First night in Holland

May 2^nd

Woke up and packed up. David talked to the owner of the hostel about s few things that happened in Aswan and he ended up giving us a free stay here and paying for our taxi to the airport. What a sweetheart! Thanks George! We checked some emails about places to stay in Amsterdam and then headed off to the airport. It’s going to be cold in Amsterdam.... we have our jumpers (sweaters) at the ready for the airport and when we get off the plane. We land at around 9 or 10pm...It’s going to be a long day...

Got on the plane and transfered. We a good flight non-eventful. The view was pretty amazing from the plane. I think it was Budapest, but where ever it was it looked amazingly beautiful with green rolling hills and trees with a house here and there. When we finally got over Holland that was an amazing sight as well. The farms are very geometric with lines of different colors going here and there like a quilt. Later we came to find out that they were mostly tulips and a kind of wheat...although we are still not convinced about the wheat thing...we have not seen bright yellow flowers of wheat before...

We got off the plane and found our way to the train where a nice man showed us how to find the right train for us, then we had to take another train where someone else told us how to find the next train.

When we got to the station where Jen and Wim live we realized that we didn't have the address so we looked for the phone number to call, but the phones here only take special cards so we found someone with a card and he was able to call them for us. We got the address and he walked us all the way there.

Jen and Wim are very nice. They are a married couple, Jen is from Borneo and Wim is Dutch. Jen very warmly welcomed us with hugs and then showed us to our room 3 floors up where we have a water bed.

We were pretty tired and it was 2AM so we went to bed.

Super Market Day

May 1^st

Today we headed off to Hala Habibi Market, one of the oldest markets in Cairo. It’s pretty crazy there. At this point we are pretty over the constant loud beeping, loud people, crowds and the various ways you can get lost on these streets. Once at the market this was amplified by about 100%. Since it is already loud people now have bullhorns to yell things out at people. Music playing people snapping their fingers in front of your face to get your attention, touching you, trying to shake your hand (this you really have to watch for because someone tried to do this to me and some other guy came out from behind his stand and literally kicked his ass, like took his foot and kicked his ass. I wasn’t quite sure why, but it probably wasn’t good.) The clothing they have here is quite fancy and if we had the money I would so be buying shirts and shirts and dresses. Not to mention the scarves...every fancy scarf in every colour...oh yeah baby this is really the way I would dress forever if given the chance...

A few hours into this super adventure I am fading fast. Too many people, too much noise so we look for a place to get some tea, which is also interesting, so they have tea stations all over the streets, but you have to have your own cup or you can use their cups but you have to stand around and drink it there at the station because the cups are either glass or silver. So we looked for a shop with a cup I could walk around with. Finally we found a place that was mostly a place with water pipes where people smoke Sheesha, not sure what Sheesha is exactly drugs are illegal, but men seem really like it here and sit around smoking it at these places so it is probably good... After tea we went to get some ice cream and then we went to the mall, which had more men’s shops than I have ever seen. The markets have lots of women’s shops, but the malls and many stores about town have men’s shops galore. Men really like to dress to impress here. Women do too, but you really see it in men, like you will never see a man wearing shorts or anything sloppy. They are usually wearing nice shirts and dress pants or nice jeans. Most women are wearing head scarves and long dresses. Some covered head to toe some only a head scarf and regular clothing, but most women have their arms covered somehow. There are these very thin long sleeve shirts women wear everywhere with things. Clothing is not that expensive either, usually about $10-$12 for a shirt or skirt. We also had some of this local food that we have grown to love. It consists of macaroni, spaghetti, lentils, tomato sauce, vinegar and hot sauce. IT is pretty good and super cheep. A whole big bowl of it costs about 75cents.

We were out today to find empty bottles for the oils we got a while ago at this essential oil/perfume place in Aswan. (We got totally taken by this guy, they talk you up and give you tea and relax you until you believe all the things they are saying about their oils, but don’t believe them. I thought I was getting pure Sandalwood oil, but later I started to realize that it was mixed with coconut oil. Rats...but we also bought some fragrances that were made to smell like popular perfumes. I got one that smells like Angel and he got one the smells like Jean Paul Guiteier. So the reason why we needed different bottles is because the ones we got had lids that didn’t close very well.

