i doubt anyone is checking this anymore...

but i really am trying. im half way finished with a new entry that i will try to totally finish tomorrow when i get off work if anyone still even cares...

still trying to get caught up

i promise. that whole pesky job thing is getting in the way though.... ugh.

im alive

and most sadly im on my way home... currently sitting in heathrow waiting on my flight to ohare. i cant believe how much the time flew. i guess that happens when you are having the time of your life with the best people ever. its been an amazing adventure and i nearly cried this morning when i was hugging my roomie goodbye and when i had to say bye to nick (more on that later...) as well. *sigh* thats the trouble with meeting such great people and having so much fun. its soooooo sad when it all has to end. hopefully though, ill be able to see the ones i got tight with some time. ali said she would come visit some time and we may try to meet someplace (hawaii maybe?) in the future and the boys just live up in new york so thats not too bad. who knows what will happen. for now though i dont want to think about it because it makes me sad to leave the few people i got close with.

im just goign to work on getting caught up on my postings still. i got so behind because i just didnt have any time to myself. ali and i were always getting onto some kind of trouble with nick, tim, pete and bonnie (and i have the awful burn mark on my left arm as evidence of some of it). speaking of entries, i just put up two more back entries so you can look into those. im working on a third while i wait on my flight, and if i dont pass out in my seat on the next flight (i got 1 hour of sleep and 30 minutes of snuggle time today and thats it since we carried the goodbye party a little late last night and i had to catch my transfer at 530am ugh) ill try to have more to post when i get to ohare while im waiting on that flight. this may be asking a lot though because im like a walking zombie right now due to the profound lack of sleep in the entire last week. good times though and i cant wait to share them so even though im getting home later tonight, just keep checking for new entries and pictures. i wont leave anything out (except the incriminating bits anyway ;) )

quick updates

egypt is freaking hot. i guess what should i expect in the desert, but wow oh my god. really, the best way to describe the people is that they are just like mexicans really. the men make rude inappropriate comments to us all the time and everyone wants you to buy their crap. if you can get past that its not too bad. i can tolerate all the annoyances enough to really appreciate the stuff im getting to see and do so far. i can definitely say that i would never come here without a tour thats for sure because everyone would take advantage of you to make some money otherwise. you definitely need someone in the know to look out for you interest so keep that in mind if you plan to come here. im really enjoying it so far (minus the hassel and harrassment which dont bother me that much anyway) but i think this is a once in a lifetime place. i dont foresee myself coming back ever again.

i really wish i had the time to write proper updates and post them, but right now im sitting in a hot smelly internet cafe in aswan where our cruise starts tomorrow and i havent been able to find a place with wireless internet to upload the entries ive written and my new pictures so sorry.

anyway, the first day i here i met up with a girl from cali named gabi and we decided to take a taxi to giza to do some shopping and walk around. the guy at the hotel said there was a mall and some shops near by and the taxi would take us there and wait for us and drive us wherever we wanted for just 95 pounds total (so about $20 for both) so we thought it was a good idea. NOT. we told the driver where we wanted to go but he just took us where he wanted to take us which was a dingy little shop where he was totally getting kickbacks from purchases. i had really wanted to have a cartouche made (its your name in hiroglyphics or arabic) for a necklace and this shop did. i knew it was something i really wanted otherwise i wouldnt have done it so i ordered one and the guy was supposed to drop it off at the hotel the next night when it was done. stupidly i paid for it with cash then. he kept trying to get us to buy more which we didnt want so we told the driver we wanted to go to a real mall and he kept telling us they didnt exist so we were basically fighting with him when gave up and asked to eat. we had a great meal and asked for shopping again and he tried to take us to another little place. finally after arguing with him about it we just gave up and said we wanted to go to this convenience store we had seen on the way past and he was like ok and just drove right past it to take us to this back alley shop that sold icecream. we were annoyed by this time and told him no ice cream but fruit and groceries. he started mubling under his breath as he sped off to this little fruit stand where we just gave up and got some stuff to take back and got some water as well. sick of arguing with him we just told him to take us back and leave us alone. it was pretty damn annoying to be honest. i also wasnt sure if my necklace would show up.

next day we took the legit shuttle into cairo to walk around. the city itself is so flipping dirty and disgusting. basically, we walked around and got really sweaty for 5 hours and took the shuttle back. quick showers and we were off for the pre tour meeting.

my roommate is an aussie girl named aly who is really cool and heaps of fun. there seem to be a lot of fun people on the trip so far and there are some hilarious guys as well. after the meeting a few of us sat by the pool and had some food and tried out the sheesha pipes which was pretty funny. its definitely an experience to say the least.

yesterday was an insanely busy day. first thing we headed to the egyptian museum to see all the super cool stuff they got out of hte pyramids including all the king tut stuff. after that we spent a few hours walking around the pyramids taking pictures and playing around. i even went inside the one which was ridiculous. its basically just a small dark smelly incredibly hot passage that just makes you hot, sweaty and smelly. thats it if you were wondering what the inside of a pyramid was like. yay. after that we took a short camel ride out into the desert where we had an awesome view of the pyramids. that was so much fun. the camels are so cute but they make the most ridiculous noises ever. totally worth it though lol. the stop after that was to see the sphinx and then off to this egyptian cafe for lunch which was fantastic. i have no idea what any of the things i ate were, but it was all good.

