Five Days at Sea

8/4-8/2009

The five days at sea after Egypt was a much needed break.  It was nice to have time to catch up on sleep, and more importantly to catch up on school work.  Along with having several days to unwind, we have also started gaining time, as Morocco is only 7 hours ahead of West Coast time instead of the 10 hours ahead I have been!  The second day at sea brought the Crew Talent show, which was really funny.  There was lots of dancing involved, some singing, and even a cross dressing finger painter!  All in all it was a very fun night.  I was still recuperation from Egypt, and so I called it an early night and didn’t participate in Casino night, which was later on the same night.  The third day at sea was one of my favorites so far, primarily because there was no class!  It was the auction day, and also a day to catch up on schoolwork.  I used it primarily to catch up on sleep.  All day long the silent auction was going on, and then in the evening was the live auction.  There were some pretty amazing trips being auctioned off, and they went for a lot of money.
Tomorrow we arrive in Morocco, and I we gain another hour tonight, which will make waking up for sunrise even easier!  They made an announcement that we should expect rough seas going into Casablanca Harbor, and I looked it up on the ocean weather site we are able to access for free, and saw that they are predicting 10 foot swells!   It will be just like the first few days again, which I really enjoyed.  In Morocco, I am going to be on a SAS trip the entire time that will take me to Marrakech and involve some more camel riding.  Hopefully my camel will be friendlier than Charlie Brown was this time around.  I am actually really excited for this trip, as at the end of seven countries of constant planning, I just get to be told where to go, and already have all of my travel and lodging taken care of.  It will be a nice break.  I can’t believe how close this adventure is to being over!  It is going to be a strange adjustment back to life on solid ground where I am not thrust into a new and foreign environment each week.

Rural Cairo and Children's Hospital

8/3/2009

My last day in Egypt was another full one, fitting right in with the trend.  I was on a SAS trip for the entire day.  We started out on a bus to Cairo.  We saw an art factory that was designed for children, and now is for mothers, to be able to work and make money through making tapestries and pottery.  It was amazing how intricate the rugs they were making were, and how quickly they wove them with no set pattern.  From there, we stopped for lunch on the Nile.  We went to a floating restaurant, with an amazing view of the river, since it was on the water.  They brought out the meal, and I was slightly throw aback to see it was basically a meat platter.  No good for me at all.  I tried to tell the waiter who set it down “vegetarian” but I don’t think he spoke any English.  A few minutes later, I heard another girl trying to explain vegetarian, and I turned and said “me too!”  They whisked away my plate, and I didn’t really understand what was going on, but as everyone else was getting their plates cleared and dessert brought out, I saw two plates come out of the kitchen piled high with French fries.  One of them went to me, and another to the other girl.  Apparently in Egypt, a sufficient vegetarian meal is a pile of French fries, and a few steamed vegetables.  After lunch, it was back to the bus.
Our last stop of the day was the Children’s Hospital.  It was specifically for cancer patients, and it was very nice.  It had been built through donations, and was a non-profit organization.  We got a tour of the hospital, and then we got to meet some of the children.  They were getting treatments, and all seemed very sad, but we had come equipped with stickers and pencils and other little gifts, and started passing them out.  The kids really seemed to like it, and it was nice to see how much of a difference something as simple as a sticker could make in these children’s mood.  After that, it was back to the bus and a race to get back to the ship.  We ended up not making it back until nearly 7pm, quite a while after on ship time.  Luckily, when you are late because of a SAS trip, there is no penalty!  Egypt was yet another amazing country.  I can’t believe how each new place I visit is able to top the last when I have such an amazing time in all of them!  It will be exciting to see what Morocco brings.

Mushkela 122!

