload the first batch of 200 pictures to my Facebook. I'm working on uploading the second batch of 200 from yesterday as I type this now. I don't know when I'll get around to adding captions so that they actually make sense without me there to explain them, but I figured this was at least a start. Hopefully I can get those done later tonight after dinner.

We ordered in from Gad again for lunch today. I got a falafel sandwich (very different from the falafel served in the States) and it was delicious and filling and only cost me a pound and a half! So crazy cheap! I think that converts to something like $.25 US, which is about how much I paid for a liter and a half of water at the grocery store as well. Just wait til I get to go to the bazaar in a few days. I won't know what to do with myself and this amazing exchange rate! My mind's already churning with ideas for souvenirs and gifts for everyone. Today especially I was introduced to a few new (to me) ancient Egyptian gods that would make nice tokens for a few of you back home. The traditions around Ma'at I found especially interesting.

Which leads me to what we actually did today. We spent all of this afternoon in the Egyptian Museum. This place houses something like 100,000+ artifacts from across Egypt and it's various kingdoms and dynasties. It's fairly obvious once you're inside that this place was not built to be a museum. It was originally constructed in 1901 as storage for artifacts, not as a place for the public to view them. They just kept adding and adding and eventually it became the museum. And it's literally overflowing with stuff! There are cases upon cases of papyrus and panels of engraved hieroglyphs, rows of sarcophagi and coffins, statues, and whole tombs! I paid about $11 extra to see the Royal Mummies Hall, where I got to see Ramses II, Hetshepsut, and about a dozen other pharaohs, queens and priests. The bodies are mostly still covered in their various wrappings, but the hands, feet and heads are exposed on a majority of them. You can clearly see tendons and muscles under the skin, hair on many of the heads, as well as whether the kings kept their fingernails in good condition. Some of them even have false eyes and fillers in the cheeks to make them look more lifelike.

As much as the mummies were fascinating, the rooms dedicated to King Tut were absolutely breathtaking. Almost every single item was made of and covered in gold! And everything, aside from a few small wooden items and some fabrics, is in immaculate condition, with only minor losses here and there. I think it took me staring into the face of Tut's burial mask for it to sink in that I'm really here! The thing is solid gold and inlaid with lapis lazuli and turquoise and colored glass and only a few pieces are missing or damaged. It's an absolutely amazing thing to see. They have almost all of the contents of the tomb there as well as the chambers of the tomb itself. The tomb and coffins are like Russian nesting dolls, with three separate rooms of the tomb nestled inside one another and three golden coffins. They even have a pristine linen curtain that was hanging inside the door of the first tomb. Amazing! And don't even get me started on the jewelry! Ohmygosh! I could talk about that for hours, easily. Sadly, I don't have hours as it's time for dinner on the rooftop again. Thankfully there's a nice artificial breeze up here and it's starting to darken and cool off. It's only supposed to be like 92F tomorrow, so we're all relieved to hear that.

And, before I forget/Dad kills me, I have a few links for my photos thus far. This isn't all of them, but it's most. I have yet to add captions or anything, but I should get to that before bed tonight so that the images make a little more sense. You can click here for day one and part of day two and here for the rest of day two. Someone be sure to send me an email or text if those don't work. We weren't allowed cameras in the museum today, so there aren't really any pictures from day three just yet. We might be going for a walk to see the Opera House after dinner, so I may or may not have another dozen or so to share before bed. We'll see!

Oops!

I just realized I started writing that after I got back from the grocery store but didn't finish it until well after dinner. Makes it look like it took something like 4 hours to write one thing. Just wanted to clarify! Now it's time to start loading 400 pictures. . .

Wow!

What a day! It's only about 6 o'clock here and I feel like we fit a lot more into those first ten hours of the day than I ever have before!

We started the day with breakfast in the hotel at 6:30. Well, most people started at 6:30. I, of course, woke up around 6:30 and then started breakfast around 7:05. There was a selection of cheeses and fresh breads and omelets and quite a few other things I didn't recognize and wasn't brave enough to try on day one. Maybe I'll experiment with those tomorrow. I was excited to find that the little packet of jelly I grabbed for my bread without looking was fig jam. (Dad, it was delicious! I just bought us a jar, but I'll talk about that later.) We hopped on the bus by 7:30 to make our way towards Giza.

