Our first day in Cairo was incredible. We woke up in the morning, looked out of our window, and saw the Great Pyramid! We rode camels to the pyramids, which was a lot scarier than I thought it would be. There are some hilarious pictures of this endeavor, by the way. I tried to climb up the Great Pyramid, but apparently that is frowned upon and we were told to get down by the armed guards. We then decided to go into some of the smaller and less crowded pyramids near the big ones, which were tombs of the queens. The entry to the tombs were about 30 feet under the ground, and I definitely felt like Indiana Jones. I was the last one to leave, and as I was still in the burial room all of the lights went out and it was pitch black. I can imagine few scarier experiences than being stuck in a tomb with no lights! Luckily, the lights came back on promptly and I booked it out of the pyramid.
Funny cultural note: During the entire week of touring we got a lot of attention because of our skin and hair color. A number of times we had groups of people come up to us and ask to have their pictures taken with us...definitely a strange experience.
After we visited the pyramids we went to see the Sphynx, and our guide reminded us of something very interesting. The pyramids and the Sphynx were built nearly 2,000 prior to the temples and tombs that we had visited in Luxor, and yet they looked so similar and would both be easily attributed as "ancient Egyptian." But if you think it, our country has only been around for 300 years and yet if you were to look at the architecture and style from 1776 and compare it to 2007, you would see very few similarities. It's just a reminder of how fast our world is changing today.
On Saturday we visited an Egyptian mosque, a synagogue, and a church where Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were supposedly hiding out in during their time in Egypt. After that we went to the market to shop some more, and i was told that I was difficult - a sure sign of a great barterer! After lunch we went to the Egyptian museum, but honestly most of us were too tired and hot to enjoy it. At night the resort put on a nice dinner for us, which was similar to a luau. There were funny men in dresses who danced in the middle for us, and there was a camel to ride, and lots of great food! But the most exciting part of the night was watching the World Cup Rugby game!! In our short time in London we have developed an immense sense of pride, so we were so excited about cheering for our team , who was playing South Africa. Finding the game was quite an ordeal, which included the resort finding a Russian satellite that would show the game. We lost the game, which would not have happened if our try had been counted, which it should have been. To say the least, London has been in a constant state of mourning since then.
We left Cairo on Sunday morning, and soon found that the Cairo Airport is quite possibly the most poorly organized airport in the entire world. I won't go into detail about our experience, but here's a taste: within the hour that we were there, fights almost broke out between a German lady, a group of unruly Asians, and an Arab man who was yelling and screaming at one of our girls for looking - that's right, looking - at his son. A girls' arm got stuck in the x-ray machine, and people were crying by the time we got on the plane. We were happy to be out of that airport, but sad to leave Cairo and our amazing field trip experience. I've been so blessed to be going to school here, and I've been so blessed to have this amazing experience!