The Pyramids!

After a good night's sleep we awoke on Christmas Day and drove through empty streets to the pyramids of Giza. There are 9 pyramids in Giza and we were able to see three of them. Only 300 people are allowed inside the pyramids each day in order to preserve the insides and protect it from humidity and human interaction. Sadly when we arrived at 10am all of the tickets for that day had already been sold so no inside of the pyramid for me but the outside was well worth it. Pictures and words can barely explain the vastness of these pyramids. One block was about the height of me! I was truly in awe of the amount of time and engineering that had to have gone into these pyramids. And what I find most amazing is all of it was just to send the pharaoh off into the afterlife. That's a lot of preparation.

The only thing that I found trying while being at the pyramids was that it is a definite tourist trap. People will walk along side you and put things on you are try to get you take something from them and then start demanding money. I found it to be a disconcerting situation at times. I was standing with my arms folded and a man came up and put postcards on top of my folded arms. I just kept on saying no thank you and shaking my head until he finally got the hint and took his stuff.

After the pyramids we went straight to the Sphinx. I would find out through the trip that the object of the sphinx is present in a lot of other temples but what makes this one special is it's size. I would also like to point out that I find it messed up that the Pizza Hut on 22 closed and yet you can go to one right across the street from the Sphinx. Thank you globalization.

We went to lunch at this amazing place where I got to indulge in hummus, falafel, chicken liver, and beer. It was one of my favorite meals of the trip. A day where you see the pyramids, a sphinx, have some falafel, and a beer with your professor is a good day in my book

But alas the day was not over. After lunch we headed over to the Egyptian Museum where we got a tour from the recently retired director of the Museum, who just so happens to be Dr. Gabra's good old friend. The Museum is huge and it took about four hours to walk through. We saw the only piece of heiroglyphics that has the word Israel inscribed. I got to see mummies and some of the gold from inside King Tut's tomb. The director also told some interesting stories about how some of the pieces actually got into the museum, i.e. people stole the stuff from the original sights and the museum had to work with the robbers as well as other countries to negotiate it's return to Egypt.

I hope by now you can get the gist that our days were jam packed with activities so that by the time we got back to the hotel all we did was relax for a bit and go to sleep. Sadly, I didn't experience much of any nightlife while in Egypt but the days more than made up for it.