8/2/2009

Day four in Egypt continued our marathon trip.  The train did not arrive quite as early to the Cairo station as it had to the Luxor station, but it was still only 6:30am or so when we were out on the platform and trying to figure out our next step.  Our goal for the day was the Egyptian museum in Cairo, and the bazaar.  We decided to go for the museum first, as we had heard it wasn’t air conditioned, and we wanted to try to beat the crowds.  One of the guys went to the tourist information to ask what time it opened, and we were told it opened at 7.  Thinking this was perfect, we headed outside and crammed all five of us into another cab to get us to the museum.  We were dropped off near the door, and had to go through a metal detector to get to the main gate.  Upon arriving at the main gate, we were disheartened to see that the museum did not, in fact, open at 7 am, but that it opened at 9am.  We were left with just under two hours to kill, and no idea of what to do with ourselves.  Luckily, we were right near a big hotel (The Nile Hotel or Palace or something like that) and so we went in looking for some food and a place to stay for a while.  It worked out perfectly.  At 8:45, we walked back to the museum.  Turns out our plan to go early still didn’t help us to beat the crowd!  We went through security, purchased our student tickets – it takes a lot of convincing to get them to take our Semester at Sea ID’s as student cards, but we always manage – and headed inside.  After what felt like going through airport security, we were inside the museum.  The museum was massive!  So many artifacts and statues and sarcophaguses and more!  It was slightly overwhelming.  It was very interesting to have seen all of the temples and tombs where the artifacts were from the day before in Luxor, and then to be seeing all of the statues.  I have decided archeologists have to be very good at puzzles… some of the statues or pots were clearly found shattered into tiny pieces, but have been put back together to look like the original again, not an easy feat with such small pieces that are so similar.  I think it would be like the popcorn puzzles, where all of the pieces look the same, but the shape dictates where they go.
In the museum, we decided to get the extra ticket to go into the two mummy rooms.  We had heard it was well worth it, and also that the mummy rooms were air conditioned, always a plus!  Each room had about 12 or so mummies in it, some of them from the tombs we visited in Luxor.  Some of the mummies were still completely wrapped, but a large majority had their heads, toes, and hands visible.  They were so well preserved.  Fingernails and toenails, hair, teeth still pearly white, even eyelashes on some of them.  It was amazing to see, but at the same time you have to think that this is not what they intended for themselves when they were mummified.  After the mummy rooms, lots of artifacts, and seeing King Tut’s mask, we decided it was time to continue with our day, and we exited the museum and made our way to the bazaar.  It was nothing compared to the Grand Bazaar in Turkey, and most things were much cheaper.  We spent some time looking around and made a few little purchases, but all of us were so tired, and desperately in need of a real shower, so none of us were really in the mood for bargaining or haggling over prices, and we decided to head to the train station.  At the station, we knew where we were supposed to get tickets, but were having trouble getting to the front of any of the lines, and didn’t really understand what was going on.  After a while of waiting and scoping out different lines, an Egyptian girl said to Audrey and I, “get in this line”, apparently we had been waiting in the men’s line, which explains our utter lack of progress.  She introduced herself as Hadil, and asked where we were trying to go.  We told her, and she offered to buy our tickets for us.  She was so friendly and helpful.  Hadil was also taking the train to Alexandria, because that is where she lived, she had been in Cairo applying for the American University of Cairo.  On the train, we got to talk to her and learn about her thoughts on Egypt and America.  She also told us places where it was safe for girls to go at night in Alexandria, so we would be able to go back out after a shower and a little down time.  She gave us her phone number, and told us to call her and she would see if she could come out with us. 
Upon getting off the train, Hadil even got us a taxi to the port, and negotiated the price with the driver so we wouldn’t get ripped off.  Then we said goodbye with hopes of seeing her later.  We made it to the port in one piece, and were all very proud of ourselves for our successful adventure.  We were also ecstatic to see the ship, it is a very welcoming sight after a few days away.  We showed up in time for dinner, and then spent some time just relaxing and unpacking.  Then, Sarah, Audrey and I decided to go back out to try to find Hadil.  We ended up not meeting up with Hadil, but we found a nice little café along the water with outdoor seating, and stopped there.  As we were enjoying the people watching, a family walked by and smiled and waved.  A while later, they walked by again in the other direction, and after they had passed, one of the little girls turned to look back.  I smiled and waved, and her face lit up with joy.  We decided to call it a night pretty early, and started walking back toward the ship.  A few blocks down from where we had been, the family we had seen was sitting at a similar outside café.  They recognized us, and invited us to sit down.  We obliged, as it is not everyday you get a chance to sit and enjoy the evening with a nice Egyptian family.  The father, Hassan, and the oldest daughter spoke English fairly well, and the mother understood almost everything we said, she just wasn’t as able to communicate it back in English.  It was so pleasant sitting and talking and smiling and laughing with them, and they seemed so genuinely pleased that we sat with them.  They got us each a tea and we sat and talked for hours.  They taught us some Arabic through pointing and saying words, or teaching the Arabic words to us for the words they new in English.  We learned how to count to five, and say a few basic phrases.  The youngest daughter was absolutely thrilled when she could help to teach us something.  We took pictures, and as we were learning that the number for 911 was 122, the Hassan’s wife turned behind her and started cracking up laughing.  She managed to get out “muschkela 122” (that is how the word sounded, I'm not sure how it is acutually spelled) the equivalent of which is “problem 911” in English between her laughter, and we peered around her to see what was so funny.  There was a little boy with his pants around his ankles peeing on the building with his eyes closed!  He looked like he was falling asleep, and he was there forever!  We all started laughing too, and the little boy was completely un-phased by the whole ordeal.  We were amazed when we looked at our watches to see it was 2am, so much for our early night.  We decided to bid them goodnight, and thanked them profusely for their kindness.  We made it back to the ship, and then it was time for bed, we were all exhausted. 

