The Magical Mystery Tour is coming to take you away - 9 & 10 April 2009

And so our time of rest came to an end. Mostafa (he of the car I was pushing in the previous post) took us from the Deutsch's to the Santana Hotel to join up with the GAP tour. Except he couldn't find the hotel - so we got a nice tour of the neighborhood.

Eventually we got where we were going and found that we were the only Americans on this tour. The rest of the group is predominantly Canadian. After watching the last new episode of Bones that we downloaded (and discovering that the "ru" in the episode of Lost I downloaded meant Russian) we turned in for the night.

The next day began with a breakfast best described as underwhelming - We're already missing Jared's bagels. Then the whole group moved on to visit the Egyptian museum. It's a good thing we went there earlier, because we only got 3 hours inside.

The Egyptian museum is both amazing and depressing. Given the thousands of years of Egyptian history they've amassed a lot of stuff. Unfortunately they've got more stuff than space for it - it looks like our house does after having just moved in. The other downer is that a lot of the "cool" stuff (like the Rosetta Stone) was pilfered during the days of colonialism (cue Mr. Garrison "Colonialism is bad, MMkay"). As with most things in Egypt pictures aren't allowed inside, unless you're willing to bribe the guards. We didn't. Here's the outside, though:

In one of life's little ironies a lot of the King Tut exhibit was on tour while we were in Egypt. What's ironic about that, you ask? The stuff WAS IN DALLAS!

After the museum we moved on to the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx. We mistakenly assumed you could see the Sphinx from the pyramids, and kept looking around for it. Turns out that the Sphinx is surprisingly small (and getting to it involves fighting through quite a crowd).

Here's a shot of the Sphinx:



And here's Man-Ox with the Pyramids:
And here's the two of us, with all three pyramids:
After the pyramids we went to kill some time in a street cafe, before catching the train to Aswan. I'm not sure what it is with GAP and trains, but this one was much nicer than the train between Beijing and Lhasa. Jennifer didn't even have any early morning visitors.

Although the food leaves something to be desired:

When blogs collide - 5 - 9 April 2009

We spent the first 4 days in Cairo crashing with Jason, Katherine, and Luke Deutsch. Like I mentioned previously, they were teaching at an international school in Cairo. I say were, because they've since moved on to Venezuela.

Katherine actually keeps a blog, which is how I managed to track them down after not seeing them for almost a decade. If you're interested, it's at http://hkkath.blogspot.com.

We had a great time. We slept in late (the first morning Jen nudged me awake at 10 am and said "You gonna sleep all day?" in that tone of voice a wife will use when the correct answer is "Of course not, dear."). We ate Americanized food every night (and bagels every mid-morning) and we watched a lot of "Lost."

We visited Coptic Cairo, an early cradle for Christianity, and toured the Coptic museum. I didn't have the courage to bribe the guards so there aren't any pictures, but the ancient manuscripts were a high point of the trip. I don't know why I find them so compelling, but I do.

We also visited the Red Pyramid and the Bent Pyramid.

Here's the Bent Pyramid:



I like to think of the poor contractor who had to explain why they changed the angle halfway through the construction. Can you imagine trying to spin this into a positive thing? "Oh yeah, this is the latest thing in Pyramids - everybody's dying to have 'em look like this."

We also got our first taste of baksheesh, the organized bribery that seems to keep Egypt's economy going. Some guards at the Red Pyramid came out and took our picture. Then, they shook us down for a tip. Peering intently into my wallet one of them said "that's very small bill, how about larger bill. How about American Dollar - for souvenir."

If you're into foreshadowing, let's just say that I'm going to respond less and less well to the shake down as our time in the Middle East continues. Here, though, is the resulting picture:



Here's another example of us being shaken down. This guy loves Americans:



And by Americans, I mean US Dollars.

I present for your amusement what happened when our taxi driver's car broke down:

You'll note that my lovely spouse is using this opportunity to take a picture.

We also had a lot of fun hanging out with Jason's son, Luke. He called us Mr. and Mrs. Hodges, and finally had to ask Jennifer if Chad meant Mr. Hodges.

Here he is during story time, cooking Jennifer in a pot (and stirring the pot with his bat):



And here he is with me:

It was great to relax and recharge before joining up with the GAP tour. That'll be next!