Cairo, Egypt

So I lied. I slept most of the day yesterday, unintentionally. So I'll have to start reliving my adventure today. I'll start in Egypt - because that was the first country we visited. It was also the last country we visited, but I'll get to that later. This was one of my first glimpses of Cairo - after I woke up from a short nap on the bus. I quickly realized that I was not in America, or English speaking Europe. All of the shop signs were in Arabic & there were palm trees! We had an awesome tour guide named Hany, who also guided President Obama when he gave his speech to the Middle East last year. More on that later.

Our hotel was down this street. But we couldn't turn onto that street because that car you see in the picture that looks like it's driving down that street, was parked. In the middle of the road. And while it seems quite clear that only one car would fit down that road, it was not a one way. Traffic was one of the most memorable things about Cairo. It was shocking. At night, if the road is lit, drivers don't see a need to turn on their headlights. And on our way to dinner, one of our hosts Omar got into a car accident in his brand new vehicle. He didn't call the police, or get the driver's insurance info or anything & seemed surprised when we asked these questions.

Speaking of dinner... We went to a really nice restaurant called Cedars with a bunch of students from the Middle East Partnership Initiative that my professor taught. It was so amazing to sit down with these people, who are so different than us, and so similar at the same time, and talk about so many different things. Things that people would normally never discuss at dinner: religion, politics, the whole nine yards. Not only is it taboo for us to talk about these things at dinner, but for them, it's taboo to talk about these things at all. Especially politics. I felt so lucky to gain these insights that I would never have an opportunity to gain otherwise.

As far as the food went, it was as amazing as the conversation. I had Fatta Shawerma (meat, veggies & rice with Egyptian tomato sauce) and Mombar (sheep intestine stuffed with rice). It was absolutely delicious but I couldn't even eat half of it. I normally don't get appetizers because I hate wasting food, but we all had to order 40 Egyptian pounds (about $8) worth of food because it was after 10pm...

The next day we went sight seeing. We saw the tomb of President Sadat, and the place he was assassinated:
The Pyramids (yes, this was the 2nd day of our trip):
Rode camels from one side of the pyramids to the other and down to the Sphynx:
Matt's camel would not stay with the caravan & insisted on sniffing the back sides of the other camels, especially the ones who weren't in our caravan (and thus were being ridden by people we didn't know, and who did not speak English)
Our tour guide Hany told us that when President Obama visited the Sphynx, he went down and stood between its paws (not open to the public) and had a long conversation with it. I thought that was pretty interesting. He also told us that Obama walked from the Pyramids to the Sphynx, which I thought was a rough ride on a camel. Definitely some treacherous terrain. I'm impressed.
At the end of our trip, we spent a few more days in Egypt. Our first night back, Egypt won the Africa Cup of Nations (soccer tournament) in a tough game against Ghana. Cairo was insane! There were young children hanging out of cars, waving flags everywhere, pick up trucks with 30 people in the back (we even saw/heard one pick up truck that had a very loud drum set in the back along with its crowd), people with blow torches, banging pots & pans, climbing on top of statues - it was AWESOME. Here's one picture of a guy with a flag, whose friend was amazed by Americans.
All we wanted to do was get out & join the crowd but our security guard forbid us. We were on our way to the Pyramids sound & light show:

And this is the view of Cairo at night from our last hotel:
On our last day in Cairo, we went to the Egyptian museum & saw some of King Tut's caskets, a bunch of his jewelry, his famous golden face mask thing (I forget what it's called) & mummiesssssssssssss. We saw mummies of some of the most famous rulers of ancient Egypt, like Queen Hatshepsut (the only notable female pharaoh) and Ramses II. All in all, Cairo was unforgettable. But it was only one part of our journey.