Cairo, Giza, and Egyptian History

WE WERE LATE!

So we had planned to wake up at around 715am, eat breakfast around 815am, and meet our guide, Fatma, at 9am. I guess we were really tired because we slept through both alarms and only woke up to the knock of housekeeping. We're usually not late people so  we quickly got our things together and headed to our first stop, The Egyptian Museum, a very large museum with over 100 galleries of artifacts from throughout all of Egypt's history, from the first inscriptions of civilization through the the Greek - Roman periods  and beyond. There were tons and tons of artifacts, all containing so much history, detail, and culture -- and our guide new it all! Fatma was amazing, she studied German, Russian, and archeology for years to be a tour guide. She knew historical facts, read inscriptions, explained Egyptian mythology, and also presented viewpoints from opposing scholars when there was something that was not yet conclusive. I learned so much about pharaohs, Horus, Rosetta, Tutankhamen, the Nile, … unfortunately, cameras are not allowed inside so I only got pictures on the outside of the museum. All those PBS specials and documentaries came to mind as I explored the museum…

Lotus (representing North Egypt) and Papyrus (South Egypt):

Our next stop was at a government sponsored papyrus gallery (the are other galleries that use banana leaves instead of papyrus to sell to tourists...tricky tricky). Papyrus was the plant that represented South Ancient Egypt, and we learned how it was used to make papyrus paper. It actually a really simple technique but it creates such strong paper! The natural resins and sugars really make that paper stick together. We explored the gallery that contained some stunning art, many of which depicted scenes from events that we learned about in the Egyptian Museum. Things started to connect and we could extrapolate what each painting was about, which pharaohs were depicted, and which gods were represented. The history is so rich and so intertwined...it really inspires me to research more about other histories and cultures, especially my own. The gallery was beautiful but the bigger, nicer pictures were fairly expensive, going for several thousand Egyptian pounds. ($2 is approximately £E10 [Egyptian pound]) 

Then we had lunch:

After lunch, it was what we were waiting for the most… the PYRAMIDS of GIZA! So again, Fatma explained to us what the pyramids meant, the shape, the construction, the architecture, and the history. Looking at the pyramids, you would think that they're out in the middle of the desert, like in Disney's Aladdin, where they're flying on the magic carpet over deserts and the guy accidently knocks off the nose of the sphinx, but they're not. Well at least, these ones are not, they are just like...chillin in the background of a bustling city. Aladdin didn't live THAT long ago compared to when the pyramids were built.

So we climbed on the pyramids, rode camels around the pyramids/sphinx, and even climbed inside the tomb of one of the smaller side pyramids where the wives of the king were buried. It was exciting, exhilarating, hot/dehydrating, and profound.

(hehe, Vivian's wearing a skirt! She never wears skirts, but she's practicing for Tanzania, where it'll be rude for her not to wear one… and my eye was not doing well, my contact kept getting blurry probably because of all the sand that was blowing around and also because my eyes hadn't gotten much rest for the last two days….)

///More on the pyramids\\\

Though they are still standing, the pyramids have been through a lot. Ceremonies, grave robbers, stripped of it's beautiful outer layers (you can see some of the outer layers still remaining at the top of some of the pyramids). There so much history in them, I encourage everyone to check it out. 

 Thank you Sony for making me an excellent camera! =) Our tour guide loved my pictures, they were some of the most "marvelous" pictures she's ever seen. She said that the jumping pictures are so lively because she's used to people just standing there...

Lastly, we went to a perfume shop where we were led by an expert (and really good salesman) on how they made perfumes and which flowers were in which scent. We learned that a bunch of designer colognes/perfumes were just combinations of flowers and found some interesting combinations. Though he was a great salesman, we did not purchase scents that could potentially attract mosquitoes later on >.<

KFC delivers…I wonder if they use the same chicken here…

When we got back to the hotel, we were able to use the internet for a bit and then finally shower. We then spent a short amount of time promenading about downtown Cairo but we were exhausted from the day's events. We also needed to rest for the next day because we had to be up even earlier because we were travelling about 200km away to Alexandria...and we didn't want to be late...again...

whew it's 4am on June 18th in Egypt. These posts take a while to put together as I gather all these pictures here. Check out more of the pictures on Facebook as well!