Egypt!!! That's right. The kids had a swim meet in Cairo. It was end of the season big final swim meet, like sectionals or regionals. They only took 20 swimmers and both Kiki & Snake went. About a month or so before the meet, some parents got together and decided it would be fun to go along. Fun for us, that is. I am not so sure the kids thought it would be fun but who the heck cares.
The meet itself is held during 2 full days at the American School in Cairo and about 12 teams attend. They come from England, Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland. For some of these kids it is the first time they have been in a swim meet outdoors. Most of the American kids are from the East Coast in the US and they have always swam indoors. In fact it was the first time many of the kids and parents have seen classrooms that open up outdoors, not totally indoors. Being from the West Coast, this is exactly what we were used to so it was interesting listening to people exclaim at the difference. The meet went very well. Kiki and Snake both had some good races and Kiki made finals (even though she wasn't seeded to) so it was a fun to get a ribbon from Cairo.
The kids all stay with local families and the parents all decided to stay at a very nice high end hotel in Cairo. Other than the swim meet, we weren't really going to interact with the kids much, which was a bit disappointing but we had lots of tours scheduled to keep us busy and I think the kids had a good time despite not being with their folks!!
The first stop for the parents was Giza where the Sphinx and Pyramid are. There are
really no adequate words to describe the emotion you feel when you first see the Pyramids. It is simply amazing. Seeing something you have looked at in pictures since you were a small child, something so iconic, it is a bit overwhelming. I had a few preconceived notions about the pyramids that proved to be untrue. First, from all the pictures I have seen over the year, I had the 
impression that the stones were all placed together tightly and had a smooth exterior, almost like you could slide down the edge. But that isn't really true. The bricks are not laid flush, they jut out. So that surprised me a bit. Another idea I had was that once you walked in the pyramid, there would be a hallway of sorts and you just walked into all the rooms and saw the treasure. Again, not really how it works. You are able to go in the pyramid but instead of a hallway, it is more like a tunnel about 4 feet tall max. Several people in our group that are slightly claustrophobic found it challenging but I made it all the way up. I hadn't travelled that far to wait in the lobby!! So you have to walk along the tunnel bent over at the waist, walking up stairs and ramps until you get to the top and you can see the room. It is pretty empty now, but amazing all the same when you think these things were built in around 2500 BC. One fact I learned from our guide was that even though these pyramids have been around for awhile and scientists have been crawling all over them for many years, they are still discovering rooms within the structure. It is like a puzzle that keeps changing. From the pictures that I have seen over the years, you get the impression that these pyramids are in the middle of the nowhere, way deep in the desert. Actually the pyramids are remarkably close to Cairo and you can take pictures of the pyramid with Cairo in the background. But I didn't. Right down the road is the Sphinx. Again, breathtaking. It was also constructed
around 2500 BC and over the years has had some restoration done to it. You can walk through the temple area and get a really close look at the Sphinx.Also in this area are quite a few camel herds. For a negotiated price you can ride a camel for a few minutes. It is quite the thing to do, so of course I had to do it. It is pretty scary, at least I think so. The ride itself isn't that bad,
although I always had the feeling I was leaning forward and I could fall off at any moment. But the really scary part is when the camel gets up or down. You get on when they are sitting and when they get up, they lean forward quite a bit. I had visions of falling off over his head. But I didn't. Yes, I do have photos of me on the camel. No, I won't post them here but if you are nice AND I have had a glass or two of wine, I might show them to you!I had always said I wasn't that interested in visiting the Middle East or any of these countries although I would like to see the pyramids and the sphinx. Actually I was pretty wrong. I found this place fascinating. Most likely because it is so different from any of the places I have visited so far. I don't think I could live here. We did visit the American School and I think this would be a tough assignment. I don't think many foreigners drive here. I am not exaggerating when I say there are really no traffic laws here at all. There are lanes clearly marked but there is no lane management. For example there could be three lanes marked but there are 5 cars abreast of each other in the lanes. Also animals are allowed on the freeway. So you can see donkeys or horses pulling carts right next to a big righ. I tried to get a photo of that but it didn't work. Drivers dart in and out of traffic. I worked hard not to watch any of our bus drivers or taxi drivers drive, it is really too nerve racking. I am alive to talk about it but I am certain there are a few more gray hairs attributable to the experience.