after that there was some drama with one of hte girls on the trip and she had to be taken to the hospital because shes a raging alkie and was drunk and dehydrated so while they did that we were at the papyrus shop getting a demonstration of how it is made and then able to shop a bit. me being me, i bought 3 different works which are fab and will make great art for a hopefully sooner rather than later to be leased apartment... we had to wait a bit for them to get back from the hospital with the drunk girl and then we were off to the perfume shop where i not shockingly bought a bottle of knockoff angel by theirry mugler pefume. no one will know the difference though. to the train after that.

the train was awful at best. im pretty sure i was attacked by bed bugs and aly says the same thing about her. it was also smelly and cramped and the food was scary. i just have to take a moment here to say that sanitation in this country is definitely not a priority either. wait until you see the pictures i have of hte garbage floating in the nile. the train was even worse. you would use the toilet and then instead of flushing, you would step on a lever that would just dump it out onto the tracks! omg how incredibly disgusting. as much as it kills me i have been avoiding most veggies and fruit so far and am going through bottled water like crazy. unfortunately, im still feeling a bit off ever since i got here so either its the heat or hte whole country just disagrees with me in general. still having a great time though. the whole train experience was not that great and unfortunately we have to do it again on thursday night. it was awful because we were so sweaty and dirty from the day of sight seeing and no place to take a shower. the best i could do was wash in the sink with what was surely polluted water and use a ton of baby wipes to get as clean as i could. i still at this moment havent had a shower and i doubt i smell worse than some of th epeople here though.

after getting off the train we drove around more (the alkie was already wasted by 9 am and apparently we cant just send her home or anything so people are getting really pissed at her) and saw lake nassar and the big damn and a few other things before heading to the cruise ship. the ship itself is really nice so its going to be a great experience.

in a bit, we are off on a sailing excursion and then apparently we are going to climb a sand dune or something and then we are goign to the market so more shopping for me. going to be a lot of fun i think. dont know when the next time i have internet will be so this will have to do it for now. ill keep writing, but who knows when ill get to post up the entries and the pictures. sadness.

I Love my Mummy

Download this: “Walk Like an Egyptian” by the Bangles
Why: because we all did the walk at some point today…

Fact: The only one of the Seven Wonders that still survives is The Great Pyramid of Giza. The Great Pyramid at Giza plateau is made up of about 2,500,000 stones. Theese stones weighing between 2-70 tons each. The Great Pyramid is also known as the Pyramid of Khufu, or Cheops. It was built around 2560 BC, making it more than 4500 years old.

So today was the big day. we go to see the good stuff. Apparently the reason they do it like this for a reason and that reason is that most people are too exhausted to care about much by the end of the tour that they want to make sure you are ready to go and excited for the stuff that everyone thinks of like the pyramids and the king tut stuff.

Thankfully, we had both set alarms because we never got our wake up call for the morning. It was funny because I was laying there sleeping and I thought I was dreaming of something strange but it turns out that ali had just set her alarm wrong and I was hearing that but thinking it was in my dream. The desert heat is already going to my head… although I don’t think it takes much to affect the little I have in my head at this point ;)

Anywho, we got up and got our stuff outside just in time for the porter to come and pick it up to take it to the pick up spot and headed off for breakfast. Before we left for the trip we had to decide if we were going to take the abu simbel optional because they had to arrange the flights for us and we also had to give them our flight details home so they could arrange transfers for us at the end of the trip. I went over and got in line to do that and started talking to the guy who had been staring at me the night before. His name was nick and he was from staten island. Its crazy how many people on this trip were from new york. There were at least 5 people from NYC area and then a girl from jersey. Also, lots of people from Ontario and a lot of ozzies. Shockingly, there were no other people from the Midwest because you know how much people from the Midwest like to leave the Midwest… so anyway I just talked to nick for a little bit while we were in line and then signed up for my options. I was told that abu simbel is one of the most impressive things youll ever see so I wasn’t going to miss out on that. I wasn’t so interested in going to the pyramid sound and light show so I opted out of that one.

After everone got that jazz sorted out, we were off for our first stop which was the Egyptian museum. Apparently, sharif likes to be the first group everywhere you go so you don’t have to deal with as many people and you have a bit more time to check things out and he can give lectures and such (and when I say lectures I mean really cool super informative stuff about what we are looking at). On the bus he told us a little bit about himself and it turns out he has been a guide for 18 years and 12 of those years are for contiki. He also has a masters degree in Egyptian history and art or something like that so he can legitimately call himself an Egyptologist. Im not kidding you when I tell you he knows his stuff.

We were seriously the FIRST in line for the museum when it opened and he took us in to specific statues and sculptures/busts/whatever you want to call it and gave us these awesome tidbits about each of them. Sadly, I cant really relay a lot of that to you right now because it was super fast paced to stay ahead of the crowd. All I know is that the stuff was really impressive. I have to say that the museum itself is just a cool cool place if you are into Egyptian antiquities which I totally am. I love the mythology as well and that is heavily entwined with the history and stuff we are seeing so its really exciting for the geek in me which I suppose would just be me in general I guess. So after showing us some really cool statues and such he took us up to the second floor which is entirely filled with stuff that came out of king tut’s tomb when it was opened. We had an hour of free time after that to explore the museum at our leisure so we went to the treasure room which was one of the best rooms in the museum. It had the actual gold sarcophagus of king tut along with all of his jewelry that was on the mummy and then in the center of the room was the famous burial mask that whenever you see a depiction on king tut it is his mask. The amount of gold and and hand craft that went into this thing was amazing. Its one of the most beautiful things ive seen.

