More Pyramids

Another pyramid trip, only you probably actually recognize these pyramids.
Here we are with all 3 behind us.
There is this photo spot where if you stand the right way, put your hand up and get the camera at the right angle it looks like you're holding up a pyramid. I thought it was particularly hilarious when this group of Chinese tourists came and all these old Chinese guys were climbing up on the wall and holding out their arms, almost like they were saluting Hitler, with these goofy grins on their faces.
And then I put my finger on top...these things are really big!
If you've never been to Egypt you might believe that the pyramids look just the same as they do on National Geographic specials...they sure don't. They're located in the middle of town, not in the middle of the desert like TV makes them look and they're the biggest tourist trap ever. We couldn't manage to take a picture without a million people in the background and we couldn't manage to get away from creepy Egyptian guys trying to sell us cheap crap. I actually warned Shanna when we got there that if I started yelling at someone I wasn't having a mental breakdown, I've just been in the Arab world too long to put up with this junk. I managed to make it without going off on anyone although I ignored a lot of pushy people and I mumbled alot of things under my breath.

It still feels weird to totally ignore someone who is standing right in front of you obviously talking to you but sometimes (actually a lot) I still do, especially when it's some weirdo guy who has his hand on your arm and is telling you that you are the most beautiful girl he has ever seen while trying to sell you some postcards. Amazing how I forgot how to speak English AND Arabic at the same time...makes communication a little difficult!!

Then there's the sphinx...it's big too.

Notice the mobs of tourists behind me? Seriously, I haven't seen that many foreigners or that many cameras, in one place since I left the States!

Then we observed these camel guys prowling around for unsuspecting tourists to rip off.

And then we ate lunch at pizza hut overlooking the pyramids. Most tourists who come to Egypt would probably try to find a local place to experience cultural food and they would probably think that it's a horrible thing to put a KFC/Pizza Hut right next to this huge historical site. However my life only consists of cultural food so I was probably a little too excited to enjoy a some normal food, even if it did kind of make my stomach hurt from all the grease.

And that's the end of yet another pyramid experience.

Falooka Ride

Shanna and I also took a sailboat ride on the Nile in Cairo. The Nile is so beautiful and much bigger in Egypt. Plus it's pretty cool to just be hanging out around one of the most famous rivers in the world. As one of my friends likes to point out every time we see the river 'that was blood. All of that, it was blood!'

This was our driver, a nice old man who left us alone the whole time and just sat in the back singing away.
Here we are. It was a cold, windy day...maybe not that cold but I was certainly freezing!

We were on the boat at 4:15 so our driver had to be sure and do his prayers. It was interesting b/c he didn't wash, didn't have a rug or anything but made sure that he was facing the right direction the entire time. Since we were on a boat drifting on the river he had to continually change his position to keep facing the right way...I don't know why but I thought that was funny.
Here I am hanging out on the boat. We weren't sure if the driver would mind if we climbed around outside of the designated seating area so we just hopped up there and the driver didn't say anything. But I had to hold on to be sure that the wind didn't blow me over the side!!

Part of the city along the waterfront. Cairo is such a tall, crowded place but it definitely makes for a nice vacation spot!

Souq in Cairo

Here are a few shots from the huge market in Cairo. It was so strange to be able to walk around and just take pictures of whatever I wanted. In the Sandbox they don't really let you take pictures of anything good and there's no way you could just walk down the street with your camera in your hand like a tourist!

Lots of beads and bead stores...walls and walls of beads!

They say this one particular market is the size of 7 football fields and there are tons of mosques spread out through the entire thing.
A kid selling bread off his head...notice he dropped one? He didn't stop to pick it up, I think he was afraid that if he bent down he would drop the rest!

There are fruit and vegetables all over on the sides of the streets. There are also motorbikes filling up the sidewalks everywhere.

And there are plenty of feet for everyone!

The market wraps around with all these little streets and alleyways. One of my favorite stores is up these stairs and through a few dark hallways. I always feel like I'm going to conduct some shady business as I wind my way through all these little halls.

