Cairo pt 1

I find myself having mixed feelings about Cairo. Do I like it? Do I love it? Do I hate it? I am not sure. Maybe one of you can hint on my feelings towards the city by my description. I just think the city is alright, better than I excpected actually. When we asked people about Cairo half of them said it was horrible and we were better off just skipping it and the pyramids as well. They told us tales of hassling and harrassment and pinches. I have had no such experience. Cairo is like any other big city, and houses about 11 million people I believe. By the architecture, the city looks just like a typical large European city and is not anything very special except for the museam, mosques, bazzar, and food. Before I go into my impressions I think I owe it to the men on our bus to dedicate a little part of my blog to their bus ride.

We had left Soft Beacha at about 8:45 to catch the 9:00 bus to Cairo and waited around with 3 other girls who were going to Cairo too. (They spoke Arabic thankfully) THen a man in a minivan pulled up and offered to take us somewhere and the girls negotiated for him to drive us to Cairo for 60 Egyptian pounds each. (about 12 USD). We piled into the car and went to the passport checkpoint. We handed him our passports and he glanced at them and told us to turn around. We were not allowed through! The driver had no idea why and we wondered if it was because we were American or we had an Israeli stamp. We will never know. The minivan after ruining our plans of taking the 9 o'clock bus, dropped us off at the bus station. We were so disapointed because the next bus to Cairo was at 3 and that would mean we would arrive at the hotel at 12 in the morning! (no thanks) The girls asked and a man said that a bus was coming for us in about 10 min. We were very skeptical but just as he had said, the bus pulled in. We bought our tickets and as I was climbing up the little staircase to the bus, I looked up and it was all men looking up. It was us 6 girls and a bus full of men. (Woah) We were ushed to sit in the front and we began the drive. The men acted like 3 year olds! They were hollering, laughing, drinking soda, chaning seats, and acting like children! I was sitting next to Jessica and she fell asleep as I covered my mouth to keep out the smoke and looking forward to keep from getting carsick on the windy road through the rocky cliff desert. I remember turning my head to say something to my mom and huge green palm tres caught my eye. There were two elderly women making a fire and weaving under the shade of 2 huge palm trees with a huge towering cliff of rock looming over their heads. It was a beautiful sight. We got out of the rocky desert and everthing became flat. Completely FLAT! I supposed the straight road was a signal for the men to hit the music. The driver pushed in a tape then BANG!!! Thumping ear popping music blasted through the speaker over head. Jessica shot up and had a face of sheer confusion, and terror. (Poor Jessica). I realized that it was only our little speaker that worked in the entire bus so we were the lucky ones that got to have our ear drums bursted. The men all got up and went into the aisle of the bus and started dancing!! It was so funny. They were shimmying, clapping, going "aye aye ayye rrrrrrrrrrrrr (spanish roll of tounge on the R), and having quite a blast. This went onn for a long long long time and was quite the amusing show, and an experience one can't forget.

We arrived in Cairo and went to our hotel whichh is okay, very clean and nice, but service and stuff is not spectacular. We headed our into Cairo at night to grabb a bite to eat (we got shwarma which is this large hunk of meat the spins and they shave of a bit and mix it with spices, juices, and vegetables, and sometimes will put it into a sandwhich. At night we got some stares and a few "mwah!"'s, but not bad at all. We got a great night of rest and were ready for the egyptian museam. The egyptian museam is more like a ridiculously large and very nice antique shop with things thrown here and there. We were a little flustered and got a really great Egyptian guide. Everything in there is spectauclar from the huge stone spinxs, large faces, crystal eyeballs in the statues, to the endless amount of hieroglyphics on just about every piece of stone. It was amazing. We were in quite a shock at the contents of Tutankhaman's tomb. OH MY GOD! GOLD EVERYWHERE! This man knew how to go down in style. It was so cool to see the famous mask up and close only about 4 inches away from my face. His jewlery was incredible, and the large gold plated boxes that encased his tomb (like Russian nesting dolls) were impressive. There is so much to see in that Museam that if you spent 1 min looking at every little thing, it would take you 9 months to finish the whole museam! After the museam we hitched a cab to the Islamic Area to check out the mosque and the bazzar.

Our cab stopped infront of a mosque which holds the oldest University in the world. We had to take off our shoes and cover our hair and we were whisked away by a man who seemed offical, but I had my radar on and knew he was not a tour quide and would want baksheesh (tip) for his services so we said no thank you and he left. We went into another room and were offered this same tour guide things but instead of being offered they just went into talking about the place! My mom and I were ready to just leave because it got annoying. I have to say that mosques are way more comfortable than churches, getting to feel the wonderful carpet under your toes and the smooth cold marble. Wonderful. As we were leaving I stopped myself and walked into the center of the mosque. It was all white alabaster on the floor stretched out and brightened up even the sky itself. There was a covered walk way all around the center with men sitty lazily in the shade. I was impressed at the whiteness of the stone and wanted to run all around it jut because It looked like one of those amazing nicely made beds that make you want to just jump into the covers and feel that craftsmanship. I had to urge to walk and run and skip on this giant slab, becaus it looked holy. We went outside and headed into the labryth they like to call "bazaar". People are waiting to use the computer and I am not going to be rude. 'Till tomorrow my friends, I leave you with suspense with these hints "wood carving, almost being arrested, inmates families, kitchen appliances, and smoothies"

Bailey

P.s Sorry about the typos