Cairo Oh!

I can now claim a new continent to my travel sites: Africa! We caught a flight direct from Tel Aviv to Cairo, and were greeted by our staff. Yes, one travels in style there... a driver, a tour guide, and an "expeditor". (I never did quite figure out what the expeditor did, except for pay for things like the hotel and the cruise, and help us figure out how to get bus tickets home, but I was ok with having more staff than tourists, so I decided to just enjoy.)


Here is a picture of the two symbolic plants of Egypt, the papyrus, and the lotus. This is in a fountain out in front of the Egyptian Museum.

One isn't allowed to take pictures inside the museum, but even the outside is 'littered' with ancient statues of pharaohs, lions, sphinxes, and carved sarcophagusssessssses. Or is it sarcophagi?

The collection in the museum is impressive. The most famous, of course, is the King Tut exhibit, but all the halls were filled with fascinating carvings and stories. To do it justice, one would have to spend weeks there.

After spending a mere 4 fast hours in the museum, under the tutelage of our sweet, funny tour guide, we bounded our way through traffic to the Mohamed Ali mosque, in a citadel that had a comanding view of Cairo.

We could even catch a glimpse of the great pyramids in the distance.

I thought that this was a fun piece of trivia...
In Paris, there is a huge obelisk, a gift from Egypt to King Louis Philip. I got to see it on my trip there last May, with my mom. Anyway, King Philip, in return, gave Egypt this rather overly ornate clock, that has never worked!! It sits in the courtyard, a giving the correct time twice a day, reminding the Egyptians that maybe the trade wasn't such a good one...

More pics later.... Ciao for now!

Eeeek!!! (but even Eeeekier than last time)

Today, for the first time, my little Mazda 3 took over $100 USD to fill up a whole tank of gas. $108.50 to be precise. That's almost $8 a gallon. Concidering I have over 32000km (about 20,000 miles) on my previously 0 km car, I hate to imagine what my total dollar output has been.

Nha nha nha nha - I'm in denial!!!

"Don't worry about that. Let's look at flowers!!"

A New Found Respect

Do you know how frikin' FAR it is from the Cairo area in Egypt all the way to central Israel? I now do. It is about 15 hours in an air-conditioned minibus, over paved roads, under the Suez canal, through much flatness and much mountainess, and very little waterness.

So next time you read about Joseph sending his brothers back to go get Benjamin, and then Jacob, think about what that was like sans minibus!