The traffic, which I forgot to mention last night, is absolutely insane! No city in the US could ever (ever!) claim to be as harrowing as the streets of Cairo. There are no lane lines, no stop signs, and I have seen only one actual traffic light in all of our driving these past two days. Yasser, a GIS professor at Clarion originally from Egypt, made a point of telling us that these are typically ignored by most people if they are ever actually used. All traffic decisions, particularly about right-of-way, are decided by eye contact with other drivers and angry honking. Pedestrians run across the streets with absolutely no fear. They are all so unbelievably calm, whether being cut off by a coach bus or a moped. When Lynn, the Honors Program coordinator at Clarion, and I sit together, I take the window seat so she doesn't have to look. It makes her too nervous!

We weren't driving long this morning when the pyramids loomed into view. It was funny; one minute we were driving past apartment buildings and shops, and the next moment you can clearly see the pyramids not even a half a mile behind them. I had this notion that we were going to have to drive for hours to the middle of some desert, far away from any kind of city or town, before we would catch even a glimpse of the pyramids. In every picture I've ever seen, that's the impression you get, that they're far away from the high rises and power lines and nestled among sand dunes and camels. Oh, no. Not true. Well, yes about the sand and camels, but you never see the smog of the city down the hill or the hundreds of people and the brightly colored buses that bring them there. I think I may have taken as many pictures of the crowds of people as I did the tombs themselves. Ok, well, seeing as I took something like 400 pictures today, that might be an exaggeration, but you get the idea. Lots of people, lots of stuff you don't see on the History or Discovery Channel.

We saw the pyramid of Cheops first. At least, I'm pretty sure that was it. Our guide is heavy on the information and the Arabic accent, so you don't always know where you are exactly. I know I'm here though, and that's enough for me! Anyway, we get to the pyramid and it is huge and imposing and awe-inspiring and all those things you know it will be. What really got to me though was walking, and crawling, inside. You're walking doubled over in these narrow tunnels, wooden boards and railings added so that you're not trying to walk up a giant limestone slip-n-slide, and somehow you end up walking the opposite direction at some point (start out uphill, then downhill, and vice versa) and of course it only gets hotter as you go and then, just like that, you're deposited out into a burial chamber. A stuffy, hot, empty burial chamber. At Cheops, there was this little group of people sitting in a circle on the floor meditating and humming with a candle and an apple on the floor between them. I never did figure out what the apple had to do with anything. I was more fascinated by the walls than anything though. These slabs of granite are absolutely massive and all perfectly smooth and straight and the seams are just microscopic. It's that exact! And, oh yeah, there isn't a granite quarry for a good 1000km. The rest of the pyramid is limestone, which is located nearby in large quantities, but not granite. Just another crazy detail to think about when you're roaming around the chamber, trying not to think about how hot you are. And then, in thinking about not thinking about how hot you are, you can't help but think about the people who built this structure. The man power, the heat, the hours, the absolute precision of their work. You just stop, staring at the wall in front of you. It is impossible to fully wrap your mind around that sort of thing.

Sadly, you're not allowed cameras inside the pyramids, although I think I've come to understand why. 1) There really isn't a whole lot to see in there. The walls, floors and ceilings are all bare and rather dark. 2) Some sneaky people in front of us managed to bring their cameras in and had to stop every 10 ft or so to take a picture of the next blank space of wall, usually while trying to walk up or down one of the taller sections of limestone slip-n-slide. We darted around them as soon as we found an opening. We were in and out of each pyramid in under 30 minutes. That would easily have been doubled if people were permitted to take their cameras. And that would just be annoying!

After Cheops we made our way (by bus) to a panoramic vantage point for all three pyramids. We snapped a few pictures and a couple kids played with a Frisbee just to say that they had. There were a few market stalls selling souvenirs and other trinkets, but we'll be hitting some major market areas later in the week, so our tour guide advised us against it. Instead, we stuck around to go for a camel ride! I took a short ride with another girl from our group and took the bus with most of our group down to the second and third pyramids. Other groups actually rode the camels to the second tomb and I'm sorry I missed out on that part. But I still got to ride a camel in Egypt, so I can't complain!

