October 14th: This day was pretty uneventful. Our group (sixteen of us total), left our apartment for the airport at about 5:00pm. We arrived at the airport and checked in with plenty of time to spare, so we all grabbed a bite to eat while we waited. We eventually took off and had an uneventful flight to Cairo. It was really cool to see the city from the sky at night though (and I got lucky enough to be assigned a window seat on the way there!). When we arrived, we all exchanged some money, bought our visas, and collected any checked baggage. [*I forgot to mention: the ONLY thing I packed was my backpack! Other than that, I only brought a small purse!! You should all be proud.] Then we made our way out to the pick-up area where we found our taxis waiting to take us to our hostels. (Since there were 16 of us going, we split up into two hostels--ten in ours, and six in another). Ours was called the Jamaica Hostel...haha. (I know, right? In Egypt?!) It was located right in downtown Cairo, so that was pretty awesome. When we got there, we checked in, and then one of the hostel workers took us walking around the city for a while. The nightlife is Egypt is so chaotic! EVERYONE comes out at night, and you can easily find things open at all hours of the day: we were even passing by clothing and shoe stores that were still open at 11:00pm! Some of the Egyptians we encountered on our stay told us that Cairo is Egypt’s New York City: it’s the city that never sleeps. After walking around for a good deal of time, we were taken back to the hostel where I promptly changed into my makeshift pajamas of yoga pants and a shirt (since I forgot to pack my actual pajamas), brushed my teeth, and went to sleep!
October 15th: The night before, during our long check-in process, one of the guys in the group kind of took charge and told the hostel staff about things we were looking to do. So, on this day, we arranged to take a day trip to Alexandria! Our group of ten, plus one of the guys from the other hostel, decided to go. The hostel set up all the transportation for us, and it was pretty cheap! We left pretty early in the morning since it was a 2.5 hour taxi ride, so I slept part of the way. On the way there, we saw a car on fire--I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen a car on fire before, so that was pretty crazy to witness. After a about an hour and a half of driving, we made a pit stop at this restaurant/zoo. They had a wide variety of animals: lions, ostriches, monkeys, a baboon, mini horses, and lots of dogs...ha. I went and pet one of the mini horses (he was really cute and friendly, so I had to), and then I diverted my attention to an ostrich across the fenced in area from the horse. A couple of minutes later, I felt a strong tug on my shirt and I shrieked; the little horse had grabbed the back of my shirt with his mouth! One of the guys from our group happened to be near me, as well as another small group of tourists, and they all started laughing at me...I would have too if I had seen me. After my little horse experience though, my roomie Kassidy got slapped by a monkey! LOL. It was really funny. That place was neat, but also really sad. A lot of the animals looked so sad and unhappy--I wish I could have set them all free! :( After seeing the animals and taking a bathroom break, we all piled back into the taxi and kept going to Alexandria. When we got there, we first stopped at a place called Pompey’s Pillar. Not all of us wanted to see it, so we split back up and then met back at the taxi after a while. My friends Rose, Shami, Danny, and I decided to explore the area we were dropped off in instead; it posed as a great opportunity to take pictures. :) When we all met up again, we were dropped off in the city center for a few hours to explore. We ended up wandering around for a while looking for food, and eventually decided to eat at a pretty fancy restaurant. I ordered a couple of small side dishes, but a few people got the buffet and shared with everyone, so I got to sample a little bit of everything. hehe. After lunch, our group set out to walk along the sea-side for a while, however, we ended splitting up along the way. Some set out to a fortress of sorts, and Rose, Shami, and I decided to walk around the city. We ended up walking to a bazaar-type area. That was interesting...let’s just say that it was here where the first of many compliments were given not only to me, but Shami as well. It was quite hilarious actually. We all had a lot of fun joking about all of the things that people said throughout the trip to me and Shami. Anyway, after roaming around for a while, we all met back at the van to go to the Library of Alexandria. It was a very impressive library, but definitely not what I was expecting; it was very modern! It was state-of-the-art (mainly because it’s used for research now I believe), and the exhibits reminded me of being at the Walker back at home; they were pretty artsy, and there weren’t too many antiquities. I know it’s not the original library, but I still thought it was cool seeing one of the largest and most significant libraries in the world, and I’m glad I went. After the library, we all piled back into the van and headed back to Cairo. When we got back, we all went out to dinner. After that, I just laid low at our hostel with some of the girls and went to bed.