One Day in Luxor

8/1/2009

My wakeup call came far too early on Saturday morning.  We had been told that breakfast would be around 4:30, and so I set my watch alarm at 4:20am, and when I woke up, I realized the train was stopped.  I quickly changed, brushed my teeth, again making sure to use bottled water, and then gathered up my backpack and headed next door to Sarah and Audrey’s room.  Right as I was about to knock, the door opened.  They were as confused as I was about the train being stopped, and I came in and sat down on the bed.  We were all pretty groggy, and just waited to see what happened.  The train started moving again, and we continued waiting for breakfast.  A knock came on the door a while later, and it was our steward giving us a 10 minute warning to breakfast.  He returned again with three trays of food.  Breakfast consisted of every form of bread imaginable – croissant, role, sliced bread, muffin – and jam.  It was edible, but nothing amazing.  We finished up, and got ready for the long day ahead of us, and then we were at the Luxor station.  As we unloaded the train, we met up with the LLC’s again, Matt, Lisa, Simon and Sadhika, and started our day before the sunrise again. 
People say you need five days to see everything in Luxor, but we managed it in one.  As soon as we exited the train station, we were, per usual, ambushed with cab drivers and men asking if we needed tour guides and had to fight our way away from them.  Once we were free, we conferred with the LLC’s and decided to go with them.  They were going to a hotel with one of the men, and he was going to show them information about the tour the hotel offered, and then they were going to decide from there.  That is how we found ourselves wondering the sleepy streets of Luxor as the sun rose, watching as the city woke up to start the day.  We arrived at the hotel in question, and were reassured when it turned out to be one of the nicer ones.  It was refreshing to walk in to the air conditioned lobby of the hotel, for even as the sun was rising, the heat of the day was increasing.  We sat in the welcoming couches around the center table, and were shown all of the stops the tour would include, and told prices for the day.  The offer included an air conditioned mini-bus for only our group on nine, a guide that spoke English, five stops on the West Bank before lunch, and two stops on the East Bank after.  After some negotiating on the price, we came to an agreement, and waited for our tour guide to arrive.  It was a little after 7:30 when he showed up, but none of us were complaining about the wait, we were happy to rest in the clean, cool lobby after our adventure on the train.  We piled into the van, which was surprisingly comfortable and spacious, and set out for the day.  As we were crossing the Nile, we had our first stop of the day to take some pictures.  The van just pulled over on the bridge – still in a lane of traffic – and we all piled out onto the sidewalk to take pictures.  Then, we reloaded and moved on to our first stop of the day, the Valley of the Kings.
It was still early in the morning when we arrived, but the heat was already stifling, and there was not much shade available.  The tickets we had allowed us to go in to three of the tombs, and so our guide picked out his three favorite, consulting us to make sure we agreed, and we set off.  The first was the only two level tomb and belonged to Tuthmosis III, before entering, our guide gave us the history, and explained to us what we would see.  He was nice enough to stop in the shade to explain it to us, and then it was off to the tomb.  We had to climb up a slightly rickety staircase, already crowded with other tourists and travelers to get to the entrance, and then upon entering, we began our descent.  Only a few feet in to the tomb, the temperature was increasing, and by the time we made it to the burial chamber, it felt like we had willingly climbed into an oven, but with more humidity!  The detail of the hieroglyphics, and how well they were preserved was amazing to me!  After we had gotten our fill of the tomb, we made our way back up the stairway, and as we neared the entrance, it was already getting much cooler.  When I stepped out into the fresh air, it felt like I was stepping into air conditioning (despite the fact that it was probably already in the mid 90’s out)!  The second tomb we saw belonged to Sety II, and the last one to Horemheb.  Both were just as impressive as the first, but not as warm.