So we searched and searched, but couldn’t find anything that worked so we found our way back to the hostel.

We got cleaned up and caught up on some blogging. Had some chats with some people staying here at the hostel and then watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Pirates of the Caribbean.

Market day in Cairo

April 30^th

Today we had a catch up on computer day at the hostel. Then we went super adventuring around the town looking for some veggies for dinner. Most of the numbers are in Arabic so we made a cheat sheet so we could figure out how much everything costs. One thing I forgot to mention is crossing the street... When they say walk like an Egyptian there is really a whole different meaning here. Walking like an Egyptian when you are crossing the street is a lot like the old Frogger video game. Traffic never stops so you have to start walking...with an attitude mind you...and stop when you think a car isn’t going to stop or is going too fast and then continue walking start stop walk, walk stop pause go. We are now pretty much experts at it. Oh and there are really no traffic lights that actually do red and green, it’s mostly yellow, but even if for some reason there was a red light, no one ever really pays attention to those kinds of things...they are more like suggestions. We finally get to the part of the market where they have the fruits and veggie and we are drawn down the side alley where an old man is sitting by some onions and garlic, just what we were looking for, and we ask him how much and he says “No much” and we are thinking...ok what does ‘No Much’ really mean, because here it could mean...here is how much I will gouge you for, but actually this guy just wanted to give it to us as a gift. We were thankful and a little shocked. This kind of thing doesn’t usually happen without a catch, we have become a little jaded about things lately after David’s mugging...After getting what we needed we went back to the hostel for showers, dinner, Snow Dogs the movie and Tom and Jerry cartoons.

back in Cairo

April 29^th

We got off the train and caught a ride back to the hostel, got cleaned up and went on a tour to the Citidel....which in hindsight weren’t quite sure why other than it was on our schedule to do so. The Citidel is the highest point of Cairo and it houses a huge Mosque made of Alabaster which stays cool in the hot Egyptian sun. We took our shoes off before we went in to explore. They have amazingly large crystal chandeliers and these other 365 lights for the days of the year.

After the Mosque we were taken to a few different churches one of which Joseph and Mary stayed at for a few days while in Egypt. After churches we headed to the Cairo Egyptian Museum where they have many mummies and artifacts from tombs and the pyramids. They also store the King Tut exhibit. It was a very impressive museum, however we are pretty tired and over stimulated at this point and really just want to go have a rest with some quiet away from people at this point. So we made our way back to the hostel to chill out for a while.

Temples and More Temples

April 28^th

Went to the Al-Deir Al-Bahari Temple today and were pretty much at the end of our temple cycle. You get to a point when you are done seeing temples...this was the time for us. We got back to the hotel and were told that we had to wait until 10:30pm to actually catch the train back to Cairo. So we stayed by the pool and then checked messages at the internet. Later we went for dinner and met the woman and her mom we had met the night before and they invited us for dinner. This time we exchanged information and decided to keep in touch. We got back to the hotel just in time to catch the cab to the train. We had a 3 person room this time and Joseph stayed with us. The train is really the most uncomfortable way to travel and I don’t recommend it unless you get a sleeping car. If I ever come here again I am so getting a sleeping car... David gave up trying to sleep on the chair and just spread out along the ground to sleep. I curled up on his and my space. It was very uncomfortable, but we did get some sleep.

Last day on the boat

April 27^th

Our last day on the boat we woke up super early and went to visit Karnak temple. Then we got back, had breakfast and packed up to go to our hotel. We had to change hotels because they didn’t have any double rooms available for us and the next hotel they put us in was super scary, but the last one was super deluxe. It was a 5 star hotel called Pyramisa Isis Hotel and it is the fanciest place we have stayed so far in Egypt. Big bath tub a lounge room super comfy everything. After dropping our stuff off we headed out to the tour to see the Edfu Temple, Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Kings. We had a full day of temples and by the time we got back to the hotel we were super pooped out. We cleaned up a bit and then headed out to a Chinese place for some rice. We met a woman who was there with her mom and they were really lovely. We ended up chatting with them for a while and then went back to our room for the night. Poor David was really tired and him feet were really hurting him so I ended up Giving him a full massage after he took a bath.

Nubia Botanical Gardens

April 26^th

Nubia Botanical Gardens