Still alive

Things have been going great!! We have been away from the computer for a bit because we are touring the countryside. We are currently in Duhab which is on the Red Sea. You can look across the Sea at night and see the lights of Saudi Arabi on the other side! Cool.
Tomorrow we are renting 4-wheelers to cruise around the Sea. The weather is perfect. The pools are plentiful and the Corral Reef looks amazing.
Love you all and will post again when we get back to Cairo on Saturday. Maybe. We may get back late and then Sunday we are heading out to the village for the end of Ramadan.

Greetings again from Egypt.

Another day has come and gone in a whirlwind. Last night we....ummmm.... I can't remember what we did!! It is all blending together. I guess I will have to look at all the pictures to remember.

Ah yes, Lena came up to visit and we gave her some Jewelry. This is Phyllis and Adels Niece. She is so adorable. Her 9th birthday is next week and she invited us to her birthday party. Sadly we will not be here. In this picture she was telling Aunt Phyllis she thought Lindsey was her sister, not pat.

After visiting,Phyllis dropped Mom, Dad, Shadie and Me off at road 9 to go to the silver store and do a little more shopping. Here is dad trying on his galabeya
Waiting on the street for a taxi

We went and got some kosheri as a midnight snack. I guess it could be considerede out Seyhor. From the store they walked to Phyllis' house and I walked by myself to Sarah's house. I even stopped at a shop and bought water ALL BY MYSELF. :) Okay so it wasn't that hard but I did.

We slept in today because we didn't have much to do. Sarah got done tutoring at 10 and we were going to go to the citadel and see the mosks. Sarah tutors the son of the highest paid belly dancer in Egypt! So I guess its like having Britney Spears kid in your living room! cool huh? He is a cute little boy. It was fun to have sarah with us. She has been pretty busy with school so hasn't been able to come.

This was the floor of the first mosk we went to. I don't know the name of it. Here is the carpet. They do it in this fashion so that each person has their own space to pray. Normally they have their prayer rug but here this is what they use.

It is respectful to be completely covered when you go. We didn't have to cover our heads but when people come to the temple grounds we like them to be dressed respectfully right? While we were in this mosk the man stood in the center and did the call to prayer. The acoustics in this place were AMAZING. All the sounds echoed together to great a sound that I cannot describe. It was fantastic. I always thought that the call to prayer was a recording but I guess not.

For those of you who don't know what a call to prayer is I will explain. 5 times a day throughout the entire city you can here singing. There are speakers all over the city so that everyone can hear it. After the call to prayer they have till the next call to prayer to pray. People will stop wherever they are, put out a prayer rug, and do their prayers. It is really cool to see. Today we saw a man that had pulled his car over and was praying on the side of the road.

This has been cool for me to see. Many times in America we feel weird praying over our food when we are at a restaurant or out in public. We shouldn't be ashamed to pray to our God! We should be able to do it whenever and where ever we are.

Meppers go to Mohamad Ali Mosk! :)

This is the city from inside the Citadel. The citadel is a fort that they used to protect Cairo. This is facing towards the Nile river. It was amazing to see. Here at the Citadel there were many things. The muhamad Ali mosk. A military Museum. The house where Muhamad Ali lived. We saw all but the museum. Mom and Dad waited outside because it is 50 pounds a person to get in and they had already seen it.

Over looking the city.

Here is inside the mosk. If you are not dressed appropriatly they give you these green robes to wear. Not many people come to this mosk anymore. It is more for tourists. There was a small spot where you can go pray if you wish. While we were at the other mosk many people were coming to pray while we were leaving. It is mostly the people that work in the area that pray there. There as MANY mosks all over the city. Sometimes several in 1 area.

Muhamed Ali mosk from the outside.

Here is a vendor that sells Galabeyas. I just bought a couple shirt galabeyas and Lindsey and mom bought a few things as well.

We went back to the houses to take a nap after. Sarah is participating in Ramadan so she has been without food and drink all day and its hard being out in the sun. Tomorrow we pack up and go to Mt. Sinai so we needed to do a little laundry. Here is Lindsey drying her laundry. Sarah doesn't have a dryer at her house.

Here is Sarah's apartment. It is very cute and she has done a lot to fix it up.

For Iftar tonight we wanted to go out to a nice Egyptian restaurant. Adel made us reservations for a feast we will never forget! There was soup, rice, baba ganoosh, tahini, fresh vegetables, pocket bread, pickels, roasted chicken, smoked beef things. It was great!