Another cool part of the museum was the mummy room that you had to purchase an additional ticket to get. I was really surprised that there was a student price offered so I figured I would try to see if I could get anything with my card that I had with me. sure enough, I got half price ticket for being a “student.” Yahoo! The mummies themselves were so cool. Creepy, but cool. Its crazy to think how old those things are and how well they have to be preserved to be able to still have teeth and hari and fingernails. Ew but aw at the same time you know? They also had a whole room dedicated to mummified animals which I found a bit weird but hey whatever. I guess crocs need to be reincarnated as well. And btw the title of this entry comes from a t-shirt I saw at the british museum a few years ago that said “I heart my mummy” on it. Just a throwing that out there. Feel free to throw it back if you’d like…

That was about all the time we had in the museum before heading off to the thing everyone comes to see… the pyramids. Just as we were going outside to get on the bus, gabi sees one of the girls from our trip wandering down the street away from the bus by herself and goes and grabs her and bring her back to the bus. Its clear that she was totally not with it but no one could figure out what was wrong at the moment. She just got on the bus and laid down and looked pitiful on the drive over.

At this point in the game, I was still super excited by the idea of the pyramids so when we rolled up to them I was all about the pictures and climbing on them and all that stuff. I have to admit, they are totally impressive just as you would imagine they are. How cool that im standing here looking at stuff that most people I know will only ever dream of seeing and at best will see a picture in a book… and I got to climb up on them! One of the options was to actually buy a ticket to go into one of them (you could only go into the biggest one at a specific time, but the second smaller one you could go into any time) but we hadn’t decided what we wanted to do yet. We walked around them and while we were taking pictures and chatting (me, gabi and ali that is) one of the tourist police came up to us and was trying to tell us to let him take our picture. We figured it was just a scam for money but he persisted so gabi gave in and let him show what he wanted to do. Turns out, he knew the exact spot to stand so that it looked like you were putting your finger on the very top of the pyramid as well as leaning on it. We got some great pictures from this, and in the end, we gave him a few pounds for showing us the secret.

By that point, we had decided that we wanted to check out what the inside of a pyramid looked like so we gave in and got the ticket for the smaller one. Just as we were going to go inside, some of the other contiki crew were coming out and they were like, it’s a sauna in there. Its just a big dark tunnel that feels like a sauna. We had already purchased our tickets so we figured oh well why not. Ali made it down about 5 steps and then freaked out because she gets claustrophobic and believe me it was a tight squeeze. You had to walk in this weird hunched over position to get down the first tunnel and then you could stand up and walk through a level tunnel. After that, there was an up tunnel that you had to climb while you were all hunched over yet again. Id have to say, sauna was an understatement. I felt like I was walking into a gigantic easy bake oven. You have NO IDEA how hot it was in there. It was just oppressive and the air was so stale and hot. Ugh. The sweat was just dripping off of me and running down my legs and stuff. I practically ran (hunched over an all) back out of that thing. I guessi should say that at the very end of the tunnel was the big burial chamber that had an area for the sarcophagus. I can also say that it was not all that impressive (although sharif said the big one was supposed to be cool)) but at least I can now say that ive been in an easy bake oven… I mean, pyramid. Beat that one.

After getting out, gabi and I rescued ali from some annoying Egyptian guys trying to sell her little plastic pyramids and headed back for the bus because by that point, we had had enough of climbing on them and being so hot. Did I mention how funny the pyramids are in their location? You are driving along the road and all the sudden its like “hey theres a pyramid” and the desert starts. So funny to see.

As a side note, the girl that nearly got lost at the museum, nearly got lost again at the pyramids. Everyone was on the bus when we realized that she was gone so sharif had to get off and go try to find her. She was apparently just wandering around the area in this ridiculously small and inappropriate little dress and sharif had to bring her back and put her on the bus. By this point it was clear that she was totally on something but no one knew what or what to do about it so we just chucked her in the back and left her be.

The next stop after this part of the pyramids was the backside of the pyramids were we were able to take a camel ride out into the desert! Sweetness. It was the most hilarious experience ive ever head. For one, those things are huge and its not like riding a horse. Horses are kinds graceful. Camels sort of lumber around all over the place much like myself. At least none of these camels fell in a potted plant or a gigantic hole in the ground. So it was about half hour to 45 minute ride. We got to mount the camel and then the guy wuld make it stand up and you could actually “ride” it if you wanted to and by that I mean, hold the reins and pretend you are riding it while it just follows the heard and goes in the direction the driver whips it. My camel was named banana and he was a bit of a lazy camel. This isn’t as bad as the retarded camel ali was on. We decided that he must be a short caravan camel. I think I must have laughed the whole ride out into the desert and back again I was having such a good time and in the end, I was trying to race nick up the hill but my camel ot lazy and decided it didn’t feel like moving so I lost that race. The view of the pyramids we got from the ride was really cool too, and the camel wranglers were kind enough (and by this I mena they wanted a tip) to take pictures for us while we were on the camels.

