We have arrived in Cairo!

I am officially in EGYPT! Ahh! I’ve been here for about 11 hours now and I still can’t believe I am here (you can see the great pyramid from my hotel room!) For the record this post is about Tuesday afternoon in NY until Wednesday in Cairo (I'm posting late and thats why it says Thursday). For the record it will say the time I posted things in EGYPT time.

So a few basics about the trip to get the blog started.. I am here with 41 other students from Union College and Professor Ghaly who is an Engineering professor at school, and his mother, “Mama” Ghaly (this is actually how she introduced herself to us!). This trip is jampacked with sightseeing that anyone would expect when coming to Egypt.

So the flight was planned to leave JFK at 6:30pm EST. We ended up leaving about an hour late and made it to Cairo at about 1:15pm (Cairo time); in total the flight took about 11.5 hours. I know that sounds unbarable but it was surprisingly not that bad. Lucky for me, ther last few rows of the plane were empty which Elana and I spoted because we were in the back of the plane, so Ben and I moved to our own row, and Mike and Elana moved the their own row. Clearly there is a God because I did sleep a little bit (about 5 solid hours I would say) which the help of Drammamine. I watched 2 movies (Inception and Killers), and an episode of Glee and an episode of How I Met Your Mother. So to answer some people’s questions, there wa sufficient entertainment on the plane.

The meals were decent for airplane food. Dinner was a chicken dish; the dessert was gross aka a blessing in disguise because I wasn’t tempted to eat it! Breakfast was a choice of pancakes and eggs, and the thought of airplane eggs made me gag so pancakes it was! (they were actually really yummy). I came to a realization that I really like airplane food not because of the actually food, but it allows you to control your portions.

Finally we arrived very groggy as to be expected and got these really cool visa sticker things to put in our passports. By the time we got to the hotel another 2 hours or so had passed. The first hotel we are currently staying at is Mercure Cairo Le Sphinx. **First thing you need to know about Egypt**there are metal detectors EVERYWHERE! Outside the hotel, restaurants, you name it. This actually scarred me a little later on so keep this thought in the back of your mind.

So Elana and I had such a hard time finding our room, but when we finally did we were pretty impressed. The bathroom was really nice (filled with marble) and you can see the great pyramid from our room! Oh, and we have some English channels on the TV thank goodness. Professor Ghaly mentioned to us on the drive over to the hotel that marble and other stones are very abundant here, so it is seen all over the place.

Also on the ride to the hotel we met our tour guide for the whole trip whose name is Mohammed Zakaria (I probably spelled that wrong). He told us that so many people in Egypt have the same first name that people often refer to each other by their last name, therefore he told us to call him Zach. HE was also the tour guide for the mini-term 2 years ago.

Before we left for dinner Ben and I lit candles for Hanukkah. YES even though we are in Egypt, land of the no jews anywhere, we lit candles for the first night! Thanks for the Menorah Liv :)

Finally dinner time approached and we went on a dinner cruise called the Memphis. Zack told us that Memphis was the first capitol of Egypt and that we will be going there later in the trip. Going into the restaurant we went through a metal detector, and I went off because I had my camera, and the guy just let me through! what is that?! He just let everyone through.. totally didn't make me feel safe.

Everyone got dressed up for the cruise on the nile which was very cool. We had a buffet dinner which included chicken, pasta, rice, etc. and the food was decent. After we finished eating, we watched a show which included a belly dancer, drummers, and spinning thing which was fun because they engaged with the audience. We took some pictures on the top of the boat too so the start of my photo collection is looking solid (and so far am loving the new camera!)

Tomorrow we are seeing the pyramids of Giza, going inside one of them, camel riding, and more. Will have the details about that in due time of course which I will include in m next entry. But until then, this place is pretty cool and can’t wait to keep exploring!