Food! After fasting all day it doesn't take long to devour all the food. We aren't fasting but with the hot sun and walking we are famished by dinner.

Because it is Ramadan everything closes down from 6-9. We have had lots of time to hang out with the Ali's at their house. All the shops have different hours during the day since everyone stays out so late for the holiday.

What day is today? Monday I think

I have never been on vacation for 2 weeks before. Its quite the experience. I don't know what day it is, what time it is, or what we are doing. I just go with the flow. I could pay attention and learn what to do but Lindsey doesn't ever listen to me and she has to figure things our for herself so there is no point in me learning. Just go with the flow. So on with our story. It has been a new experience everyday and we have learned a lot!

This is me blogging to all of you!!

Chillin at the Ali's house before we head out for a feluca ride.

As we headed out we stopped for some chicken. I brought over earings and jewelry to hand out to the kids on the street. We gave a pair to this little girl and she was SO happy. She ran right over to her mother and had her put them on here. Then she came up to the car window to show them off. It was adorable.

Last night for dinner we rented a feluca and went for a ride. We tried to find a place that sells kosheri but the place we went to said they weren't selling it during the month or Ramadan. DARN. So we grabbed some chicken and Pita and off we went. This was SO COOL and refreshing. It was nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of the streets and honking and all the people. It was very relaxing and we had a huge boat all to ourselves. We rented the whole boat for 50 pounds for an hour. That's 10 dollars! for an hour!!

The air on the nile was very clean and it had the best breeze. We just zipped right along.

After we got back from the ride we still wanted to go out and about because it was only 8 pm. We also still needed our koshari. We decided to walk towards Sarah's house because there was a place to eat at the mall right across the street. As we were walking down mom passed a film shop to get things developed so Lindsey, Shadi and I went around the corner to a grocery store to buy water and a snack or something. We liked that it was called a Saveway. haha They have lots of cool candy that I want to bring back for people but there are so many different kinds that I don't know what will taste good. Sarah said one of her little cousins can tell us what the good candy is.

This morning we got up and decided to check out the museum. Again we have Shadie as our guide. We had to get a taxi to the subway station on road 9 and then take the subway to downtown Cairo. I have never been on a subway before and to do it for the first time in Egypt probably wasn't a good idea! They have certain cars only for women! The women can ride the male cars if they like but they are usually more packed. I am glad the men weren't in our car because they don't wear deoderant. Some of the women don't either but it wasn't as bad. It's weird being the foreigner and having everyone look at you! You would think we were on display or something. I never know if I should smile back, avoid eye contact or do a trick. As we were on the subway coming home my mom started doing the PEACH! For all you Haws' and Meppers you know how comical this can be in front of family...BUT ON A SUBWAY? You think we were getting looks before now.. oh man. Their jaws dropped to the floor and they didn't know what was happening.

Here is us in front of the museum. BEFORE we went in.

Here we are AFTER the museum. It was fun and they wouldn't let us take our pictures in there. Mom told us that if we were to spend 1 minute looking at each exibit it would take us 9 months to go through the whole thing. WOW. Shadie kept saying, go, go! We don't have 9 months! haha

Some things we saw there... Mummy animals such as alligator, monkey, cow, snake, cat, dog. hundreds of coffins. lots of jewelry. Sandals made out of gold. It was cool to see that King Tut had gauged ears. I learned that the vulture and cobra were protectors of upper and lower egypt. Thats why they show them so much. There was just so much to see. I ws so impressed with my moms knowledge of everything! She has been studying for weeks and knew exactly what she wanted to see and what it all meant. She had such a fun time figuring it all out and explaining it to us. After 3 or 4 hours we were ready to leave. Mom wasn't but we pulled her out kicking and screaming. We ate dinner at Hardy's and traveled home. Phyllis and Adel and Shadie went to eat iftar at Phyllis' school. Who knows what we will do tonight. Maybe head to the Kan or road 9. I know I could go for some more Koshari. yum yum.

Here is Lindsey on the subway. I put it sideways and it takes so long to download I don't want to switch it. We are always hot and sweaty here. The beggars walk around the streets selling tissue, thank goodness. We buy them right up to wipe our faces with. I think this would be a good thing for Mesa to have... I might just start up a tissue selling business when I get back....

Its been one hot day.

Okey Dokey! While you are all still sleeping and starting to wake up and get ready for church I am going to tell you more of what we have done! Sarah, Phyllis, and mom worked very hard in the kitchen for hours yesterday preparing for iftar. I would say it was a good 120 degrees in the kitchen. There is no Ac in there and with the stoves going and the oven it was just crazy. Here is a picture of dad on the Balcony. The balcony over looks an Olympic center. There are often kids playing soccor, running track and such there.