Most of us also went inside the second pyramid, which I won't even pretend to remember the name of. I just had to look it up on Wikipedia, and it's the Pyramid of Khafra. (Say the 'kh' like the guttural German 'g' sound. That's the closest approximation.) The inclines were steeper there and shorter, but, again, I'm in Egypt; why wouldn't I?? One interesting thing about Khafra: the burial chamber is famously graffitied by the Italian archeologist who originally discovered it in 1818. His name and the date are painted high on the wall opposite the entrance to the chamber. Otherwise, the tomb is similar to Cheops. Big room, big stones, extreme precision, extreme heat, etc. Once again, no cameras, so you'll just have to trust me on that one.

The third pyramid - once again, I'm lost on the name - is not open to tourists. There is, however, a tomb outside this pyramid for the pharaoh's doctor and his family. There are still quite a few panels of hieroglyphs. The contents of the hieroglyphs are meant to tell the viewer something about the man and family housed there. The ones we saw were of various animals, predominantly some kind of deer/antelope cousin grazing or being eaten by a lion. I have no idea what that's supposed to say about the good doctor, but I'm sure it says something! We also could climb down into the burial chamber and see some of the other rooms in the tomb, which the guide explained was set up like a typical house in order to be useful as a home in the afterlife.

After we escaped the clutches of the tomb attendant who requested "a little something? tip?", we walked down the hill to see the Sphinx. As every travel site I read about Egypt warned me, it is a lot smaller than you imagine. In photos, it seems like it's close in location and size to at least one of the pyramids, but it's actually a good distance down the hill. It's still huge and imposing and an overall impressive structure, but not immediately what you're expecting. There were again many more souvenir sellers in the area around the sphinx, which we avoided. The teenage boys and young children seemed to be the most persistent, but no one got harassed too heavily. They understand "no, thank you" in probably every major language, I'd guess.

By this point, it was starting to actually get quite hot outside and the breeze we had been lucky to have all morning wasn't making as big of an impact. We hopped back on the bus to make the short trip back to downtown Cairo and stopped off at a chain restaurant called Gad. This was easily the most authentic food we've had the chance to eat. Everyone at my table had a shawerma sandwich of either beef or chicken. Shawerma is like the more delicious cousin to the gyro. Where the gyro is a meatloaf, the shawerma is solid pieces of meat layered with spices (absolutely delicious spices!) and served on a narrow hoagie-like roll. It was so flavorful and just plain yummy. I could easily eat one everyday for lunch while we're here. There was also grilled pigeon on the menu, which I was not brave enough to try just yet. Most of us have decided we'll try it at least once while we're here. Yasser says it's delicious, but he grew up here, so that's no surprise. He hasn't led us astray yet, so maybe that will happen tomorrow.

Hell, I'm pretty sure I could try both for lunch and it still wouldn't hurt my pocket! My sandwich today was more than filling enough and it cost something like 3 USD. If I got something simpler like falafel or fava beans, it'd be more like 1-2 USD max. Even the camel ride was only 10 USD, which I didn't think was bad at all. The exchange rate is definitely working to our benefit. One USD converts to about 5.59 Egyptian pounds. I bought a liter of water today for just over a pound. We go through bottled water like crazy, so that's great for us! There's a grocery store less than a block from the hotel, so I had fun exploring there during our free time after lunch and before dinner. For example, did you know there is more than one flavor of Tang? I have trouble finding Tang at home, so it was difficult to resist the packet of mango Tang as it leaped into my basket. Same thing goes for the fig jam (for Dad), hibiscus tea (for Mom) and chocolate hazelnut wafer bar thingies (for me). I may also be going back for the interesting brands of Nutella (which is all for you, Dom!). It's fun to drink the Pepsi too - or 'Bibsi' since the Arabic alphabet doesn't use a 'p' - because the can opens differently and the flavor is noticeably sweeter. And, of course, I'm taking pictures of all of this stuff!