From the Valley of the Kings, we moved on to Hatchepsut’s Temple, which was an impressive sight.  It was built in to the side of a cliff, and had been restored some to look more like its original form.  It was three levels and had columns, statues, and carvings everywhere, and a wide ramp leading up to the top floor.  Looking out from the temple, it was crazy to see how defined the line between the desert and the oasis of the fertile Nile valley was, there was a very distinct point at which the yellows, browns and reds of the desert transformed into lush green plant life. 
Our last stop on the West Bank of the river brought us to the temple of Ramses II, and it was amazing.  We spent a lot of time taking pictures and looking around in awe before our guide told us that we were not even in the temple yet, we were just in the entrance.  Everything was so well preserved, and we were told that it was because the temple was buried in sand for many years, and that protected the colors and the carvings from time.  By the time we left this temple, we were all warm, tired and hungry, and so it was off to lunch.  On the way we stopped at two huge statues and took some pictures, and then crossed the Nile to the East Bank where we found food.  I had packed snacks, so I was good to go for the day, but everyone else selected McDonald’s as their restaurant of choice.  It was the best view I have ever seen from a McDonald’s, it looked out over the Luxor Temple and in the far distance, the Nile River.  It was also three stories, and so the higher we got, the better the view.  Once we were all fed and cooled down – there was some nice, and much needed, air conditioning inside the McDonald’s – we made out plans for the afternoon.  We elected to just view the Luxor temple from the outside, and instead, go for a Faluca ride on the Nile.  A choice I was very happy with.  As amazing as all of the temples were, they were all starting to blend together into a blur of amazing statues, carvings and columns.
The one stop we had left before the Nile boat ride was the Karnac Temple, the most impressive one of the day.  If I remember properly, it covers 65 acres; in any case, it was absolutely massive.  The heat kept us from exploring for too long, but we managed to take the time to soak it all in.  We left the temple, and after being shown how to get back to the train station from the boat dock, said goodbye to our guide and driver.  We then were led down to the boat dock by the boat captain they had arranged for us, all of our backpacks and bags in tow.  The falucas (I’m not exactly sure how to spell that, but I am going with spelling it phonetically) were gorgeous.  Mostly white with brightly colored flags and paintings decorating the mast.  They also had covers of brightly patterned sheets, and plush cushions lining the benches.  We were led across one and into ours, the Mona Lisa.  Once we were all settled in, we set sail.  It was quite the process getting out of the dock area.  There were young boys with ropes on the boats lining the exit, and we kept maneuvering back and forth until finally we were clear and the sail was put up.  We made our way upstream for a while, crossing over and moving in the shallower waters with a weaker current.  It was very relaxing and the breeze was refreshing after a long day in the heat.  All of us just sat and enjoyed.  We made it up to Banana Island, but opted not to stop.  As we got close, the wind died down, and we just sat, stationary waiting for the wind to pick back up.  As we were waiting, the river police showed up.  They check all of the boats for proper licensing once a day, and in Egypt, it is customary to tip the police.  Strange.  We then made our way back downstream and to the dock again, where we thanked our faluca driver, and unloaded.  We walked toward the train station, and along the way stopped to watch the sunset over the Luxor temple and the Nile.  After the sunset, it was time to go catch our train, and we made our way the three or four more blocks to the train station.  We showed up in perfect time, with just long enough to figure out where we needed to wait before our train came rumbling up.  I think it may have been the exact same train that took us to Luxor, and now we were heading back to Cairo.  This time around, unfortunately, there was someone else in my cabin, and they didn’t seem to speak any English.  For peace of mind, I grabbed the blanket off my bed and my pillow after dinner, and curled up on the floor of Sarah and Audrey’s room to sleep.  I felt I would not have gotten a very good night’s sleep with all of my worldly possessions (most specifically my passport!) available to a total stranger.  I was tired enough that the floor was very comfortable, and I even slept better than I had the night before because I was comforted by being in the same room as friends.  In fact, we all fell asleep pretty quickly after dinner and a “shower”.