This is the view towards the back of the house. Just lots of apartment buildings.

Mom and Dad on the Balcony.

Here are the foods they made for Iftar. It was all very good.

We carried it all downstairs and ate out in the backyard. It is a brick area with some trees and its right up next to the apartment building. The apartment building is full with Adels family. His mother lives in one apartment, and a few of his brothers live here as well.

Aunt Phyllis, Mom, Tita. Tita is Adels mother. She is so sweet!! She is very sick and has had to go through Chemo. For some reason they don't want her to know she has cancer so they told her that she broke her back in 2 places. She was telling us the whole story of how it is broken.

These are the trees in the backyard.

This is the front door to their house.

After we ate we sat around talking and having dessert. Then we played the sign game with Sarah's cousin's. It was so fun! We couldn't understand things that were said but we all could sign! It was lots of fun and they were so cute! We all enjoyed it. All the shops close from 6-9 so that people can go home and eat with their families. Then they open up from 9-12. It's nice to have everything open up late. We went to get moms blood pressure taken and then we went to the Salon to get our pedicures done! I was so excited. Little did I know what I had in store!! I wish I had more pictures of this but I didn't get any. I decided to get my eyebrows done. Little did I know that they don't have waxing here. Its a process called threading. They might as well call it cruel and unusual punishment! Look it up on you tube. I am sure they have video's of it there. Seriously I was sitting there crying it hurt so bad. The pedicure isn't at all like it is in the states. The chairs aren't comfortable. You put your feet up into the lap of the ladies. They don't usually do design's.

We went to a pharmacy

On the way to the pyramids we saw a wrecked car.

Here are the Pyramids from the road.

AT LAST the pyramids and I meet!! IT was a fun day. A very fun, hot, hot, fun, and did I mention hot day? We didn't go to Alexandria because we didn't find a taxi that early in the morning. We had Uncle Adell get us a taxi and gave us a note to give to a Taxi driver to get us home. It was like a parent sending their kindergardner to school. When we got there we didn't really know what to do but after checking it all out we decided we were going to go into 1 of the pyramids. There were people all around trying to get you to buy things. They would hand you something and say, FREE. When you took it they would ask you to give them something for their family. It was annoying. There were so many beggars.

They didn't allow us to take our camera inside the pyramid but thats okay because there wasn't anything in there. We had to walk, crouched over down into the pyramid. Then there was a small passage way where you could stand up and then you had to crouch over again and go up into the pyramid. In the center was 1 tomb. THATS IT! A huge pyramid to bury 1 guy! Thats just crazy. There were a few paths that led into other parts of the pyramid but they didn't allow us to go in there.

A CAMEL!!! I didn't get to ride one yet! Lindsey did because she didn't want to see the tombs that were were going into so she got a ride.

Did you know that the Pyramids are RIGHT NEXT to the city? In all the pictures it looks far away but nope. This is how close they are to the city.

Okay, I know its soooooo totally cheese but I just HAD to walk like an egyptian. :)

As we were walking away from the pyramids there was an Egyptian guy that kept yelling english phrases at us. He did pretty well. These are the phrases he knew.

I don't have 2 hours

Go away

No I don't want to

Leave me alone.

I only have 30 minutes.

How are you today

This is walking into one of the tombs. This passageway is wider and just a bit taller than the passage down into the pyramid.

This tomb is where one of the Doctor's of one of the important people lived.

Dad walking down the the Sphinx. Those are more tombs behind him. I think they still bury people in the tombs here.

Here is the sphinx in front of the pyramid.

Mom and I.

This is mern in the tomb. Dead. I am glad this is not my eternal slumber.

Aw. Good Sphinx!

We all bought head things. They actually made you feel so much cooler.

After we visited we walked around and to this old old palace that has now been turned into a hotel. It was very cool but after being in the sun for so long I was just ready to go back to the apartment. We forgot sunscreen! How did that happen?

At the apartment we decided to order in McDonalds. It took SOOOOO LOOONG to get here. Over an hour. So I took a nap. Now its 5 pm and I still haven't showered. My clothes are all sticky, i am still sweating just sitting here. I can't wait to shower! Its like heaven each day. Mom and Phyllis just got back from shopping at road 9. I suppose we are going to go on a feluca ride tonight but I am not sure.

Hugs from Maadi!