24 - 26 Jun 2010 - القاهرة

Cairo: 24 - 26 Jun 2010


Okay, so I didn't take notes on this journey like I did for all the other ones, but I think I can remember most of it fairly well enough.  The pictures really speak for themselves, too, so.. kindly observe :).


So we took at rain down to Cairo, which in itself was quite an experience.  Even something as little as buying a train ticket can be a huge ordeal when it's in another language.  Especially when the retarded guards sell you tickets for today despite the fact that you repeatedly asked for tomorrow.  Apparently it's not at all this bad in Cairo, but in Alex, they can't just delete the sale from the system, so when they make a mistake like that, they have to walk around the train station, trying to sell the tickets to people who want the trip they mistakenly printed for you.  And since there were 10 of us, that took a while.  Like an hour and a half.


Whatever.  We got the tickets, and the next day after classes we hopped on the train for the 3 hour scenic ride through the Egyptian countryside on the way to Cairo.  And it was beautiful.  I think I have a few pictures from the train.  When we got to Cairo, we headed to the hotel, then immediately went out to find a bar after dropping off our stuff.  I hadn't had hard liquor in weeks, so it was nice to relax in a hotel bar and throw back a few drinks with my friends :-)


The next day was jam packed, and as I said before, pictures do it better justice than words.  I shared a room with my friend in the program and our mutual Egyptian friend whom we met in Alexandria, so the three of us and another girl in our program spent the next to days together.  Rami is the Egyptian's name, and the my friends in the program are Khalil and Renee.  We all decided since we were such a huge group that smaller groups would be more fun, so we split up.  Our hotel manager hooked us up with a personal cab driver and tour.  For 200 Egyptian Pounds (roughly $35.00 USD) this guy took us to all the big sites near Cairo (Giza, Saqqarah, Dahshur, and the Egyptian National Museum in Cairo), waited for us at each of them, etc.  Great deal.


Rather than explain each visit in detail, which is pointless since pictures do a much better job, I'll relate a few funny things.  For example, the guy with me in the picture where I'm on a camel?  Those guys are nuts.  They are so persistent and so greedy for money.  They try to sell you cheaply made "handcrafted" trinkets and expensive and stupid tours on horseback or camel.  And speaking Arabic to them all makes it worse.  "Welcome in Egypt!  How are you?  I give you good price--Egyptian price!  One hundred pounds!  Good price!"  If you ever go to Giza, even if you speak fluent Arabic, that is all you will here over and over.  It's annoying, but seeing the pyramids is a must.  They are absolutely incredible.


We ended the day with a leisurely tour through the Egyptian Museum, which was amazing.  They had some many incredible artifacts, which unfortunately I couldn't take any pictures of.  My friend bribed the guard to let him bring in his camera, but even then there were so many guards that taking pictures was impossible.  Which sucks, because we saw the mummy of Tutankhamun!  It was a pretty surreal experience seeing the 3300 year old corpse of the boy king I read about in elementary school.


We were pretty beat after that, so we just ate and hung out and then passed out.  Next day was really relaxed, but awesome nonetheless.  We visited the Qoptic quarter in Cairo, which for me was a really important experience.  The Qopts are the Christians in Egypt, and their Church is very similar to the Greek Orthodox Church, but with their own unique flair.  There is so much rich and beautiful Christian history in Egypt, and it was fantastic to see the Qoptic museum and the oldest extant church there.  Seeing ancient Christian art and manuscripts in beautiful Qoptic script (which is very similar to Ancient Greek) was just amazing.  I convinced the guards to let me take a few pictures of the church, but unfortunately cameras were not allowed in the museum at all.


We ended the second day with a relaxed and delicious meal in the Qoptic quarter before we returned to the hotel to ice cream and grab our stuff.  Headed out on the train and returned home to pass out after 2 incredible days and 3 exhausting nights in the noisy, filthy, but beautiful city of Cairo.  Next entry will be about Aswan and Luqsor: the best trip of the whole program, in my opinion.