Aside from a nap and dinner in the hotel, that about covers it for today. Dinner was served in the restaurant on the roof, which was pretty interesting. I wish I would have had my camera with me up there. It looked like rooftop gardens full of satellites and assorted garbage for as far as you could see. It was a very strange sight. The food was good, but nothing particularly interesting or authentic to report. This makes me look forward to our lunches more, as breakfast was also a westernized version of an authentic local meal. Tomorrow we don't start our excursion until after lunch, so I may or may not have more to update before then. We have two museums to visit between lunch and dinner, so I will undoubtedly have more pictures as well. I took over 400 pictures today, so I've got quite a lot of uploading to do now before bed. I was going to set up a Flickr account or something similar, but I'm feeling lazy so I'll just add them all to Facebook and post the public link here when I'm finished.

I know it's only 3 in the afternoon for you guys, but it's just after 10pm here, so it's time for a shower and bed soon. I love you all and wish you could be here to see this with me! Don't forget, you can email me any time and sending me a text will only cost a nickel! I hope to hear from you soon!

Yes, we're American. How could you tell?

Just got back from the most tourist-y attraction we'll probably be apart of on this whole trip, a Nile dinner cruise. The dinner part was great. I couldn't tell you what anything was because that's still a mystery to me, but it was great nonetheless. The only food items that were labeled were the obvious ones like rice or steamed vegetables. There was also some kind of yummy breaded fish and these interesting fried potato things that looked like mozzarella sticks and tasted like tater tots. Strange, but good. The cruise itself was interesting. The boat was very ornately styled to evoke the time of the pharaohs. Hieroglyphs on the walls, gilded ceiling tiles, and even a man dressed as a pharaoh (robe, hat & faux goatee) to welcome you and direct you to the reservation desk. There was even live music! However, we all as honors students studying both the modern and ancient cultures of the region had to shake our heads when a belly dancer began to perform. The girl was good and her costumes were pretty, but it was so painfully anachronistic that most of us had a hard time taking the whole thing seriously. But then, we had been greeted by a guy dressed as an anonymous pharaoh asking if our tour guide had made a reservation, so I think we were all skeptics from the start. Once we finished eating, we made our way to the upper deck, dessert plates in hand, to take our fill of the banks of the Nile at night.

I'd like to say it was a beautiful sight and, yes, there were beautiful parts, but Cairo, so far, seems to be quite a sad city. The beautiful architecture is either ancient and impossible to spot at night, or new and western and most likely housing an overpriced hotel. The most common sight is a high rise apartment, most of them clustered together, beat up old air conditioning units attached precariously to the sides, and laundry hanging from every other balcony. I never did get a picture of the belly dancer, but in only a few hours I already have dozens of pictures of what could be the same apartment building over and over, all across Cairo. I know in the days to come we're going to see some amazing places, but right now it's hard to get past that image of poverty that's already taken root in my mind.

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we're going to see some of those amazing places. We're going to Giza! We're scheduled to arrive there by 8am and stay til noon. Any later and our guide says it will be too hot. I think someone said the high tomorrow is going to be around 105F. It was 95F today when we landed and that wasn't too awful, so we'll see how that feels in the morning. We're going to see three pyramids at Giza in addition to the Sphinx and I think we also get to explore inside one of the pyramids, although I'm not sure which yet. I'm excited and nervous and I'm already worried that I haven't taken enough pictures! I didn't take very many today, so the camera should be more than capable of clicking away all day tomorrow! I haven't the slightest clue what's on the itinerary after Giza, but hopefully I'll be able to share a few pictures sometime soon.

A few other thoughts before I turn in for the night
- Security in Cairo is kind of mind boggling. There are police officers literally everywhere you look, metal detectors at the entrance to almost every building, and, because we're Americans, we actually have an armed member of the Tourist Police with us wherever we go. It's strange to see, but it's apparently quite the norm here.
- My feet hurt! And not from walking and/or wearing impractical shoes, like when I went to DC in October. From flying! Ugh. I was not prepared for that. Me feet look like little over-stuffed sausages. (Lovely visual, I know.) I couldn't fasten my sandals on their usual notch to wear to dinner tonight, so I am Not looking forward to trying my tennis shoes in the morning. (I know you all were probably very concerned with the well-being of my feet. And if you weren't, now you know anyway!)
- This time difference is going to be strange. I'm going to bed late here (12:15am) but I just got to talk to Karissa who was getting home from work (5:15pm) there. Good news though! Rissa & I were able to Skype, which we didn't think would be possible here. The internet isn't the best here in the hotel room, so the video was choppy and we eventually got disconnected, but it was still a success! The connection should be much better from the rooftop restaurant and ground floor lobby here in the hotel, so I'll be sure to test that out later in the week during some downtime - whenever that might be.