Next stop after the pyramids was down to the other side where you can see the sphinx which is way smaller than I expected it to be. We got to have our big group picture.down in front of the sphinx and pyramids and it turned out pretty cute. Sharif said there was supposed to be a place you could stand in there where you could kiss the sphinx so we went in to try to find it, but it was so bright it was hard to tell if it was being lined up right or not. We still had some fun with it nonetheless.

By that time it was late in the day and they had arranged for us to go to this traditional Egyptian restaurant for lunch and it was great. They had the biggest spread ive seen and we pretty much just destroyed it. I don’t know what it was if we were just hungry or what but we devoured tons of food. All kinds of stuff like hummus and pita and veggies and falafel and all this other stuff. Mmm…. So yummy. I seriously thought I would be eating so much while I was here but apparently im totally wrong about that great. Ill just be a fatty forever now I guess.

After lunch, we were headed to a papyrus factory to see how they make the papyrus and how to tell if its real or not and then buy some pictures if you like. on the way there though, apparently the drunk girl got really bad and started heaving like she would puke and her pulse was way up so they decided to drop us off at the papyrus factory and take her to the emergency room. Whatever. Who thought it was a good idea to get crunked in 120 degree weather? Moron.

So we get to see a cool demonstration about how papyrus is made and then we have time to pick out pictures if we want them. Knowing my shopping habits, I definitely picked some out. I settled on two that I really liked which was a black and gold picture of anubis (the jackal god) and then this really pretty blue, black and gold Arabic writing that I asked the guy who worked there to translate and it was a verse from the Koran which I thought was really cool. When the girl saw the ones I had picked she was like, 20% off the total and you can pick on more out for half price so I picked out one hat had the eye or hours on it which I really like too so I ended up getting on for half off then all three total having 20% off. Not a bad deal. Now just want am I going to do with all these pictures… I guess I need an apartment now. We had been given a time to be back outside to meet the bus but the bus wasn’t there because it was still in the hospital so we had to sit around and chat for a bit while we waited to I got to know a little bit more about nick. Not anything hugely significant or anything… just that he had been traveling since the beginning of june and had just come from running with the bulls in pamploma. Good times getting to know the tour mates.

And for the day that never seemed to end, once the bus showed back up to get us we were off to a perfume factory to get even smellier than we already were from being out in the sun and sand and dirt all day long. Basically this visit consisted of them putting perfumed oil all over you and then trying to sell it to you. I have to be honest, I did buy one. They have like knock off versions of the designer perfumes that are pretty close to accurate so I ended up getting Angel by Thierry Mugler which I have wanted for so long but it sooooo expensive back home. Yay for good bargain.

Since ive started to get this whole Egypt thing down, when we walked out of the perfume factory, I noticed a little shack selling cokes and snacks and stuff so I walked over to get a pop and see hwo much water costs. The guy looked at me and was like 2 for 5 pounds (which is the equivalent of 2 for a $1) so I bought 2, and ali and gabi bought 2 and then this other guy and his girlfriend bought 2 before getting on the bus. I figure better safe than sorry and since it was dirt cheap, why not. I even checked the seals and they were still good so there was no catch to it as far as I could see.

After this it was finally off to the train station to catch our sleeper car to aswan for the night. I wasn’t really looking forward to this because I didn’t have the best experience on the sleeper train I took from Amsterdam to munich and that was actually a first world train. Needless to say that my opinion was dead on. It was the mangiest dirtiest, most disgusting thing ever and I was ever so excited to be there. The thing is, there really wasn’t much to do on the train either other than to go to the club car which was equally gross but we did it anyway. And yes, I am complaining about it because its just nasty. I cant wait to be back in a country where smoking is banned in public places because that was one of the worst parts of the train… everything smelled like smoke. The club car was like walking into a bowling alley back in the day. didn’t matter that much anyway because after 20 minutes the bar had been drank dry (and the drinks were not cheap either just fyi) so the party in the club bar died pretty quickly and really after that all there was to do was go to sleep.

I think I spent the better part of an hour trying to clean myself up with wet wipes and such in the bathroom because I felt so disgusting from being out all day in the heat and dirt and not showering. I have a totally new found respect for the soldiers in the middle east right now. I complain about having to do that for one day and look at them. Man do I have my priorities out of order when you look at it that way…

I know I also previously mentioned the disgusting nature of the sanitation on the train as well. What lead to that discovery was a sign that’s posted in the bathroom that says do not use toilet while train is stopped in station and I was wondering why so I did a little poking around and discovered that it just dumps straight onto the track… whatever is in it… oh how gross!!!! I guess I just have ot keep reminding myself that im not in Kansas anymore toto and that the standardsof the west don’t apply in 3rd world countries.

Really not much else happened on the train other than we were told not to eat the food in our best interest but nick decided he was going to eat the beef anyway and he did. Im really shocked he is still alive at this point but then again, I guess people like him never die you know LOL.

Look a couple of white western girls!!!

