When we got to Hurghada, I found out that for a nominal (comparatively)fee, we could book a side trip to Cairo. The downside, another 5:00 a.m. trip. Great, I had to tell our teenagers we might possibly get up another spring break morning at dawn. I would rather stick my head in a lion's mouth. But I did, and you know what? They didn't mind. They really wanted Chizz to see it and because it was so fascinating they didn't mind seeing it again. Also, they were hoping to see the Egyptian Museum which we hadn't had a chance to see yet. Really, they were!!
So when we arrived at Cairo, we looked for our tour guide. We were told there would most likely be a group of us so we should look for a sign with the company name on it. When we got there, we were assigned a guide and off we went. So we had a guide for just the 4 of us all day. It is so much nicer to have a private tour, you can ask the questions you want and not have to worry about pushing to the front to be able to hear the commentary.
The first place the guide took us was the Citadel. No, no, no, not the one in South Carolina. A citadel is a military fortress or compound. This one is in Cairo and is more formally known as the The Saladin Citadel of Cairo. There you go. The
beautiful mosque inside the Citadel is the Mosque of Muhammed Ali (no, not that one or the other one!). Now you, my faithful readers, have known for some time that I am a sucker for a church. I love going inside churches and taking a look around. There is almost always something interesting in a church. I am finding out that I have the same feeling toward mosques as well, I love going inside and taking a look. This mosque was built between 1830 and 1848 by Muhammed Ali (of course), who is considered the founder of modern Egypt. This was one of the more conservative mosques I have been in. I know that seems a bit strange but I have found there are degrees, some mosques have insisted that women wear head scarves, some insist that any cleavage be covered, some allow you to wear shoes, some do not. This mosque did 
require that we take our shoes off. Also, women who were wearing shorts or shorter skirts, or other wear that was deemed immodest was required to wear a green robe that would cover all the "indecent" parts. So, considering this mosque was filled with tourists, most 
wearing typical tourist garb, there were quite a few women required to wear the green robes. Now interestingly enough, men wearing shorts were not required to wear the robes, but they did have to take off their shoes. There were 2 young women in the mosque who were in charge of making sure that all the women in the mosque were appropriately covered. If not, they handed you a robe. They walked all over the mosque looking for women that might have sneaked by. One came over to Kiki and told her to button up her sweater. She was wearing a short sleeve t-shirt over a tank top and then had a 3/4 length sweater on top of that. Apparently she thought Kiki's shirt was just a little low cut (trust me, it wasn't) and watched her button the sweater for one more layer of protection.After the mosque we went over to the Egyptian Museum. The kids and I didn't get to
do that before and we were anxious to see some of the pieces in the museum. Room after room of pieces thousands of years old and remarkably well preserved. One of the highlights of the museum were the artifacts from King Tut's tomb. Some of the things from the Egyptian Museum have been on tour before(remember the song Steve Martin wrote?). But some of these pieces have not left the museum before. I know in the past I was disappointed that the piece they use seemly to advertise when there is an exhibit of King Tut memorabilia is not really in the exhibit. You know the one - the big gold death mask. The mask in the exhibit is a little tiny one, a smaller one that they found in the tomb but they don't take the mask that was on the mummy on the road. We got to see that, as well as all of the other staffs and things he had in his hands. We also saw some of the materials they put in his tomb for afterlife, jewelry, beds, materials. Another highlight? The mummy room. You can see some of the mummies completely wrapped, but others are unwrapped and you can see the dried up mummies. Really cool. Like most good museums, I could have spent several more hours in there.But we wanted to get to the Pyramids and Sphinx. Considering that we had just been
here days before, I wasn't sure whether I would have the same reaction I had before or it would be old hat. No, not nearly. Again, it was amazing, awe inspiring, goose bump inducing. I mean this is the last remaining of the original ancient wonders of the world I was glad to see it with Chizz too. He enjoyed it as much as I knew he would. We were able to go inside another one of the pyramids, one of the smaller ones. Ran into one of the baksheesh guys at the end but Chizz handled it as usual. (Thanks Chizz!) We also went on another camel ride. The family that rides together, stays together. Funny, the camels we rode on this time had the same names as the camels we rode last time. Actually I think that these camel herders are pretty clever, Americans show up and the camels have names like "Charlie Brown, Mickey, Elvis". French people show up and the same camels have names like "Maurice Chevalier, Nicolas Sarkozy, Napoleon". Wonder what they had for the Russian tourists? We were surprised to see some other pyramids in the distance. I hadn't seen them before, I think the pollution was too bad the day I had been there before. You can just make them out in the distance. These are the lesser known, but equally as spectacular, pyramids at Saqqara. We didn't have an opportunity to out there and see these pyramids but maybe some other time!
We also managed take a short boat ride in a traditional Faluca on the Nile river. A faluca is a small sail boat. Unfortunately, not much wind on the day we went so the poor captain had to kind of punt along. But it was nice and now we can say we have sailed on the river Nile. Of course, just like jello there is always room to time to do some shopping -- Kiki & I picked up some Egyptian jewelry - earrings for me, a pendant for Kiki and some other tidbits.
It was a very long day but amazing just the same. I am glad we got to share it with Chizz as well. We had a few more adventures. Stay tuned!
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