Part 5 - Cairo

Robin & I took the train from Alex to Cairo, about a 3 hour ride for $8. We have some very good friends who are living there and we got to spend lots of time with them. It was worth the whole trip just to get to catch up with them. We did a lot of shopping and enjoyed playing up the role of tourists, plus we did quite a bit of relaxing.

Here's the Nile River. Over here (and in most countries) it's actually illegal to stop on bridges. There are actually soldiers posted on each side of the bridge, I'm not sure what exactly their jobs are but up to this point I guess I had just assumed that they kept people from stopping on the bridge. Well, our driver just stopped on the side of the road and told us to get out so we did. It was freezing and the wind was blowing like crazy, but he took the next 15 minutes to tell us the story of Moses and to point out the very reeds where he was found in the basket. Notice the reeds just there to the right of the river in the picture? That's where they found him. Who would've thought! Kudos to the princess who thought to put a sign up when she found a baby who she didn't know was going to grow up to be a key player in the history of the world so that thousands of years later we would know the precise location where he was found. That's a little sarcastic, but the guys explanation was 'the princess had gardens all along the river but this was where one of the bigger gardens was so she had to find him right there'. Huh. Well if nothing else it was pretty cool to break the law and take river pictures off of the bridge, although, and I think I've said this before about other things but, now that I live on that very same river it just isn't quite as cool as it was before, it kind of loses it's novelty when you can go have a picnic next to it anytime you want.

We also took a falouka ride on the river. A falouka is basically just a small, rickety old sailboat and they're really common in Cairo. We went at sunset and it was so beautiful and incredibly peaceful...amazing that in the middle of one of the biggest, most crowded and craziest cities in the world you can find such silence.

This is my good friend and I while we were on the river. We go way back...all the way to conference over a year ago when we were roomies (and before you judge her for the huge earring in her nose, she had just gotten it pierced 3 days before!). And then in the second picture is another great friend from RVA. A year ago, who would have thought that we would end up in the same part of the world having very similar experiences.

Also, on our falouka ride the very exact spot where Joesph, Mary & Jesus crossed the river was pointed out to us. My first reaction was '...Does it say that they crossed the river? I mean, I guess, since they were in Egypt for a while and it is a big river, it could be logical that, at some point, they crossed it'. My next question was 'So was this when they were coming to Egypt or leaving?', along with 'at the time they were on the run they weren't exactly well-known, so who was the brilliant person that marked the exact spot so that thousands of years later we could commemorate that event?' I guess that's being a little critical and sarcastic but that was really what I thought.

And then, of course, a beautiful Nile sunset picture. Have you noticed that sunsets are my absolute favorite thing?