October 16th: This was a looooong day. It started out by us piling into a taxi again for a full day of sight-seeing (with an English-speaking guide, thank-goodness!). Our first stop was Memphis, once a capital of Egypt, and the sight where a giant statue of Ramses II was discovered. We got to see a lot of cool things that had been discovered, and we had a little free time there as well. There were a lot of little kiosks filled with souvenirs, so during our free time, Shami and I went to visit one. Here, the owner showed us his cat and gave us free beads that were supposed to bring good luck (this is because they were supposed to be carved into the scarab beetle that was said to bring good luck in ancient times). After seeing everything, we headed toward our next stop, the Step Pyramid. The step pyramids in Egypt were the first kinds of pyramids that were built in the country (before the typical smooth-sided ones were built), so that was pretty neat to see! We got free time to roam around the ruins for a while, so a few of us decided to actually climb on one of the pyramids. It was pretty neat! And Shami, Kassidy, and I wanted to say that we’ve ran in the desert, so we did a little running too! :) After visiting the Step Pyramid, we went to a papyrus museum! Here, we were shown how papyrus paper was made, and how to tell it apart from counterfeit papyrus (because a lot of cheap souvenir places try to sell “papyrus” made from banana leaves or sugar cane). I already have some beautiful papyrus at home from my grandma, so I just bought a little bookmark of sorts and got my name written on it in hieroglyphics. After the papyrus museum, we stopped for a quick lunch along the way. I got some falafel (one of my favorite things to eat in Egypt!), and of course, water (I drank SO much water that day! It was very hot!). After our pit stop, we made our way to the Pyramids of Giza. I still can’t believe I was actually there. They were gigantic! It’s so crazy to think that they were all built by hand! After a few photo ops, Shami and I decided to climb down into one of the pyramids where you could climb in for free. It was quite an experience! The ceiling was super low, and the shaft leading down to the burial chamber was really long. I can’t believe that people actually climbed in those things back in the day! I got all the way down in the burial chamber, but Shami wanted to turn back, so we left pretty quickly. She didn’t really like being so far down in the pyramid..haha. It was very hot and the air was really heavy, so I can see why she didn’t want to stay long. After climbing in the pyramid and having some free time at the pyramids, our guide took us to a place where you have a panoramic view of all three pyramids together. It was so cool! We had a group photo op, and then...drumroll please...WE GOT TO RIDE CAMELS! It was SO AWESOME. Shami bartered with the guide to let us ride the camels for 30 EGP for 20 minutes (about $6--not bad, eh?!). My camel’s name was Champion. :) It was a pretty exhilarating experience to ride a camel. I kept thinking that Champion was going to throw me off or roll over or something, so I would shriek every now and then; the guide kept going “Why you do that? There is nothing to be afraid of!” Haha. Poor guy. My friend Maggie rode a camel connected behind mine; his name was Moses. Apparently, Champion liked running into Moses (not my fault, I swear!!). After that amazing experience, we hopped back in the taxi yet again. This time, we went to go see the Sphinx! That was really neat to see, and I took one of the classic “kissing-the-Sphinx” poses. I also took the time to gather a bit of sand as well. After visiting the Sphinx, we had one last stop: a perfumery! We got the opportunity to learn about how it’s made, and to smell a lot of the oils (which is what they sell). The oils that they sell are essentially pure extracts from flowers/plants. You can either use the oil (only using a drop or two on the skin), or you can make your own perfume (they gave a list of ingredients and the amounts with your purchase). After taking a long time to contemplate which ones to get, I bought a few oils. Finally, after the perfumery, we made our way back to our hostel where we had some downtime before we went on a dinner cruise on the Nile! That was so fun! It wasn’t the most organized of things though (there was a lot of confusion concerning our reservation when we got there, and the dinner was a buffet...with no specific lines...so everyone just smooshed together when they tried to get food), but like I said, it was really neat. We spent some time on top of the boat, just taking in the Nile and our surroundings at night. After a while though, I ended up making my way back downstairs and sitting with some of the group. When I got back downstairs, there was a dancer doing some crazy dance; he was really good at it! After he was done dancing, two more guys and a belly dancer came out and started dancing. And oh boy, was I in for a surprise. One of the guy dancers came into the audience at one point during their dance, and grabbed my hand and dragged me to the dance floor with him! I wasn’t the only one that they brought up (THANK GOODNESS). So three other random girls from the audience and I helped make beats and stuff for the belly dancer. I had NO idea what I was doing, and I looked so stupid (not to mention my group found it quite hilarious), but it was fun! And the belly dancer lady was actually really good too! It was definitely quite an experience...haha. When the cruise was over, we walked one of our group-members home (she was staying in the other hostel). After we got back to our hostel, my friend Maggie invited some of us out with her and some of her Egyptian friends! Of course, we decided to meet them, and was that a good decision or what--I think that this was one of the highlights of the trip! Shami, Rose, Alexis, and I went to hang out with Maggie and her three Egyptian friends (she knew them from a German camp she went to in Germany for a while), and we hung out at the famous Khan el Khal Li Bazaar. They helped a couple of us barter with some of the venders that were still open, and Rose and Shami made some purchases (and got some really good deals since we had some Egyptians with us!). They also took us walking around the bazaar (which was like a maze by the way) and near the big mosque at the bazaar, and then we sat down at a little coffee place of sorts. I ordered a fresh-squeezed mango juice; it even had some of the mango bits in it, so it was really delicious! We all just chatted a while, and then a couple of Maggie’s other friends came and joined us. Sadly, we left pretty much right after they arrived since we were all getting tired. It was a great night, and the guys were so nice. [*Seriously, American guys should hang out with them for a while and get some lessons from them on manners and what-not. They payed for everything (like, all of the juices that we ordered), helped cover the price of Shami’s purchase since she didn’t have enough money, drove all of us to and from our hostel, and were just complete gentlemen! And they told us to tell them if we ever came back because they’d help arrange everything for us too!!*] Anyway, it was a fabulous night. When we got back to our hostel, we all just crashed and went to bed because we were exhausted!
