I love Egypt

Last year at this time we were preparing for the trip of a lifetime. My parents treated their daughters, their sons-in-law and one child from each family to a Mediterranean cruise. We visited some amazing places but right now I just want to write about Egypt.

I went to Egypt in February of 1981 when I was on study abroad in Jerusalem. I took four rolls of film (obviously this was before the digital world) and, for some horrible, horrible reason, not one single roll of film worked. The film never advanced in my camera and they were all unexposed.

Well, I'm sure the important things haven't changed much since 1981 and thank goodness for awesome digital cameras.

I've been glued to the news reports about what's been going on in Cairo and Alexandria for the past several days. Thousands of people have been protesting against their government and things are totally out of control. Without going into the details, I will just say that I hope it clears up soon because I want to go back there someday and spend a LOT of time all over that amazing country.

Sorry, but there are lots of photos in this post. How do you narrow hundreds of photos down to just a few for one little blog? You don't!

Here is a shot of the port city of Alexandria. I don't know how many millions of people live there but it was the most crowded city I've ever seen. We spent a day there; half of it in a dirty, filthy, disgusting taxi-cab whose driver totally ripped us off. The air in Alexandria is thick with smoke and exhaust and grime. I remember wishing I could just take one breath of the air from my home back in Redmond. I remember thinking I would give a million dollars for one big breath of fresh air.

We took a day trip to Cairo and crammed everything in that one day as quickly as we could. It didn't make any sense to do Cairo in one day and I don't recommend it to anyone. But, that's why we have (or HAD) big plans to go back one day.

This is a picture of the famous Nile River. Allison was so disappointed because she thought it would be covered with ferns and papyrus like it looked when Moses was found in his little baby basket. But it looks like this for miles and miles.

The drive from Alexandria to Cairo takes three hours. This is how we knew we were there. Imagine seeing this out of your bus window. It honestly took my breath away.

Here are a few random shots of one of the seven wonders of the world.

The Sphinx was amazing. Look at mine and Allie's outfits. You would not BELIEVE the time it took for us to find the absolute perfect outfits for this day. Half the fun of this trip was planning our wardrobes. I know. . . very silly of us.

I love this picture of Allie and the camel guy. I thought he was asking her if she had fun but he was really asking her for more money.

Here's the whole gang.

I love this picture of the cousins. Elizabeth Burnard, James Christiansen, and Allison Taylor. Those lucky kids!

The pyramids are very close to the city of Cairo as you can see. I imagine that they were far, far away from Cairo hundreds of years ago and that the city just grew out to meet them.

We didn't get a good picture of the Egyptian Museum where the fabulous King Tut exhibit resides. It was crowded and hot and we were in a hurry. But I still remember how amazing it was and how beautiful the 3,000 year old artifacts were. Last week, some vandals got into the museum and trashed some of them. Unbelievable.

Here's the last shot--as if you need more. But really, I still can't get over how amazing Egypt is.