Cairo is huge, about 17 million people. Our tour guide told us the populuation has
been growing at an alarming rate, for the past few years 1 million people per year. The pollution is awful. I learned that about 20 - 25,000 people a year die of some kind of pollution related disease in Cairo. Alot of this is attributed to the huge number (60%)of cars on the road that are over 10 years old and therefore lack the emmission guards and controls on newer vehicles. The pollution doesn't disperse very well because the city has very narrow streets, bordered by tall buildings and there is very little rain in Cairo. In the four days we were there, the haze got progressively worse. This picture is from my hotel room on the third day and you can see the pollution.Our tour included visiting a mosque,Mosque of Ibn Tulun. It is the oldest mosque in
Cairo, built in 876 AD. It is built on a hill called Gebel Yashkur, or "Hill of Thanksgiving" and local legend has it that this is the 
hill Noah's ark landed on, not Mt. Ararat (as most of the world believes!) I thought I might have to wear a head scarf but I didn't. We had to take off our shoes or wear coverings over them. However one of the women in our group was wearing a v-neck tshirt, that I didn't think was that low cut but the men at the mosque made her wear a shawl covering herself up. I learned quite a bit about mosques and Islam during our visit. This is the inside courtyard of the mosque, which usually holds an area where a muslim can wash before 
entering the mosque. In this mosque, the cleansing area is in the dome building. You can see the courtyard is 
flanked by hallways that are lined with rugs for prayer. All mosques have a niche in one wall that indicates the direction of Mecca. If you are in a mosque that has more than one prayer alcove, each alcove will have a niche pointing toward Mecca. Muslims pray 5 times a day. The muezzin is the person at the mosque who leads the call for prayer. He will climb to the top of the minaret, or tower, at the mosque and call out for the Muslims to pray. In the old days he would just call out, now he uses a microphone so people can hear him. You can hear the call for 
prayer pretty much all over the city from the various mosques. There are mosques all over the place in Cairo so you can pretty much hear it from where ever you may happen to be, like in your hotel room. This marking on the ceiling in my hotel room is typical in the Middle East, so any Muslim in that room knows which direction Mecca is and thus in which direction to pray. Egypt is a complicated country. The people I met were extremely friendly. Of course most of the people I came into contact with were in the service industry, the hotel, the restaurants, tour operators but truthfully, I can't remember a time when I received better service a hotel or a restaurant operator was so concerned that I enjoy my food, offering to replace it with something else if I didn't like before I had even taken a bite. The local people were extremely interested in Americans and pretty aware of US politics, "America Good - George Bush Bad", something my taxi driver said to me. In fact quite a few local people knew all about George Bush, Obama, Hillary. They are up to date on the election process going on in the States right now, telling me which States Hillary had lost or where Obama was having a tough time. They were pretty much consistent in their dislike of Bush. I was thinking about that and how much the common man in Egypt seemed to know of American politics and how much that surprised me. Before you discount that, think of this -- do you think many taxi drivers in the US can name the president of Egypt? I am sure that Bush has more impact on their daily lives than their president on ours but amazing just the same.
Going to a market or souk is an experience. The most famous one in Cairo is called Khan El Khalili. It is several streets of vendors selling different items. I am told that there are still some items of value there and it can be a good place but
most of the stuff I saw was the touristy stuff. Not that buying that stuff isn't fun, I am just not sure many local folk actually buy goods here any more. Still it was fun, you walk through the streets and alleyways and the vendors call out to you to come into their stall, they have the best deals etc. One guy said to me "Lady, I don't know what you are looking for, but I am sure I have it!". Right. We stopped and had some mint tea at the famous, El-Fishawi Cafe. Open 24 hours a day, it claims it has never been closed in 300 years. In April 2005, it was the site of a suicide bombing that claimed 20+ lives inlcuding an American. In fact, that bombing is the reason Snake & Kiki's school does not take them to the market any more. Apparently the swim team was there that day in 2005 and had only left the market several hours before the event. Scary. The sign of a good trip is when you are left with the feeling of wanting more. I definitely have changed my viewpoint of whether this area of the world is interesting. There is much more I would like to see and I think I would enjoy exploring other countries in this region. Of course with the political climate today, you need to be extremely careful where you go and when. I have learned a valuable lesson - there is merit and value in just about every place you can visit. If you keep your mind open you can learn something.
Now, I have other adventures stockpiled to tell you about but it is going to have to wait. Stay tuned to find out where we went on the first half of Spring Break, it will surprise you. Or maybe not.
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