Saving the World, One Egyptian Cab Ride at a Time

7/31/2009

Day two brought another early morning.  Yet again, I found myself awake before sunrise, but this time it was not to watch the sun come up, but it was to get ready for my day.  I hadn’t finished packing before I fell asleep, and I was planning on spending the next two nights away from the ship.  Luckily, packing went quickly, since I would have to carry everything I brought with me the whole time.  After I packed, I ran upstairs for a quick breakfast, and then it was off to the buses.  I was on a SAS trip called “Pyramids with Camel trek and Jeep Safari”, which sounds like it would be pretty hard to mess up.  I didn’t meet Audrey, Sarah, Dan and Tim before loading the buses, and there were three buses, so I was a little worried that my plans might fall through, but I was assured the buses would stay together all day, and so I didn’t worry about it too much.  Turns out the reason the buses would be staying together is because we were in a caravan, complete with police escort, for safety.
The day started with a nearly three hour drive along the desert road between Alexandria and Cairo, and then we continued on to Giza and the pyramids!  Our guide for the day was named Raina, and she was very nice.  Along the way, she gave us history and an idea of what we would be seeing.  Even with all of her talking, nothing prepared me for my first glimpse of the pyramids.  They were massive, and much closer to the city than I expected.  Our first stop was the Great Pyramids in Giza, where we were given time to look around and take pictures.  It was crazy.  Not only was I standing next to one of the wonders of the ancient world, there were also camels, vendors, and other travelers everywhere!  Our last warning before exiting the van was not to let anyone put us on a camel.  It wasn’t long before we found out why this was necessary. 
Upon exiting the bus, we were ambushed with men trying to sell head coverings, get you to take a picture with their camel, get you to buy a statue of some sort, and they didn’t like hearing the answer “no”!  I made it out unscathed, but saw more than one student being herded toward a camel that was waiting in a laying position.  Apparently they put you on the camel for free; it is getting off that costs money.  From the pyramids, we moved on to the Sphinx.  We were given time for pictures at the Sphinx, but not nearly as long as I was hoping, and then it was back to the buses and on to our next stop.  Our next stop was the jeep safari portion of the day.  We unloaded the bus, and piled into jeeps.  They were not nearly as old as the ones in Bulgaria, nor did they have soft tops, but a while after we took off into the desert, I began appreciating to solid nature of the roof.  I ended up in the middle of the back seat, and as such had minimal things to hold on to.  There was also no seatbelt to help my situation.  We bounced along and I think I spent about half of the time airborne, trying to brace myself between the ceiling and my seat.  We were all laughing and bouncing along over dunes and racing the other jeeps.  It was a lot of fun, and there were also some photo stops, where our driver would stop at the top of a dune and let us snap some pictures of the pyramids in the distance before continuing along again.  After making our way into the desert, we saw the camels we were driving to meet.  The jeeps all circled around and stopped by the camels, and we unloaded.
The camels were all lying down in a line, and we each got our own camels.  Some of them looked friendly, others looked vicious.  When I exited the jeep, my hand got grabbed and I was being led to a camel that was laying down and roaring like a dinosaur.  He did not look happy, and I was pulling away trying to get to a more content looking camel, but I was unsuccessful, I was ushered on to the saddle, and just managed to get my hand holds before my camel stood up.  They are much taller than I realized, and it is not exactly a smooth ride.  Managing to stay on my discontented camel while it stood was enough of a challenge, and before I really got settled in, we were off and moving.  The guy who was responsible for herding my camel, and one other camel along was named Alec, and he told us that our camels were named Columbus, and Charlie Brown.  Mine was Charlie Brown.  After we started moving, he settled down a little – at least he stopped roaring, which comforted me slightly.  A thirty minute trek through the desert later, and we were back at the country club where we were to have lunch.  As we stopped, Alec told us to “lean back”, one of the few English phrases he knew, along with “picture?” and “are you happy?”, and our camels laid down so we could climb off. 