The markets in Cairo are so pretty. They have all kinds of beatiful stuff for sale and the shops are so cute and quaint...definitely a welcome change from the Sandbox!!

Sandbox Pictures

A few more pictures from the Sandbox.

These guys wanted me to be sure and get a fighting picture...just proof that boys are boys no matter where they live in the world.

This is a cute little neighbor girl.

But these kids are still my favorites.

All the older kids held the puppy up close to them for pictures and this little one was not going to be left out. He could hardly pick it up but he sure did.

The Island

We have this island in the middle of the Nile close to where I live. Most people don't know (I didn't know until I moved to the Sandbox) that there are actually 2 Niles...a white and a blue...and eventually they meet to make the Great Nile. They don't teach that in school or if they do I don't remember.

So here are the two Niles where they meet. It's pretty cool.
A fisherman in a handmade paddle boat.Here I am on the ferry of death. Usually it is packed with people and if any one person stands up suddenly the whole thing is going to tip. We hired this one to just take us and not 50 other people with us...it was definitely worth the $2!!
Some oxen plowing, or really probably just cows.
What do you do when you're washing your rickshaw and you don't want the wheels to get dirty? You pick it up and put it on some coke bottle crates.

These guys just hanging out with their donkey cart.

A Lot of Pictures

I'm on vacation and am amazed at how fast pictures can load here...it really takes less than a minute. The Internet in the Sandbox is fairly fast for the Sandbox but now that I'm back in the real world I have been pleasantly surprised!!!

A few weeks ago we took a team retreat to the desert. The sunset was amazing.

And of course you can't go anywhere in Africa and be alone. You can go to the middle of nowhere and think that you're alone but someone always just appears. These kids showed up less than 5 minutes after we got there and they never left. I don't know where they slept or what their goats ate but they were there the whole time.
Me and my camel from the Sandbox pyramids last week.

Me and Shanna at the Nile in the Sandbox. This lady behind us somehow managed to get into every picture we took. Of course we didn't know it until later when we looked at our beach pictures and she was in the background a lot.

Dinner

I've been trying to introduce Shanna to local foods while she is here. Yesterday we ate fool for dinner which is just a bowl of beans that locals eat all the time and you add vegetables and other stuff that you want.

So tonight I asked her what she wanted for dinner and she chose fool, of all the things we could have she chose fool...and 2 days in a row at that!! Fool is not bad but it's just kind of funny that she chose to have it again. So we went to the different places and collect the bread, beans, vegetables and falofal to put in, then we headed home.

We had just started eating when Shanna said 'Is this weird?...that we just bought beans from some guy on the street, made them ourselves and now we're picking strange sticks out of our bowls but we're still just eating it?'

And is it weird? That we bought beans from a pot sitting outside by the street and brought them home in a plastic bag? That we bought falofal from an uncovered tray, 2 pieces of round bread and 3 pieces of hot dog bread, 2 tomatoes, 1 cucumber and 1 onion, brought it all home, mashed it up in a bowl and ate it with our hands? I really thought it was fairly normal. How else are you supposed to eat beans? But on second thought...maybe not so normal.

Pyramids and Camels

In the Sandbox we have our own pyramids. They're nowhere near as big as the famous ones in Egypt but they're still pretty cool. Back when some explorers came through they thought there was gold inside and, instead of going through the doors, they just blew off the tops of every single one. I'm not sure if they actually found any gold but they definitely did not leave even one pyramid intact.

What's different and really fun about these pyramids is that you can wander around unattended and even climb around if you want. We were in the middle of the desert and there was no one else around....except for some guys riding around on camels and a few people selling 'souvenirs' in front of the pyramids. When people saw us coming they ran, literally got on their camels and galloped. And then there were a few stragglers who showed up about 15 minutes later...I'm convinced that the guys who were already there just pulled out their cell phones and called their camel riding friends to tell them that a group of foreigners just showed up and they should come on over and try to make some money.