Download this: “Just a Girl” by No Doubt
Why: seriously, where are all the women of this country hiding because I have yet to see ANY OF THEM. Plus, being a western girl in this country walking around downtown cairo kinda sucks because women aren’t “allowed” to do anything without their husbands. I would totally be screwed at home…

Fact: Many of today's household objects were invented or used by the ancient Egyptians, including the lock and keys, combs, scissors, wigs, makeup, deodorants, toothbrush and toothpaste.

So today we decided to be adventurous and try out our luck in downtown cairo. This should be fun. We met up for breakfast again and then lounged around by the pool for a bit before catching the noon shuttle downtown. Again, the drive was frightening and entertaining at the same time. I think we nearly ran over an old lady on a motor cycle, but I cant be sure. I think its fair odds to expect several people to get run over a day in Egypt. I mean, the busses just stop in the middle of the highway and let people off, so its entirely possible.

We got dropped off at the bus terminal (and I use that phrase very very loosely) downtown and found a landmark to get ourselves back there and set off walking. This was the time I did my thorough assessment of things and ive come to some determinations. The first of these is that the pollution in the city is unfreakingbelievable. I don’t think we should have to worry about what we are doing about global warming when we have this country here that has the biggest smog cloud in the history of ever hanging over the city, cars everywhere, and vehicles spewing black smoke into the air. Wtf. And the nile, don’t even get me started on that. Its positively disgusting to say the least. It smells like a sewer which I suppose it is since I suspect that they just dump the raw sewage into it along with all the garbage they throw in it. You have to see the picture to believe it, but there is just trash floating all over the river. And I thought the ohio was nasty. I would shower in the ohio before I would even consider putting a to in the nile. Ick ick ick.

So after walking by pack after pack of eyptian men trying to get out attention and shouting out annoying comments to us we decided to try to walk over a bridge to this really nice island in the middle of the river where all the nice stuff looked like it was. Holy cow have I mentioned it is hot here?

By the time we got to the other side, I was drenched in sweat already and feeling so gross. We got over and it looked like there was this park down along the river so we thought we would go in. turns out this is like the make out park or something because there were all these couples sitting around there (girls in their scarves and such) looking like they would be making out if they thought they wouldn’t get caught. It was pretty walking along the river, but between the smell of the sewer and the urine we didn’t last long there.
We ended up walking along most of the island just looking about things and that’s when we heard the call to prayer which was totally cool to experience and see. After walking along the island, we looked at the map and saw a mall listed on there so we figured we would go and see what we could find there so we crossed back over a bridge to the main part of the town and set off.

The most hysterical thing happened when we were just coming off the bridge. I hear gabi go “are those sheep?” and I look up to see 3 shepherds and a flock of sheep running across the busy cairo street. Traffic in both directions had to stop for them to keep from running over a sheep or something (although that rule doesn’t apply to western girls apparently… the only thing that stops for us is taxis). it was the funniest sight ever. After we had watched that event, we realized we needed to get across to the other side as well. The thing you need to know in Egypt is that I haven’t really seen traffic lights and crosswalks don’t exist. The trick is to close your eyes and pray when you go to cross the street. The sad part is that im not kidding either. Apparently we attracted a bit of a crowd interested in whether or not we would make it across the street or not because there were people cheering for us as we ran across the street and when we got to the other side they all started clapping and laughing like they didn’t think we would make it.

Honestly we had no idea what was on that side of the street but we had seen a bunch of bright colors and stalls so we thought we would explore. That might not have been the best idea because we decided to turn down a side aisle and just kept going further and further into the market. We didn’t see any westerners at all and there were thankfully at least a few women so I wasn’t as nervous. The problem was we didn’t know where on the map we were and we didn’t want to ask someone so we just kept trying to go in the direction we were originally looking to go in. again, probably not the best idea ever because all the sudden we were no longer in the market and we were in some back alleys with all these shops that looked kinda shady. And then it got worse. As we were walking someone must have shouted something like “hey check out these two western girls who are lost” because EVERYONE started coming out of their shops to stare at us like they had never seen white girls before. Im guessing they probably haven’t or at least not in that area because we definitely didn’t belong there. Oops. Thankfully, other than stare and ask how many camels we cost and other stupid comments like that they didn’t do anything to us. It was creepy but relatively harmless at least. I did almost get hit by a car, but lucky I have the reflexes of a cat and was able to jump out of the way quickly (ok, I may be lying about the reflexes of a cat part, but at least I didn’t get hit because I think the guy driving was definitely trying).

We managed to find our way out of the market and back to the main road and continue walking. And walking. And sweating. And walking. The most annoying part of the whole walk was not the heat or the dirt or anything like that. The most annoying part was that taxis would drive up behind us and then yell to try to pick us up and when we would say no they would keep stalking us and then start yelling at us because we didn’t want them. I don’t know if its for real or not, but people seem to get totally upset and offended when you tell them no or youre not interested or to go away.