October 17th: This day wasn’t nearly as packed as the day before. We all slept in, and after taking time to get ready, I quickly rated our hostel stay online for the owner (while he watched me...that was nice of him). I gave them a good review though because they were super great with everything, and very hospitable. After getting ready and writing my review, Rose, Alexis, Shami, and I headed on over to the Cairo museum. That place was very interesting--there was just stuff everywhere. Like, it looks like someone found a bunch of things and didn’t know what to do with it, so they just put it all around the museum! I guess you could say that it was an organized chaos of sorts. It was very cool to be in such a historical place though. I was literally able to touch many of the sarcophagi and hieroglyphics...it was unreal! I couldn’t believe I was actually touching all of these artifacts from such an important place and time in history, things that were so old!! We didn’t end up touring the mummy exhibit because it cost quite a bit of money, but we did see some mummified animals, so that was neat! I guess I’ll just have to come back to see the mummy exhibit someday! :) We took a quick break in the (overpriced) cafeteria and chatted for a while, and then after doing a little more exploring and going into the gift shops, we left to go back to the hostel. When we got back, Maggie told us that one of her friends, Wael (one of the ones that came right as we were leaving the night before), could take us back to the bazaar and then to the other side of town for the day. We were all totally up for that, so we packed up, left a note for the others at the hostel, and checked out. When we got the bazaar, we had a quick lunch; I had the BEST falafel EVER. Seriously, it was amazing. Also, during lunch, a couple of Egyptian women saw me and started smiling and pointing and what-not...well, they asked Maggie’s friend if they could get a picture with me. I didn’t want to be rude, so I said yes. It was really funny because they couldn’t really figure out their cell phone camera, and they were really nice. I had Maggie take a pic for me too to remember the experience. Gotta love having blonde hair and blue eyes! haha. After lunch (which Maggie’s friend treated us to by the way!), we walked around the bazaar for a while and I got quite a few goodies for a really good price! (I also got an offer to have an Egyptian boyfriend as well, which I quickly declined and walked away...haha). We also visited the big mosque that we saw the night before; it was very beautiful, and I loved the intricacy of the architecture. After staying in the bazaar for quite a bit of time, we headed towards another part of Cairo called Rehab. We ate dinner here, got some ice cream, and had some amazing donuts. Once again, Maggie’s friend paid for everything (except for the ice cream because we refused to let him pay!...seriously, they were all way too nice to us over there!). After our food extravaganza, Maggie’s friend took us to the airport. We went to the wrong terminal at first, but we got to the right one eventually. We said and waved goodbye to him (he waited for us to get through our check-in before leaving), and met up with all of the others. Then, we just waited for our flight to depart, got on the plane, and went home! We got back to our apartment around 2:00am I’d say, but we none of us could sleep. Shami, Kassidy, and I exchanged stories with Kayla, who spent her weekend on the Greek island of Rhodes. After showering and unpacking, I stayed up for a while and I skyped with Kirsten and Mandy! It was a little difficult because I didn’t really have a voice, but it was so great talking to them. After that, I finally went to bed. (No worries: for those of you who were wondering, I didn’t have class the next day, so I got to sleep in!) :)
And that’s the gist of my time in Egypt! It was seriously one of the best weekends I’ve ever had. It was really great to be immersed in a culture that is so different from the United States, and to get to experience a place that I have never been to before. As amazing as my time was in Egypt, I’m very glad I did not study abroad there (for those of you who don’t know, it ended up being my second choice for studying abroad). The city is HOT, very filthy (can you say smog anyone?), and you would have to dress very modestly, covering knees and shoulders all of the time (which, I don’t have a problem with being modest at all--you just get very hot when you were long pieces of clothing.) Not to mention, I don’t think I could handle all of the attention that I tended to draw over there for that long either. ha. But really, it was an amazing place, and I definitely would LOVE to go back again someday. Well, keep tuned for another blog post in the near future. Hope all is well at home!!! <3
I know where I'm going for a husband. Forget marrying an American man.
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