The entrance fee is fairly negotiable and we got a good price. All the camel guys had lined up their camels and the minute we walked in started yelling and waving their arms to get our attention...as if we wouldn't have noticed all those camels in a big line completely blocking our way to actually get over to the pyramids. In hindsight, we totally should have all just walk past them, in between camels and everything, as if we didn't see them...that would have confused 'em!
Of course we took a ride because how can you not?!?

The camels were pretty bored waiting for us so they chilled in the sand for a while.

An Old Friend

My college roommate (can I just say how old I feel to be referring to my college roommate but in the past tense?!?!) is here to visit me for 2 weeks. She's been here one week already and time has flown but we're having lots of fun and I'm keeping her busy with all the 'tourist' sites that we have here. Here we are standing in the Nile....I don't know how we could look more photoshopped in even if we tried but I promise we are actually standing in the Nile!!!

Making Salad

Today we went to visit Sandy, the lady with the blind kids. I volunteered to help her with breakfast and I am usually assigned to make the salad which you would think would be fairly simple.

Today I was sitting there using a dull knife blade that actually didn't have a handle clumsily trying to peel carrots and cucumbers. I began to draw a crowd of kids but they weren't just staring like normal, they were staring with these confused looks on their faces.

Finally one little girl says in the cutest little voice 'Mommy, I've never seen anyone cut vegetables like that. What is she making?'

Here I am trying to cut vegetables like the locals do. I've seen them do it a million times and I actually thought that I was doing a very good job at doing it their way...until even the little kids were wondering what was going on. Talk about feeling like an idiot!!!

Superbowl Monday

Let me start by saying that last week a fishing boat let down it's anchor in the middle of the red sea and cut the Internet lines for India, and parts the middle east and north africa including the Sandbox of course. If some guy on the street told me that a fishing boat was the reason why the entire country was left without Internet I would have laughed but this was on Al Jazeera and on the street so I believe it. Even now it's still not quite back to normal but it's good enough so I'm not complaining.

So the superbowl was last weekend and I'm sure all of y'all enjoyed some good commercials. One of my friends has the fancy satellite package that includes showtime sports and the schedule said that they would rebroadcast the superbowl on Monday night at 9pm...they even sent the guy an email making sure he knew that would be showing the superbowl.

Being the good Americans that we are we of course had to make a party!! So we all gathered the drinks and snacks and were at our friend's house by 8:45...it was gonna be a late night but it would so be worth it. But at 8:45 the schedule had cut the superbowl and said that kickboxing would be on at 9.

We refused to believe it. Surely the schedule was wrong...and at 9pm kickboxing came on. 15 minutes of flipping channels proved unsuccessful so we watched kickboxing, enthusiastically I might add. Some of us had loaded up on the caffeine to stay up late and couldn't help but be enthusiastic about whatever was on, still refusing to give up hope that maybe the game would come on at 10. We ate our snacks and watched.

And then at 10 a monster truck rally came on. By this point we had all given up hope so we made a little fun of monster trucks but it wasn't nearly as enthusiastically as we had made fun of the kickboxing. We checked the schedule and it then said that they would rebroadcast the game on Tuesday at 9pm. It's not like the guy read the schedule wrong...it clearly said Monday, as did the email and then they changed it after 9 when the game was supposed to start, to say Tuesday.

And we went home...disappointed. Remember I posted another time about the cowboys game and how they said they would have it but then they didn't? I don't know why I got my hopes up about the superbowl. I guess I thought that for sure those Arab guys who run the satellite company would somehow know how special this game was and would be sure to show it.

To be optimistic, I guess if they weren't going to play the superbowl like they promised on the schedule, at least they filled that time with something all-American like monster trucks, right?

Although I have a theory about this new form of terrorism. They get together and figure out the things that Americans would really want to see on television, convincing us to get our hopes up and all gather together in expectation of a really exciting evening...and then they cancel it at the last minute b/c they know that we will all be severly disappointed. I guess it's more like torture than terrorism but still, it's a conspiracy!!!