Cairo - Day 1

We got to sleep in this morning! Our guide wasn't meeting us until 8:30 am. Of course, I still woke up at 6, but oh, well. Mohammed (our tour coordinator) introduced us to Tamer, our Egyptologist.

Breakfast was pretty good at the hotel. They have French toast (though they call it Spanish toast) so that makes me happy. Today was a tour of the east bank part of Cairo. Cairo wasn't established until the 900s, so it doesn't have the thousands of years of history as a city that Luxor does. There are some very, very old cities nearby - Giza, Memphis, Saqqara - but Cairo is comparatively young. Not that a bit over 1,000 years is young, but compared to Memphis (the first capital of Egypt) it is.

The first place we went was the Egyptian Museum. It was amazing. I loved all of the statues and other important pieces downstairs, but my favorite was upstairs. There, they have all of the treasures from King Tut's tomb that aren't on loan elsewhere. We got to see so many of the things that I had admired in Grandma's book. His golden coffins are there, as well as his mask! I thought I would never be able to see that. When some of his treasures went on tour in 2008, or whenever that was, and we got to see them in Philadelphia, I had heard that his mask would not again leave the Egyptian Museum. I never thought I would ever see it. But, today, I did. It was amazing. This was another place where I had to leave my camera in the van. I was quite disappointed about that.

Then, we drove to Old Cairo. On the way, we saw the burned out remains of Mubarak's old headquarters. 

We saw some very old Coptic churches. The first was the Hanging Church. It's called that because it was built on top of an older Roman tower instead of the ground. They have the most beautifully carved wooden windows and doors. Most of them are also inlaid with star designs. 

The other church and the synagogue had the same sort of carvings and star designs. The second church claims to be one of the places that the Holy Family stayed while living in Egypt. You can't go down into that area (or at least we couldn't). While walking through the streets, a young man tried to get me into his shop. I said no thank you. He said "maybe on your way back?" I told him maybe. He asked, "Promise?" I replied, "no." That made Tamer giggle.

Then, it was a new kind of religious building for me - a mosque. 

I've seen lots of mosques, but this is the first one I've ever gotten to go inside. We took off our shoes at the front door to the courtyard and proceeded inside. We put our shoes in the cubbies provided for that purpose and sat down to listen to Tamer tell us about Islam in general and this mosque specifically. The mosque of Mohammed Ali ( the leader, not the boxer) is now open to tourists, though it is closed Friday mornings, so the congregation can pray. However, Tamer explained that most Muslims don't actually like to pray there, because it contains Mohammed Ali's tomb, and they don't like to pray in places where there are dead bodies. He also said that mosques should be simply decorated, which this one is certainly not. A lot of people felt that Mohammed Ali built the mosque to glorify himself instead of to glorify Allah. It was still pretty special to me to get to go in it, though.

We decided not to go to the big market. I had so much fun at the souks in Morocco, so I had really been looking forward to the market, but everybody in Luxor had been so unpleasant that I didn't know if this one would be any fun. So far, Cairo has been much less of a hassle place than Luxor, but we didn't know if it would be closer to Morocco, where they may try to convince you for a bit but then leave, or Luxor, where they're willing to get into fisticuffs over your money. Since baksheesh, really expensive food, and other extra bits had taken up so much of our expendable cash that we're down to almost nothing, we decided against the slight chance of fun to try an avoid an unpleasant experience.

Since that was the end of our official program, Tamer asked if there was something else we'd like to do. He could show us factories for making lotus perfume or any number of other things. I said that we could do that, but we didn't have any more money to spend on expensive souvenirs, and that for a demo, the factory generally expected you to buy something. He agreed that maybe that wasn't the best idea. The kids were starving, so we decided to get lunch and just go back to the hotel for a relaxing afternoon. We knew there was a pool, and the kids were excited to try it. Tamer knew of a good schwarma and falafel place where we could get take out, so he took us there. Well, kind of. It was on the other side of the road, and as he didn't want a dead tour group on his hands, he took our order and last 45 LE and got us our lunch. It was from a stand on the street outside of a shopping center, exactly the kind of place I was scared to eat. But, it looked like a well established place, and there was a line, so hopefully it wouldn't make us sick. We seem to be OK, and it's been a long time, so I'm guessing we're in the clear.

Our rooms are on the same floor as the pool, so when we got off the elevator, the kids checked the temp. It was freezing. So, we decided to do some other stuff, instead. We went upstairs and ate our lunch and watched Aladdin. Max had been so kind to put movies on SD cards so we could watch them in the evenings, but we hadn't had a night with long enough between the tour and bed to watch a movie. It was really nice tonight, though. The kids got to have fun with the movie and their DS's, which was just what they needed, I think.

Mom needed an ATM, since I was now out of pounds, so we walked to a nearby shopping center. They did, indeed, have an ATM, but we decided to look around first. We thought it was pretty small, until we noticed it was 5 stories tall. We looked at all of them. It was mostly women's clothing, ranging from tight (but still covering legs, chests, and arms) to very flowy caftan-like garments. Then, there were the formal-wear stores, which had clothing that left little covered. There were also a number of lingerie shops, some of them interestingly combined with children's clothing shops. Stores upon stores of all of them. Some of the caftans and other dresses were actually really pretty, with intricate embroidery and beading.

We discovered that Egyptians have no more respect for a line than they do for the lines in the road. We're fast learners, though. Only one guy had to cut in front of us for us to learn that you have to be right up on the person using the ATM if you want to be next.

I had yet to find my Fanta bottle, so I could get my label. I had seen some very large ones, but I didn't wan that. I had seen lots of cans, but I didn't want those. I had also seen glass bottles, but those were printed with the logo, and didn't have a label for me to take. So, we walked around a bit more. A guy and his son came up next to us and said welcome. Everybody says welcome. It's not a place where we can even try to blend in, like we can in Europe. He asked where we were from - England? Australia? Everybody also asks where we're from. Shopkeepers, guards, airport security, hasslers, everybody. America, I said. I don't think they get a lot of Americans here, because everybody seems surprised and delighted to hear we're from America. Maybe they think we have lots of cash to throw around, since the American TV they seem to get in this part of the world are shows like "My Super Sweet 16" and "Cribs" so, I'm sure they must think we all drive around in Lamborghinis and spend cash like water. The man was very nice, and showed us where to find a Fanta. I held out my very last euro coin to him and said thank you. He said he didn't want money. He said he has a family bazaar, so he is a very rich man. He wanted us to follow him to the bazaar, but it was dark by then, and across the street, and I did not want to try and cross that big street in the dark. There is literally no such thing as a crosswalk. It's just run across the street and hope you don't get run over. It was close, so he pointed it out, and we said we would try to get there tomorrow. There is one more gift I need to get, so I may go over there if I don't find the gift at the pyramids. Unfortunately, the place only had cans of apple Fanta, but I got it anyway. It's the dirtiest can I have ever seen.

Can you see the actual dirt on there?

We came back and watched Lion King, then played some games that I had brought. I got some knitting done while we watched the movies. All in all, it was a very nice, relaxing evening. just what we needed to be charged up for a our last day - pyramids!

Emma says - I liked this day quite a bit. It was pretty fun. All the Tut stuff was neato, I can see why people wanted to steal it. You could get millions of dollars for that. It was cool seeing in real life the things that Mom had made me look at in books. There were a lot of churches on this trip. I'm not complaining, just saying. these had really pretty carvings in them, but other than that, I didn't care a whole lot. It was neat to go in the mosque, though. It's very different than a church. There are no aisles or benches, just a big open area with rugs to sit on.