The lunch buffet we had set up was delicious, and like most of the countries I have visited, there was watermelon for dessert!  At lunch, I was finally able to go talk to Audrey, Sarah, Tim and Dan, and make a meeting time for later on.  They had ended up on a different bus, and as such we had not run into each other as much as we anticipated.  The drivers were going to drop off everyone planning on staying in Cairo at a pre-designated spot where it would be easy to get a cab though, and so that is where we were going to meet to try to make our way to Luxor.  After lunch, we still had another stop on the itinerary.  We went to a temple, and then the step pyramid, the oldest stone building in existence.  From there, we had a view of the bent pyramid in the distance, one in which they changed the angle of the sides when it was partially finished in order to finish on time.  This was our last stop, and it had been a full day, it was already after 5pm.  The buses loaded up again, and caravanned to the drop off spot.  Despite the fact that we had been told it was in Cairo, it was actually in Giza, within view of the Great Pyramids.  The other buses pulled up as we were unloading – about half, if not more of the trip was not planning on returning to the ship – I was able to meet up with Audrey, Sarah, Tim and Dan.  We had trouble getting a cab at first, since there were so many people that were trying to do the same thing, but eventually we found a cab driver who was willing to let all five of us into his cab, and actually charge us the proper rate (what the guides had told us to expect) to get to Ramesses station, where we would figure out train stations.  It was an interesting cab ride, to say the least, and with all of us crammed in there, we decided we were just doing the environment a favor, instead of taking two cabs.  By some miracle, we made it to the train station in one piece, although slightly cramped and happy to be freed of the cab.  We were able to get our tickets to Luxor, as well as return tickets for the next night on the sleeper train, and then we were told that the train left from Giza – where we had just come from – and not Cairo.  At this point, it was all just a series of jokes, rather than getting upset or flustered, we just laughed, and prepared ourselves for the adventure ahead.  We decided to take the metro down to Giza, as it was cheaper than a cab, and we thought it might be slightly less cramped.  We were wrong about the second part, the passengers were crammed on to the metro like sardines, but it was easy to navigate, and relatively quick, as well as air conditioned.  Always a plus.  We made it to Giza fairly quickly, and fortunately the train station and the metro station were in the same location, so we just had to go down a flight of stairs and we were on the platform waiting for our train.  We were early though!  As we were waiting, we met up with four of the LLC’s from the ship (they are basically the equivalent of RA’s), and they were planning on doing the same thing we were, Luxor in a day with two back to back overnight trains.  We were in the same car on the train as them, so we waited with them, and talked about what there was to do in Luxor.
We found car 10, where we were assigned to, and got on.  The entire train was sloped at a rather extreme angle toward the center of the tracks, which made no sense to us, but we hoped it would right itself when the train started moving, and it was.  The sleeper cars consisted of three seats, a small sink, and a door connecting to one other cabin that looked like a mirror image.  I was odd man out, as they were supposed to be two bed cabins, and so I had a separate, non-connected cabin.  All in all, it was a lot nicer than any of us expected.  I stayed in the cabin with Sarah and Audrey, and we had the door open that connected to Tim and Dan’s room through dinner time, then we were all ready to crash for the night.  Dinner was surprisingly edible, it consisted of the steward bringing us all trays with food, and then coming back to clear them away when we were finished.  After clearing the trays, he came back to fold down the beds.  The back of the seats folded down into the lower bunk, and the top bunk came down out of the wall.  I made sure he folded down the bed in my cabin too.  There was even a ladder to get to the top bunk.  Because there was no one in the second bed in my cabin, I went in there to have my own bed, and dead bolted both of the doors, telling the girls I would be back around breakfast time.  It was a bumpy ride, and every now and then the train would jerk, sending me nearly rolling off my bed.  Luckily, I was tired enough, and used to sleeping on a ship that moves, that I was able to fall asleep quickly.

