November 1st Cairo, Egypt!

Cairo...almost looks like Seattle right?

This morning we loaded the bus super early around 6 o’clock in the morning and we are headed to the airport to go to Egypt! We get to the airport and have an hour or so to kill so of course we just use the free wifi to say our goodbyes for who knows how long it will be until we have internet again. The plane ride wasn’t that bad. I sat by LIa and Ashlee and just talked and slept the whole time. I think the flight was less than three hours or so, which is nothing compared to the past flights that I’ve been on so it was a breeze. It was a direct flight, so we land straight in Egypt. P.S. EGYPT IS IN AFRICA! (Uhm, yes I am geographically challenged and didn’t realize this…) When we get there all we see mostly is travelers but at this point Lia and I started pointing out how much we really look like tourists here. With our blonde hair and American clothes and bags, we feel kinda ridiculous. Then we get to the passport control where we actually receive a legit passport stamp for the first time since we’ve been here. (The Greece one wasn’t very clear and we didn’t get one in Barcelona). Also, we get an Egypt sticker in our passport which is rather exciting for all of us! Then we head down to baggage claim where we pick up our bags and also meet our tour guide for the next week and a half as we tour Egypt. His name is Osman! Instantly I like him because he immediately starts to learn all of our names (which is something the other tour guides never bothered doing). Anyways, we get on the bus and of course it smells a little funky. But. It smells like Egypt I suppose…haha. While we start driving, I immediately start looking around at the people outside, the way people drive, and what all is going on around me. The women and men for the most part are all dressed in dress type attire with the women and their head coverings. Some cover everything but the eyes and some just cover their hair. Drivers are crazy and basically just like Greece, where there are no lanes and everyone just tries to get through whatever traffic they can. The only difference is that they continually honk and honk for no reason and all you can hear outside is honking…it’s rather annoying. Our first stop is the museum in Cairo. As soon as I walk in, I realize that I will actually give this museum a better chance than the others because it was already different then the ones in Greece that I have kind of gotten tired of by this time. In the museum we start off learning about the all three kingdoms that they had in Egypt and the bible characters in each one. Then we got to see some of the statues of pharos, important steles, and pieces of art that were really interesting. One of my favorite pieces was the huge paint platter that they had where the paints that they used on temples would be placed there in their separate holes. It was huge! We also got to see chariots which were really awesome! And coffins for the mummies too! When we were done with the museum we had to kill time before we got on our sleeper train. So we went out to eat on this boat that was on the Nile river. The food was delicious! Then we headed to an alabaster store where we were served free drinks of orange soda and coke. The people there were so nice and friendly. At this point in the day, we were entirely exhausted and all I wanted was sleep. When we finally were on our way to the sleeper train, the drive took a while because apparently Cairo has the world’s worst traffic, especially on Mondays. We were assigned which cabin and room we were in and once we got on the train, Kalie (my roomie for Egypt) were slightly disappointed. The night was rough with creaking and shifting back and forth in a very small compartment. It wasn’t a good night’s sleep, but we had to deal. We were just excited for the cruise that started the next day!

One of my first pictures in Egypt...