Finally we managed to get to the mall we were looking for and walk in. by that time we were starving and there was a restaurant on the ground floor so we sat down and had some food and drinks. That’s when we discovered that my new purple bag that I had bought to take with me apparently bleeds I was wearing my yellow polo shirt and when I took the bag off I had a purple streak down the front where I had sweated all over and the bag had rubbed on it. Eew. That is one thing I could do without in this country is the sweatiness. So after settling in, I had this amazing frozen mochaccino thing that seems to be a rare find in Egypt along with my sandwich. By the time we had finished eating, we only had a little time before we needed to start walking back to make sure we caught the shuttle because we didn’t want to have to wait for the next one at 10pm. We walked around the mall for a bit just to see what was there. I am amazed at the copyright infringement that goes on in this country. Its hysterically unbelievable. I say this because there was a shop in the mall called metallica just like the band. And just like the band they had the EXACT SAME logo. They had basically taken a metallica album cover and blown it up to make their store sign. Unreal. In other news, we didn’t find anything interesting in the mall so we just decided to head back.

The walk back was uneventful for the most part. We were walking through this street and some teenage kid walked up to gabi and asked her if she wanted her dry cleaning don and she told him no she didn’t have any and wasn’t interested. Apparently this upset the kid because he got an attitude about it and started yelling at us as we walked away and said to her that she “walks like a chicken” which we thought was the funniest insult. We had quite a bit of time left after the walk back since we weren’t sure how long it would take so we decided to crash the ramses II Hilton bar for a drink. Unfortunately that plan didn’t work because the waiters ingnored our presence for the vast majority of the time. Finally we were annoyed enough by being ignored (likely because we were two girls sitting at a table alone. Grr. Seriously people. Besides being ignored, it was time for us to head to the shuttle.

I was once again complimented on my navigational abilities by finding the bus depot quite easily. Finding the actual shuttle was a different story though. As we were walking through the lot looking these two guys kept waving to us and trying to get us to come over to us and pointing at something. It freaked me out so we decided to get away from them and walked in the opposite direction. Still no shuttle and here come the guys. They kept waving and pointing and then we saw the shuttle. I felt kinda bad then because they knew we were looking for the shuttle and were trying to help and we ignored them. The unfortunate problem with this country is that you learn really quckly not to trust people because it seems like almost everyone is out to try to make money off of you or take advantage of you and it caused us to misconstrue their kindness for trying to make some money. Oh well.

As we were going back to the hotel, we saw a huge shopping mall not to far from where our hotel was and then got really mad about what happened with the taxi driver. I was so curious to see if I was going to get ripped off of if my necklace that I bought and paid for would actually show up later in the evening. We made it back to the hotel in a reasonable time and decided to get a shower and then get together for our pre trip meeting later that night.

After being so nasty and sweaty during the day it was great to get a shower and just lie down for a minute. I was actually expecting to have a room mate by that point but there was no one there when I got back so I wondered if one would actually show up. At 7 I went out to the lounge and saw the Canadians and gabi and we sat down. There were a lot of other people sitting around that seemed like they were on our trip. By 720 we were wondering if there was a problem or something but then the tour manager came over and said they were in a conference room further over that we were all filled into. After walking into the room and seeing all those people, I was surprised. I didn’t think there would be that many people who would come to Egypt in july.

Im not sure what I was expecting about the meeting, but it wasn’t what I expected. I was thinking we would introduce ourselves and chat and that stuff, but instead the tour manager (sherif) talked for almost an hour and a half about what we would be doing for the week and the different options and such and then took care of paperwork business and stuff. It was interesting to look around the group to see what kinds of people were there. I was very surprised that there were so many couples on this trip. It also seemed like a lot more guys than I expected although there were still more girls than guys as is typical. As the tour manager was talking I was just kind of looking around and checking out the people while listening and I noticed there was this guy who kept looking at me. it wasn’t anything creepy like but it was just funny that every time I looked up he was looking at me (turns out this “guy” was nick but I didn’t find that out until the next day).

I was pretty tired after the meeting and we had a ridiculously early wake up call the next day to get going on the official trip so we just mellowed out by the pool for a bit. When we were walking past the desk, I heard the desk attendant calling out room 3111. turns out, I have a roomie after all and she just showed up. An aussie girl named ali. The annoying part of the hotel is that here, you only get one key for a room so you either need to know where your roomie is to get the key, be with your roomie, leave the door unlocked, or just be locked out. I ended up going through all of those options by the end. Ah well, what can you do about it. So anyway, I took her to show her where the room was and we chatted along the way. Turns our she is a travel agent who lives in Adelaide and is my age so its pretty good match so far. I left her with the room key to get sorted out and told her if she wanted to join us we would be by the pool and went back to join the group.

We just ordered some light snacks and drinks and then decided to be adventurous and try out the pipe (sheesha) so we got one of those too. At 9pm I walked up to the desk to see if I had any deliveries and none yet. The guys at the desk said they would send him to find me if he showed up so I went back by the pool and sat down. We were having fun chatting and getting to know one another and smoking the pipe and I completely lost track of the time. Suddenly there was a man standing by the table saying 3111? I looked up and it was the guy from the jewelry shop with my necklace! Who knew. He sat down at the next table and asked me to sit and look at it to make sure I liked it and that it was good and I LOVE it. Its so dainty and just perfect for me. it also makes a unique piece special for me because instead of just the heiroglypics like most of them are, I got the Arabic too. Yay! I guess I just need to have some faith.

Not long after my delivery, we all decided to call it a night since we had a very early morning ahead of us. I definitely think its going to be a great trip….