One Obama Dollar

7/30/2009

The sunset over Alexandria was a pretty one, and after sunrise, breakfast, and waiting to clear customs, it was time to explore Egypt.  It was surreal walking down the gangway, stepping on to solid land, and realizing that not only was I in Egypt, but I was in Africa!  I set out with Amanda, Athena, Kara and Jack, and after we got through the intense security of the port – especially in contrast to Bulgaria where there was frequently no one manning the port building – we set out into the city.  After exiting the port building, there was a long walk to the gate of the port, and the entire area was very well manicured, green lawns, fountains, flowers and the likes.  At the gate, we were again asked for passports, and required to sign out and get a slip of paper in order to sign back in when we returned.  We finally made it outside the gate, and were bombarded with the true Egypt.  It is not all nicely manicured lawns and ornate fountains, but it is a bustling city where horn honking makes up a language of its own, and the buildings are old, and mostly unfinished.  There is garbage and unpleasant smells everywhere, and it is crowded.  We were not only struck by the different world that is Egypt upon exiting, but we were also mobbed by cab drivers and vendors.  We started walking, saying we didn’t want a taxi, we didn’t want to buy anything, we wanted them to leave us alone, but that meant nothing, they followed us down the street, with more and more latching on until they outnumbered us at least two to one.  We decided they were not going to leave us alone, and we did need to take a taxi to get to our destination, so we agreed to take a taxi, and then even more yelling commenced.  They all started yelling out prices, “one Obama dollar each!” “five pounds!”, and tried to usher us to their cab, and then they were yelling at each other, because they all wanted our business.  Port security had to come over and break up the fight, turning to us and saying “walk, go”.  We hadn’t even made it a block away when one of the cab drivers pulled up, and because all the others had left and we wouldn’t cause another fight, all five of us piled in to the cab and set off.
I don’t think I will ever complain about bad drivers in America again after this trip.  The cab set off, and we were weaving through traffic and swerving to avoid pedestrians and the horn was honking every few seconds and other cars were veering toward us it was crazy.  By some miracle, we made it to the Alexandria Library, our destination, in one piece, and tumbled out of the cab.  We got tickets to the library (it is a newer building, but is set on the sight of the oldest library) checked in our bags, and entered.  The air conditioning of the library was a welcome change to the heat, and the library itself was gorgeous.  It was huge, and after walking around for a while, we went down to the antiquities museum and saw artifacts and statues.
We left the library, and after the peacefulness of the cool inside, we were again struck by the heat, noise and smells of Alexandria.  We decided to walk along the water for a while, and just take in the city.  The only problem was that to get to the water, we had to cross the street.  We waited for a while, watching some of the locals step fearlessly in front of the traffic, and cross one car at a time.  It wasn’t even possible to cross one lane at a time, because the concept of traffic lanes hasn’t seemed to reach Alexandria yet.  Eventually, we found a group of locals crossing, and used them as shelter between us and the cars, following their lead to get across.
Walking along the water, it was really possible to take in Alexandria.  It was a jungle of tall buildings, many of which were under construction, none of which looked up to building standards in the US.  The streets and sidewalks were covered with garbage, and the smell changed every few blocks, rarely to something pleasant.  The water had large clumps of garbage floating in it, and there were a few fishermen along the litter ridden banks.
We eventually made it to one of the big mosques, where we stopped to take some pictures.  We just happened to show up right as a tour bus full of SAS kids did.  We said “hi” to them, and I saw Audrey and managed to make plans with her for the next few days in Egypt.  The bus left then, it had only been a five minute photo stop for them, and we continued to the mosque to take closer pictures.  We were planning on continuing to the catacombs, but the cab driver we hailed told us they were closed, instead, we settled on heading to the where the lighthouse used to be.  It was one of the wonders of the ancient world, until in the 14th century, and earthquake brought it crashing down.  Now it rests underwater, and there is talk of making an underwater museum to see it.  We got there, and stayed for a while looking at some of the stands selling things and people watching.  There was an aquarium, and we decided to check it out, but upon entering and seeing a line up of small fish bowls along the wall, decided it wasn’t worth it.  After a while, we began our trek back to the ship.
We walked through some windy streets that were mainly residential, although it is hard to tell.  Because of the population problem, almost everyone lives in apartment buildings, and so it is hard to tell the difference between residential and industrial.  We walked past an alley where three little kids were flying kites, and it reminded me of Lindsay’s descriptions of the Philippines.  One of the kites was simply a plastic bag tied to a string, and the other was a rolled up sheet of paper.  They were so happy too, and were very fascinated by the group of us walking by.  Sometimes, I felt like a novelty item because people would stop and stare.  The children were especially interested, as they had not yet learned to hide their curiosity.  The little boys flying kites stopped to wave and smile at us as we passed, and then we continued on.  Another two little boys riding bikes accompanied us for a while before riding off, and a third little boy smiled when we passed.  He followed for a little ways, and at the encouragement of an older boy, called out “what’s your name?!”  I replied, and he giggled and hid behind a parked car in embarrassment.  There was a woman pulling a bucket on a rope up to her window on the upper floor of one of the buildings, and as we passed, the bucket she was pulling hit an overhang on one of the windows and sent a chunk of cement crashing four stories down to the ground below.  It nearly hit a young girl walking by, and we all stared in shock at what had happened.  Everyone else carried on as if it were nothing.  We made it back to the port after our adventure, and it was amazing at how quickly we all lowered our guard after we were inside the gates.  The discrepancy between the well cared for and pristine pier area and the surrounding city of Alexandria was extreme.  At the same time, it was all of the things that were so different from what I have experienced before that made me love Egypt so much.