We've Arrived!

I'm alive and well and hanging out in the gloriously air conditioned lobby of the King Hotel! I can't say much else about the hotel is glorious, but the lobby has AC and wifi, so I can't complain. Ok, so maybe I can complain: Lynn just told us we have to leave our room keys behind when we leave the hotel. How shady is that? Laptop is definitely staying on my person for this trip.

We're about to head out for a dinner cruise on the Nile so I've got to pack up again. Just wanted to let you all know that we've arrived safely. I'm sure I can regale you with tales from the 20+ hours of travel I've now gotten under my belt once we come back in for the night.

Also, it's really Really hot.

Musings on the Philadephia International Airport

It sucks.

Please, airport, announce the free wifi access for college students over your PA system and then neglect to announce that it's only available in two terminals. Out of six! And certainly not the terminal that I am anywhere near. Oh, and it'd be extra helpful if the password were supplied to me scrawled in pen on a ripped off slip of tablet paper from an employee who barely speaks above a mumble and won't look me in the eye. I'm a college student, not a hobo about to mug you. (Although, honestly, I probably look more like the hobo right now.) To top it off, I think the wall outlets placed conveniently next to the cute, whitewashed rocking chairs in the hallways should be so old and ill-maintained as to not actually hold a plug inside them. Stop taunting me, wall outlets! Not cool.

But, you know, aside from that, the airport's great! More or less. The food is overpriced; the check-in counters are understaffed, if they're staffed at all; and the people at Lufthansa like badmouthing USAir. It's an all-around good time.

So now I find myself lounging in one of the aforementioned cute, whitewashed rocking chairs, in the middle of the hall leading to the main food court, by myself, looking like a hobo, and updating this. I was planning on talking about how psyched I am to actually be going to Egypt, but maybe I'll think about that some more once we hit Germany. I am, of course, ecstatic beyond reason about this trip, but I'm quickly discovery that the airport/layover portion of the trip is not going to be my favorite. Dad, how do you do this so often? I think I'd go crazy if I had to do this for a living.

Also, I'm fairly certain the plane we took from Pittsburgh was just a glorified coach bus. Twelve rows of four and one back row of two. There were only ten people on that flight Not in our group! And I'm fairly certain USAir/Lufthansa knew I used to love me some chorus bus trips, because they definitely stuck me in the very last row back by the 'lavatory'. The flight attendant making her rounds reminded me of the cute choir booster chaperone moms, only instead of telling you to go to sleep, she nagged you to turn off your iPod.

Since the outlets don't seem to work around here, it's time to sign off again. With any luck, I'll get one more post in from Germany. Then we'll be hitting the ground running in Cairo! I love you and miss you all already!

Peregrination

Peregrination: to journey or travel from place to place, especially on foot.

A fitting enough title for a little travel blog being thrown together from the floor of Gate 34B of the Pittsburgh International Airport. (Well, technically it's from 36B because 34B doesn't have any wall outlets. Jerks.) The idea being that I'll update this little piece of web space as often as I can as I make my way through Egypt with the 2010 PASSHE Summer Honors Program: Mapping Cultural & Historical Egypt. As a staff member, I'm thinking/hoping/praying that I may get a little more downtime to update this while the student participants are busy with their various assignments for class. Who knows though - we shall see!

Currently, we're nowhere near Egypt, as you could probably guess. We'll be flying to Philadelphia in a little less than an hour, assuming our already delayed flight stays on schedule. There's really no rush on that though, as our flight out of Philly for Frankfurt doesn't depart until something like 6pm. We've got some serious time to kill in Philly. The Frankfurt layover is only an hour or two, and then we catch our overnight flight to Cairo.

Cairo! I still can't believe it. I've known about this trip for over a year now and I still don't think it's completely sunk in just yet. I've been fascinated by Egypt and the pharaohs and that whole ancient culture for as long as I can remember. And now I'm actually going to get to experience it!

Ah! I wanted to gush about that more but our plane just arrived at the gate. Time to pack up and get ready to board. You'll hear more from me in Philly!