Picture Album

so as promised here are pictures. ill put the link to the album on the sidebar as well. to access the album, either click on the big picture below or hte link to the side.

if it asks for a password when it opens the page, type in: schroeder

hopefully that will work. i just uploaded every picture ive taken so there are some redundant ones and some i took just playing around. basically thats all of it to this very moment (so basically up to just the hotel in egypt and thats it). the pictures posted in the blog entries previous to this were just my own personal selections to illustrate the day. this album gives you everything.

also, i just added a fourth entry so im up to date for the most part. the only thing i havent written about yet is the trip into london and the flight to egypt, and the events of my day today here in egypt. hopefully that will be up and sorted by tomorrow evenin when i lose my internet access.

enjoy!

Photobucket Album

PLEASE NOTE!!!!

1) i just posted 3 new entries but they are back dated to the days they occurred. yes, its a pain to go search for them but oh well

2) internet here in egypt is not as easy to come by here and its expensive so i dont know what my posting will be like for the next few days.

3)hopefully tomorrow i will have the last 3 entries that i owe typed up and posted in here

4) even if im not posting in on a regular basis, ill still be trying to keep it typed up in a word document so when i do make it to the internet i can just dump it all on at once.

5) even though it may crash the entire system, im going to try to find a picture site to upload all my pictures on to so be on the look out for that

6) egypt is the african equivalent of mexico.

that is all.

p.s. dont drink the water ;)

welcome to egypt

Download this: "Dont Drink the Water" by Dave Matthews Band
why: because they throw garbage and raw sewage in the river. in other words, i dont want to spend my vacation with a raging case of the pharoah's revenge or dead. enough said.

Fact: In ancient Egypt there where just a few who knew how to read and write. About 99% did not.


And im pretty convinced that 99% of them still don’t understand common requests either but more on that later.

So today I was supposed to be meeting up with the girl from California I had been talking to on the internet before leaving. I dragged myself up out of bed by 930 to check out the breakfast buffet that was included with the room and I was pleasantly surprised. I was expecting just pastry and bread type stuff like a lot of hotels do but it was a really nice spread. There was so much different bread that it was ridiculous. Lots of cheese, veggies, fruit, yogurt and then hot stuff. They had what they called “french fries” which were like mini hash browns and then different types of sausage looking things, eggs of several types (ew) beans, and some other stuff. Not being a breakfast person, what do I do? Chow down. And the eating continues…

After having breakfast (and practically being ignored by the all male staff since I was a single female sitting at a table) I went back to my room and went back to sleep until 1130 which I desperately needed.

After showering and sorting myself out, I set out to explore the hotel a bit and meet the girl from californina. I have to say, for the cheaper price that I paid for the room each night, it was a pretty nice hotel and room to be honest. The facilities were all nice and the pool was pretty sweet too. The only problem that you run into with most other hotels that have you trapped is that everything is super expensive. Example: a liter and a half bottle of water was 12 pounds (divide by 5 to get a rough estimate of price) which is like $2.50. the beer that they did have was expensive and the mixed drinks were out of control (between 40 and 70 pounds which is like $8 to $13)!

So anyway, I met up with the girl from California (gabi) by the pool and we chatted for a bit to get to know one another and come up with somewhat of a plan for the next day and a half before the tour started. We had no idea who else would be arriving when since we hadn’t really heard from others (except for the Canadians I met the night before). The hotel supposedly offered a free shuttle into downtown cairo at particular times so we checked that out. The problem with the shuttle was that all the times were pretty crappy for the pick up and drop off so we decided that was out for the day. the guy who was supposedly “guest relations” suggested to us that we get a taxi to take us around for the day so we could check out some shopping and see some sights close to the hotel (which it turns out is in giza supposedly not far from the pyramids). We thought this might be a good idea since for the whole day it was supposed to only cost us 95 pounds (less than $20 for the both of us) and the taxi would go wherever we wanted and would wait for us for however long. Now we have a plan.

Too bad the taxi driver had his own plan. After getting in and settling on the price, we said we wanted to go shopping and that we were told there was a shopping mall close by we wanted to go to. The driver who spoke English borat style was like “oh yeah I take you shopping no problem. We go shopping to the bazaar.” We took this to mean we were going to a bazaar to shop. What it really meant was that we went a ridiculously fast speed past the pyramids (oh hey! There they are right in the flipping middle of everything… much like the colosseum in rome if you’ve ever been) to a a shop called the bazaar that sold all this trinkety Egyptian crap like mini wooden pyramids and massive kin tut heads. We were like, dude, we want a shopping mall or market not one store that looks like an Egyptian flea market. He was like “I take you shopping here. This is shopping.” So rather than argue with him we just got out and warily went inside were we were the only customers and a skeezy looking Egyptian man got way too excited to see us.

