Egypt Day One

Our group from Jordan at the Airport

We met at the Church building in Amman at 6:00 AM Thursday morning and drove to the airport. We arrived early luckily because there were 3 people for checking in, and about 300 passengers...not exactly efficient. It was confusing and I was getting a little nervous, I get that way when everyone around me is speaking a language I don't understand. So after I checked in, I had trouble obtaining clearance because of my visa. Long story short, I waited around for 40 minutes for some men to argue in Arabic about whether or not they should detain me or let me go, while there was a Thailand Woman with her British husband throwing a royal fit-crying-screaming-swearing-demanding to see a lawyer etc about. I haven't been watching the news but apparently there have been protests in Thailand...maybe ? and they couldn't get home. Anyway it was stressful! I sat by one of the singles from my branch, who has the most fascinating life experiences. He works for NASA now, but he used to be a pilot, he was the youngest pilot in all of Europe and middle east and Asia when he was 20! He flew for princes and royalty and such, and then he had a job to test fly the jets and pick the best ones to purchase for the airlines. CRAZY! Anyway, fascinating conversation! Interesting kid.

The flight was just over an hour, and as we got close, we could see Pyramids from our Plane windows! It was amazing! Stepping off the plane was bad because you could feel the pollution, like it was tangible, and seeping into your lungs.

We rode a bus to the Branch building and got to see some of Cairo, and a place very close to where there was a huge rock fall from the mountains that killed many families, like 200 families very recently.

We ate at the church and after we walked through Maadi to the Train station where we piled into the overcrowded train with people who have not been introduce to deodorant, and it was so hot out! All part of the adventure though :)

We went to Coptic Cairo. Coptic is a branch of Christianity, and they have many old churches and buildings. We went into many, as well as walked through the cemeteries where Coptics are still being buried in family tombs. Some of the tombs are huge (for places where bodies go) and most are really old. They remind me of really tall apartments in London or something that are tiny but tall.

This is St Georges Church behind meNotice the tomb in the middle is leaning pretty far!

Inside another Coptic church, this is said to be a place where the Holy Family stayed in Egypt

This is some guys at the well...said to be where the Holy Family drew their water...who knows. But people were passing around a nasty cup drinking the water. I thought...uh no thanks I don't want to share germs with a million Egyptians, thanks. But I did pour some of the water into my hand to drink it....I was just curious. It was SO NASTY! The grossest water I have ever drank...ocean water tastes better! YUCK.

This is our Host Family, the Heiss' little girl Rachel. Everywhere we went everyone wanted to touch her, kiss her, and mostly take pictures of her with their cell phones. Andrew and Nancy are very patient letting everyone kiss their angel baby girl. She's SO cute!

Inside the cemetery

The streets of Coptic Cairo are a smaller version copy of Old City Jerusalem. There is a wall that encompasses the entire outside, and the streets leading everywhere look just like Jerusalem, lined with shops and merchants selling their wares.

I thought this was hilarious! This is a bunch of cigarette boxes...look closely (i know the pic isn't that great) there's a picture of a man on a gurney with an oxygen mask on his face...he doesn't look so good! It doesn't seem to deter anybody from smoking though. (Side note...I thought it was so funny, and i looked at the cigarettes in Jordan and they have a picture of black nasty smokers lungs on their cigarette boxes...funny)

This is a fruit stand along the famous road nine in Cairo. Road nine is the name of the street that TONS of shops reside in. The fruit stand is called the tree aptly so, there's a large tree growing INSIDE the store, like the tree was here before the shops, the shop was built around it. And it's still totally alive and leafy! Interesting!

Inside a souvenir shop on Road Nine.

Do I look like a pharaoh?

My new scarf...I got totally carried away with the scarves! They were SO cool! Also, you can kind of see how small the cars are behind me...they look like little roller-skate taxi's! :)