"Come, my lovely Pharaohs!"

Right, ok. My computer is going to the hospital for 2 weeks and I was unable to recover my original blog. So rather than make you all wait that long, I am recreating the parts that were lost (I only actually lost the second part of this one because I have written copies of the others, owing to my battery dying in Luxor and me forgetting my charger- a blessing in disguise), but most of these were written in real time, as I was there experiencing it. Egypt was so awesome.



Today was our big day in Cairo. It was amazing.

But first I should recap yesterday quickly. It wasn't terribly exciting. They checked our passports about 50 times at the border. And I got a way awesome new stamp. It is by far the coolest one in my passport right now (including my previous Cairo and Luxor ones). We spent a lot of time riding on a bus. Highlights: We gave the other bus (behind us) a puppet show while we were stuck in traffic at one point, and I definitely listened to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. In fact, I'm listening to it again right now, lol. Our hotel was really nice. We each had a big queen sized bed to ourselves, two to a room. My Egypt roomie is Richelle, and she is awesome. :) We totally had a dance party in the hotel lobby. We were so awesome. Japanese tourists were totally taking pictures of us. And it was so fun. Oh, I also ate the strawberry tarte that was on the dessert bar, even though the teachers warned us against fruit. I totally ate fruit the last time we were in Egypt, and I didn't get sick this time either. And it was really yummy.

We got on a tour bus bright and early this morning. Our tour guide was named Noha, but she said, "Pharaoh is the name they give to royalty, so you are all my little Pharaohs, and I will be your Mama Pharaoh." She was seriously my favorite ever. I want her to be like, my godmother or something. She was just all day saying how much she loves us and every time she said, "Come, my lovely Pharaohs!" it just made me so happy.


Me and Richelle with Mama Pharaoh. (I thought I'd post some pix with the blog this time since I was in the airport (free wireless, yay!)- the other ones I mentioned are still pending, sorry- and I will post more Egypt pix later, too, but there will almost definitely be no more pictures until after my computer is fixed, sorry)



Hehe, our buses are Matthew and Mark, and they spelled Matthew wrong.

First we went to the pyramids. Which, of course, are AWESOME. It seemed to me like they were a lot more eroded than before, but I must just not remember that well, because if they were eroding that fast they wouldn't have lasted this long... But we went inside the same one that I did before (I heard there's another one and they like, alternate which ones they let people in... I kind of wished I could have seen both...). It was sweet. You have to like, bend double to get through the tunnels. It seemed a lot shorter this time, and I realized afterward that's because last time there were like, 5 times as many people... It was pretty much just our group this morning. And we totally did this awesome thing in the middle where the tomb was. Like, one person starts a beat (clapping or stomping or something) and everyone else adds complementary beats until you get this sweet percussion deal going. They could totally hear it all the way down the tunnels, too. It was awesome. Then we went out to a vantage point where you can get pictures of all three pyramids together and that was pretty neat. I very nearly left my headset there (ya, $150...) but luckily Richelle picked it up, coz she's awesome, like I said.


This is Mike, me, Stephanie, Kara, and Teri Ann in front of the pyramids.

Then we went and got up close to the Sphinx, and went into its temple. That was pretty cool, as it was something we didn't do before. There was a *wishing well* that I threw a penny into, and basically we just all went up and took cool pictures of the Sphinx. I wish I had more than that, but this blog entry is the one that was lost so I'm trying to think back like a week ago. I'll add more later when I get my computer fixed.


Hehehe, Jeff, the Sphinx, me, and Josh. We had to keep retaking it because the Sphinx kept making a weird face... :P

So after the Sphinx they took us to a papyrus museum. Well, they call them "museum" and "institute" and all these fancy names, but really they're just expensive papyrus shops all over Egypt. They kind of take about 15 minutes to demonstrate the papyrus-making process and then give you an order card... Lol. But the neat thing about this place is that they have the facsimiles from the book of Abraham. And they're all in color in stuff (honestly, I think black and white- maybe with some red outline like the real ones- would have been cooler, but still). I couldn't afford all three, but I got facsimile number 2, the one about all the stars and stuff. Number 1 makes a better picture, but I decided that 2 has more like, spiritual and symbolic significance, so that's the one I wanted.

Then we had lunch at a restaurant out by Memphis, which is the original capital of Egypt like way back in the day. It was a pretty sweet little place, there was a band outside the entrance and they had a bunch of drums one of those snake charmer flute things and they totally played as we were walking in, it was awesome. And they had a brick oven where they were cooking fresh pita bread and it was definitely delicious. I ate like 4 pieces. With the hummus, of course. Then we went over to the little compound at Memphis. There's a really big statue of Ramses II there (he's thought to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus) but they only have part of it and it's humongous so it's lying down (picture below). And there's an alabaster sphinx, which was kind of neat to see because it's like, how the big Sphinx at Giza was originally supposed to look. And then there were a couple of other statues of Ramses II. There's a lot of those here.


This is the big statue of Ramses II. I don't know what the weird shadow is on the bottom right hand corner, but I think it's actually a discoloration in the stone.

The last stop today was Saqqara, which is where they have the very first stone pyramid-like structure ever built. It's not a true pyramid, because they built it in steps (it's called a step pyramid...) but it was the very first one. There was also a tomb near this pyramid that was for like, an important priest or something that was pretty interesting. We had a good look at all the carvings on the wall, and it amazed me how detailed they were. I mean, I guess the carvers would get bored carving out 5,000 cows or ducks or the other offerings that were depicted, but it was like no two were the same. They had like, cows giving birth and being milked and fighting and all kinds of crazy variation. It was amazing. We didn't get to go out and see the bent pyramid, and I was kind of disappointed. It's not actually bent, but they started building it at too steep of an angle, so about 2/3 of the way up it switches from 45 degrees to like, 52 degrees or something. We kind of saw it off in the distance, but it was really far away and Cairo is super smoggy, so we couldn't see it very well.


The pyramids were too big to fit in my pictures, so I tried to make them a little bit shorter and it just ended up crumbling... (yes, I do think I'm really funny, actually). This is the step pyramid at Saqqara. Built by Imhotep for Pharaoh Zoser ... a long time ago (I don't remember when, sorry).

It's been really interesting to be here again. Certainly quite a different experience than before. Like, I found myself thinking after all that today, What did we do in Cairo for 5 days? Because it felt like we've seen just about everything in one. But with my family we got to spend more time with the pyramids. Just kinda hanging out and taking it in. And I kinda wished for that a little today. For the most part it was get off the bus, take as many pictures as you possibly can, get back on the bus so we can keep moving. So I'm really glad I was able to have that experience with my family. (K, I have to add, in hindsight- I think I have a better appreciation for Egypt than most of my classmates. Most of them were like, well that was cool, but that's all. And I feel like the time that I spent really getting to know the place helped me to love it as much as I do.) But it was also nice to have the benefit of a tour guide, to show us the things like the papyrus place with Mormon souvenirs, and it was cool to be able to see more even if it was kind of rushed. You can't have it all, that's why you go back. :)

Dang it, I also said something really profound here at the end about how I didn't think it would be my last time in Egypt but I can't remember how I said it, so.... sorry. Like I said, I might add a couple things later, at least for my records, lol.


This is the way awesome little alabaster pyramid that I bought. Mama Pharaoh helped me haggle it down to $2. I seriously love this thing. It's awesome. I am exceedingly pleased with my purchase. This was as I was originally uploading the pictures and typing the first half of this in the airport waiting to fly down to Luxor.