After looking around for a few minutes we were not interested in being there anymore but they had already brought out tea which gabi refused to take and pissed them off. They were like, its just hospitality to offer tea. You accept it for free. She was like, its 115 degrees out. I don’t want tea but she ended up drinking it anyway while I scoped out the jewelry selection. I didn’t want to really get anything there, but they did have the cartouches which I really wanted to get while I was here and the skeezy dude caught me looking at them so I felt like I needed to at least act interested. So much for acting. I ended up ordering one. I have to admit, it was a pretty little thing and I was able to get it exactly how I wanted it so I guess maybe it was worth it especially since I knew that it was something I really wanted to get. I ordered one that was cut out in silver that had amy written in hiroglypics on the top and then on the bottom had it written in Arabic. I thought it would look totally cool especially since I wouldn’t decide on whether I wanted the Arabic (which I think is totally beautiful) or the hyroglypics. The guy even talked me into getting a pretty chain to put it on. He must have been able to tell im a total push over from the start. That or my reputation for shopping while on vacation has preceeded me to the 3rd world. I imagine it’s a combination of both. And to just complete the amy idiot on this shopping excursion, I gave him the price he requested for the necklace (I totally forgot about haggling and I have no idea what silver costs anyway) and then in stupid move number 3 for the hour, I paid him then in CASH and expected him to deliver the piece to the hotel the next night around 9pm. Riiiiiiight. After I did it, I kicked myself because I figured I had just gotten scammed big time. Oh well live and learn. I think the guy was not too happy I just bought the one thing and that gabi didn’t want to get anything at all but we managed to get out of the “bazaar” ok.

Once outside, we tried to tell the taxi driver again that we wanted a market but he was like “oh, I take you to flower shop or I take you to perfume shop. Maybe you want go to papyrus museum (which btw, were on EVERY corner… apparently museum means something different here).” We were annoyed and kinda hungry by that point so we told him we wanted to get some food and that we wanted something like a kebab or whatnot. He took us to this little restaurant that I didn’t see any tourists in but lots of locals so we thought it would be ok. I have no idea what we even got but all of it was pretty good. There was pita (they are slightly obsessed with pita in this country) and hummus, some cucumber/tomato thing, falafel, chicken and shish and some other pita dipping thing. It was all excellent despite the fact that I had no idea what I was eating and it was relatively reasonably priced. I figured if I eat a big lunch here, I wont have to pay a ridiculous fee for food at the hotel. So lunch at the restaurant was nice and the only freaky part of it was that I went to use the bathroom before we left and there was a little boy standing in there handing me toilet paper. Hello boy in the girls room. It was a little weird with him sitting on the other side of the door and it caused a little bit of stage fright ;) the annoying part of bathrooms here is that they hide the toilet paper and soap so they can act like they are helping you and then make you pay them before you can leave. So I come out and I don’t have any money with me and I felt guilty about not giving him anything so I went and got a one pound coin (more on the money in a minute) and went back and gave it to him and I got a look that either said “whats this for?” or “you cheapo. That’s all?” and I
was just daring him to say anything back about it but he never did.

After lunch, gabi and I were getting really hot (did I mention this place is flippin HOTT?) and the “air conditioning” in the taxi was relatively in sufficient for cooling us off so we told him that we were ready to go back to the hotel but we wanted to stop at a convenience store first. We had seen a gas station on the way from the hotel that we wanted to go to so we could get water and some snack type food to munch on the next few days so we told him that. We eve told him the NAME of the store we wanted to go to and he was like, ok I take you to a place to get snacks and was speeding off. Not to long after we realized that we were heading not in the general direction of the hotel and off of the main road were the ON THE GO quickie mart was located and then he stopped outside of this little shack and some mangy little kid came running up and tried to open the door and I pulled it back close again. The driver was like “here you can get ice cream and pepsi” and gabi (clearly pissed off at this point) was like “we don’t want ice cream. We want to go to the ON THE GO. We want fruit and potato chips and water NOT ICE CREAM.” And then the guy mumbled some stuff under his breath in arabic and sped off… right past the flippin on the go and we were both trying to get him to turn around and go back but he didn’t. we ended up totally pissed off standing outside a shack selling fruit. Clearly this dude doesn’t understand much English or has a serious case of selective hearing. We just resigned to fate and picked out some fruit that we thought that would be safe to eat (anything we could wash good or take the skins off of) which we think we got charged the “tourist price” for and then got some water from the shack next door which was significantly cheaper (just 5 pounds for each 1.5 liter) so we stocked up for a bit and told him we wanted to go back to the hotel now and be done.

He seemed pretty pissed about that too and was like “no papyrus? No perfume? We go to papyrus museum.” Gabi shot back “just take us back to the hotel right now” and with more Arabic grumbling we finally took us back. We gave him his 95 pounds and a 5 pound tip to get away from us as fast as possible and headed back to our rooms.

The rest of the afternoon was spent chilling out in the pool which is really nice but not as cool as pools typically are expected to be but I guess when its 120 degrees out and you are in a country that doesn’t believe in ice, what do you expect? Ive got to say, they are serious at this hotel about the pool closing at 7pm because they all but starting physically removing kids from the pool at 7pm and then packed up the chairs and umbrellas from underneath you. That’s about the only thing timely and efficient about Egypt so far.

Not much to say after that. We discovered why they are so serious about kicking people out of the pool. They make the pool into a big fountain with colored lights at night so that people can enjoy the pretty colors while they are sitting outside having a drink and smoking a sheesha. It adds ambiance to the deck I have to say. After having a shower and relaxing for a bit, gabi and I met up for a drink and a quick snack before calling it a night. We had worked out a plan for the next day before turning in so it would be our first actual day out exploring cairo.

Im still standing by my assessment that Egypt is just the African version of mexico at this point in the game.