Egypt + Photo Summary Thus Far

HAWAII: Mary and I splashing around on Waikiki Beach.








JAPAN: Lindsay, Katie, Jenna, Kat, me, Stevie, Ellen - in Nara at the Temple of the Great Buddha.







CHINA: At the Great Wall...duh.










CAMBODIA: At Angkor Wat!!








THAILAND: With BuBu, my elephant!!








INDIA: With the Indian girls I played basketball with!!








EGYPT: Of course, me on a camel wrapped in a turban-esque shawl in front of the pyramids at 6 30 AM.







SHIP LIFE: I see stuff like this every day...be jealous.

FRIENDS: Ally, Kendra, me, Mary, Jordan - some of the girls here that I like.

FAMILY: Surrogate grandfather, Dr. Dave Smith + me dressed like a hippie.







Salaam from Egypt!! Hope you enjoyed some of my favorite pictures from the voyage so far.

Man, we're going to be in Turkey in just a few hours - I'm so behind!!!!! AHHH. But I am caught up on my personal and politics journals, so that's good. But I also feel like I'm going to fail out of school. Honestly I don't know how they expect us to do everything. Anyway here is a super quick run down.

Everybody told us that Egypt was THE place to travel with a boy, with a group, etc. So two girls and I headed out by ourselves. We're all 20, Kat's from Chicago and Meredith's from Wisconsin. First day off the boat we paid $30 to get from Alexandria to Cairo, when it should have cost about $20 or less, and it took 6 hours instead of 2, but that's cool...Once in Cairo, we actually went to Giza and found a little three star hotel. That night we went to go see belly dancing and eat dinner on a Nile River cruise. We made our reservations on time (a huge feat given the cab drivers are INCOMPETENT) only to find that there was no belly dancing that night and also that the boat wasn't actually sailing that night and also that dinner was Chinese food...hahahah. "Adventure time!" is my motto. After dinner we crashed, because on Day 2....

We woke up at 345 AM, had coffee at 415, got to the pyramids at 5 30, and rode horses out to the pyramids to watch the sunrise. It was FABULOUS!!! So many beautiful pictures! We were all so tired and so excited. We rented horses and a man and just spent the morning out there by ourselves. We also hopped on a camel at some point, mostly just to take pictures. Then we went to a perfume shop where they make essences and that was fun. We took a cab to an area of town called Islamic Cairo. We explored on foot, shopped, bought postcards, went to the post office, went to travel agencies, and just kinda bummed around trying to figure out what to do. Our guide book was a useless piece of crap and quickly earned itself a bad nickname that was used constantly over the next 4 days. We finally found an internet cafe and crashed there for a couple hours. After that we were rejuvenated, it was better than a nap. We went to a restaurant and got some super authentic Egyptian food - we had NO idea what it was when we ordered it, but it was good! Yay for trying new things! Then we made our way to the Conrad Cairo and waited for an SAS trip to show up. We lounged around the five star lobby and ended up staying in that night, crashing on our friends' beds for free (illegally).

Day 3: Up and at it at 7 AM, we spontaneously decided to trek back up north to Rosetta, where the Rosetta stone was discovered. That was a little bit of a hassle, but we made it. We walked around that town, that was super cute and not touristy, before taking a boat ride down the Nile to go see a mosque. Then we ate lunch in an empty room on the 11th floor of the one hotel in Rosetta overlooking the entire city and river...gorgeous. Food took forever (hopefully not because they were killing an animal we just passed on the street, but possibly) and was kind of cold by the time it got to us. It was a good break to just sit and chat somewhere isolated and beautiful. After that we headed back to Alexandria. We used another internet cafe and then went shoe shopping (sucessfully!!!) before going back to the ship.

Day 4: We went and looked for cartouches (jewelry with your name on it in heiroglyphics) for Meredith. Then we tried to reserve a belly dancing show but somehow couldn't find ANY! Bummer. Then we went to the Alexandria Library which was nothing less than fabulous. It was truly amazing. There we met this girl named Walaa.......which led to the collective best day of our lives!! She wasn't busy so we invited her out to lunch. She paid for our transportation and took us around town before landing at a coffee shop with us. We must have been there for two hours just chatting and eating, it was a blast. She was 19 and we all got along great. Then she invited us to hang out with her family later that night...and we were like YEAH we wanna do that!!!! How cool will that be?? So after lunch we went grocery shopping and got some amazing ice cream, went back to the ship, dropped all our stuff off, and headed back to the library to meet up with her. Her dad was waiting for us, and drove Kat, Mere, Ellen, Lindsay, Walaa, and myself around all night. He bought us chocolate and sodas, got us through gates and guards to incredible photo-op places, took us to an Egyptian wedding parties, to the King's Palace, to a beautiful little bridge...just all over! Finally we got to a bike rental place...and he rented us all bikes!! So we rode bikes on the beach for about half an hour (on a cement board walk type thing)...and it was amazing, we were all just smiling and laughing non stop. Then we went back to her house/apartment. We met her two brothers and her two sisters, her mom and her dad's friend. We celebrated 7 year old Mohamed's birthday with the most luxurious cakes (yes, plural) you've ever seen. We danced all night to Arabic and American music. We talked about politics and ate fruit we'd never seen before. It was glorious. It was so hard to leave...but finally her dad DROVE us all the way back to the ship at 3 AM in the morning, so we arrived at 330 and he wouldn't let us pay for a thing. Back safe and sound, we were exhilirated and exhausted.

Day 5: Last day...we went to Pompey's Pillar first, which was awesome, and then walked to the Catacombs. Those tombs were AMAZING!!! So freaking cool / creepy / ancient...after that we went to a nice place for lunch and bought a ton of food. Good Egyptian food. Kabobs, chicken, cheese sambosas (SO GOOD, like fried raviolli), Egyptian rice, Puri bread, like 10 different sauces/dips/hummus things...it was a feast. And after that we got cappuccinos and some sort of doughnut-y with ice cream dessert. Then we headed to a shopping center to buy an Arabic music CD that Walaa recommended to us, and headed back to port. I wanted to find an internet cafe, so Mere and Kat went back to the ship and Jesse came exploring with me. There was one close to the port that was over crowded, over priced, and the internet kept crashing. I was like, no way, I know there's something else close by. I FOUND IT. Probably because I'm awesome. It was nearly empty, half the price (aka what it should be), and worked nearly perfectly. Actually the conversation went like this.

Me: Internet?
Boy: Yeah.
Me: How much?
Boy: (thinks) ... 5 pounds.
Me: No, 3.
Boy: No, 4.
Me: No, I did this yesterday for 3.
Boy: OK, 3.
AND THAT IS HOW I WIN AT LIFE.

And that pretty much sums up Egypt. Walaa and her family took the cake for being a part of my favorite day in port so far. I'm much less afraid of the middle east now and I would absoultely love to come back to Alexandria!! Now on to Turkey!

Love,
Hilary