Walk like an Egyptian!!!

7/29/08
So, today, we were supposed to be docking in Istanbul, Turkey, but because of the recent shootings at the US embassy and the bombings that killed 18 people and injured about 150, ISE & SAS decided, much to my dismay, that it would not be in our best interest to go. Because of this, last night we pulled a huge U-turn to head towards…
… ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT!!! As bummed as I was not being able to see Bahar in Turkey, Egypt sounds pretty cool!! So today we had a day at sea to study and/or relax!! The field office was able to put together some last minute trips for us to do. MY friends Emily, Heather, Marissa, and I decided to do the Camel ride and Jeep Safari in Cairo. Since there is not a whole lot to do in Alexandria, we decided we were going to sign off the trip in Cairo and stay the night in a hotel that Heather’s mom booked for us, and then come back the last day and spend that in Alexandria.

7/30/08
When I woke up for breakfast at 7:15, we were already docked in Alexandria. We decided to fill up on breakfast because we were kind of nervous to eat Egyptian food. We were able to get off at 8:45 to get on the bus for our 3-hour drive to Cairo. (We had to take our passports and were DELIGHTED to have it stamped in Egypt!! The last place it got stamped was Russia) 22 million people live in Cairo, which is ¼, the population of everyone in Egypt. We went first to the pyramids – it was SO crazy to see them in real life! They are HUGE! It was pretty annoying that there were guys on camels everywhere trying to get us to take pictures and then pay them, but I was able to avoid them! We took lots of pictures, we were only there for ½ hour but that was enough, there isn’t a whole lot to see besides the pyramids and its MONDO hot there. Next, we drove down the hill to see the Sphinx, which was really cool as well. After the Sphinx, we went to a country club for lunch that was a buffet of Middle Eastern food and it was actually REALLY good. After eating, we headed to a tomb. It was SO hot in there and very cramped, but really really cool to see all the carvings on the walls! The next part of the trip was definitely one of the coolest parts. They took is in Jeeps and drove us all over the sand dunes, pretty fast. It was kind of scary at first, but they knew what they were doing. They drove us to our caravan of camels that were waiting for us in the middle of the dunes. There were over 100 of us, that’s a lot of camels. We rode the camels for ½ hour and that was soo cool. The tour was over then, and the bus was headed back to Alexandria, so we talked to our tour guide about the best way of getting to our hotel and she said that she could have the bus drop us off on their way back to Alexandria. We got dropped off pretty much directly in front of our hotel, which was REALLY sweet. It was called La Meridien at the Pyramids. Our room overlooked the Pyramids. It was definitely the best hotel room with a view!!
After we settled in, we went to the lobby for dinner. They had 3 restaurants in the hotel and we went to the Tex-Mex grill, I had a vegetarian burrito and it was fabulous! When we finished, Heather and I went to the café bar in the lobby and got some coffee. There we met some guys from the US and Australia who were filming an extreme sports show in Cairo. They were really nice. Then, we saw an Egyptian wedding taking place in the hotel lobby. It was crazy! We stuck around to watch. There was an Egyptian man beside us that was part of the wedding and the wedding party had gone upstairs, so we asked him if that was the ceremony or the reception, and he told us the ceremony and invited us up to see the reception, we went, but it was instantly awkward, so we left and went back to the room. Emily and I decided to go back downstairs to hang out with the guys from the TV show, so we went back to the restaurant and got a drink and sat to talk with them fir a while. It was kind of cool to talk to them about their show and how they felt about Egypt and their perspectives. We talked to them for about an hour and decided it was time to go to bed because we were tired. (we fit 4 people in a 2 person room.. mostly because we are poor.. but there were 2 beds that were between a full and a twin, so we snuggled).

7/31/08
We tried to wake up early this morning to watch the sun rise over the pyramids, but we were too tired. We finally woke up at 8:30, went to breakfast, got ready, and left around 10. We got a cab to the Nile River, where we took a little boat across. We needed to find the train station, so Emily asked a guy that was on the boat and he said he would show us the way because he was on his way past it. It was about a 30-45 minute walk there and the guy helped us to get the train tickets for the 3:00 train back to Alexandria. After we had our tickets, we headed to the Kahn El Khalily Bazaar in a taxi. They had soo much stuff there; spices, knick-knacks, scarves, shoes, anything and everything you can think of. We stayed there for about an hour and then headed back to the train station to be there by 2:30 to make sure we were on time for the train. We got to the station and found Aimee and Paul and other SASers. We had 1st class tickets, thank God, because the coach class was ridiculously packed and no Ac. It was about a 2 ½ hour ride back. We had to take a taxi back to the ship and got dinner on the ship. We kind of just stayed in for the night and got some stuff done and watch movies since we were touring Alexandria in the morning.

8/1/08
We missed breakfast this morning by 15 minutes, so when we finally got our butts off the ship at 11, we headed out to find the little bazaar and food in Alexandria. We finally found the bazaar after a little walking around, but it was dirty and gross and disgusting. We decided to walk back to where we started and then go look for food. Aimee and Paul were looking for this one Egyptian dish and when they found it, I got some falafel sandwiches, they were soo good. We were getting really hot, so we – Aimee, Paul, Marissa, Emily and Heather – decided to start back towards the ship. We thought we were heading in the right direction, but we were taking a very long round about way, so we didn’t make it back until 12:45. When we got back to port, I still had 200 Egyptian Pounds left, which was about $40, so we hit the little shops that were beside our ship. I was able to get 4 cashmere scarves for 100 pounds, or $5 each! I thought that was a pretty good deal! We got on the ship and went swimming to cool off because it was a scorcher. I took a little nap before dinner and then we watched 27 Dresses and 13 Going On 30 in Aimee and Marissa’s room. It was fun!

Overall, Egypt was definitely a cool place to go, but I don’t know if I will ever go back. It is dirty, smelly, and the guys look at American women like we are a piece of meat. I definitely had a good time with what we did, though!