Mom and Laura's Visit Part 2

Ok. Back to update again. Sorry- it's been busy times as usual!

So Laura arrived and we packed our bags and headed to Cairo the next morning. I thought we were taking the direct train, but turned out it was one of the slower ones. It was about a 3.5 hour train ride. We arrived in Cairo, bustling with life as usual and grabbed a taxi to our hotel. By some miracle, my directions landed us pretty close. When I stopped to ask a man about the name of a street, he of course insisted he take us to the hotel, and though I tried to shake him off (he more followed us than anything) he went with us to the hotel and tried to earn a commission from the owner for "bringing in customers" even though we already had a reservation. The owner just blew him off. Then we grabbed some quick lunch at Hardee's complete with a giant poster of Brad Pitt from the 90s up on the wall in the lobby. Laura and I wanted to get a picture by it, but there were people sitting right in front of him, so we passed. Then I walked my Mom and Laura over to the Museum and bought them tickets, using my student ID for Laura so she could get a discount. Whenever she had to show the ID since she really doesn't look like me, but you know, to Egyptians, all short white blonde girls kind of look alike, so she just put on her sunglasses and flashed the ID. Apparently it worked! I went back to the hotel and took a nap since I've been to the Museum 3 times already. When my Mom and Laura got back we hopped a taxi to Al-Azhar park which is a beautiful park on a hill in Cairo where you can see all around the city and hear the call to prayer from everywhere. We watched the sunset and got some dinner. It was beautiful, but a little windy, so it was surprisingly chilly. Then back to the hotel for a quick stop before off to a delitefully sketchy local bar atop a hotel for a beer and a shisha. It was Laura's first time smoking shisha (Hookah, Nargeela, Hubbly Bubbly, all the same thing) and I got her hooked! As we were leaving the coal guy asked Laura to take his picture, so she has a fantastic picture of this old, toothless Egyptian man in a galabiya (the long robe thingy). Awesome.

The next day we got up bright and early and headed out with a drvier to see all the pyramids. We did what my Dad and I did when he visited, we went to Doshur, Saqqara, and Giza and we also threw in Memphis this time. We arrived in Doshur first and the weather was pretty clear. We all climbed up the Red Pyramid and Laura and I went down inside. I was talking to the guy sitting at the enterance, basically doing nothing and of course when I spoke Arabic to him we started the usual, "where are you from, why do you speak Arabic" conversation and he asks me if I'm married and when I say no he starts telling me how beautiful marriage is and how I should marry soon and have kids and how I need to marry an Egyptian because I speak Arabic, etc and I signal to Laura it's time to go! We then walked around the side of the pyramid to take pictures of the Bent pyramid off in the distance and two of the tourist police start coming over to us. Then end up bringing over a camel and letting Laura sit on it while we took pictures. Apparently the camel's name was Antonio. Awesome.

Next off to Memphis and then Saqqara and finally Giza. Of all the pyramids, the ones at Doshur are definitely the best. Saqqara is really fun too, but Giza is crowded, dirty, and annoying. But what can you do? You can't come all the way to Egypt and not see the pyramids at Giza. Memphis was underwhelming, but we did take a picture that looked like I was picking the nose of a statue of Ramses II. Nice.
A note on our driver. Our driver was nice, but his english was pretty poor, so I ended up conversing with him in Arabic most of the time. He seemed pretty nice, but things got a little strange when we went to Giza. We took a detour and he drove by this car tire place, stopped, honked the horn and started yelling angrily for a solid 2 minutes. He was yelling really loud and fast and I could tell he was not happy, but it was hard for me to understand exactly what he was saying. He then drove down the street, turned around, and did the same thing on the other side of the street. Finally, after we drove off I asked him, Ok what was up with that? He explained that once he bought tires from that shop and they popped within a week and the shop refused to give him replacements or refund his money, so everytime he is in Giza, he droves by and yells that they are all theives, so everyone will know. Ok then.

After our pyramid tour we went to Zamalek for some delicious lunch and then back on the train to Alexandria. My mom left the next morning.

The next 2 days Laura and I spent hanging out in Alexandria. We visited the citadel, the library, and Manshia, the local shopping market. Laura bought a small shisha to take home with her and me and a friend bargained for over an hour for two handcrafted copper shishas, one of which I'll be bringing home with me. We also did some shopping. A few highlights: While we were walking out of the Citadel, as usual a group of young Egyptian girls asked to take their picture with us. This was probably the fifth or sixth time this happened during Laura's visit. For some reason Egyptian's like getting their pictures with foreigners. Laura and I decided that there is actually a point system and when they get together with their friends they all show each other the pictures they have with foreigners and award each other points depending on nationality, gender, and attractiveness. Who knows, it could be true. Then as we were walking along the sea, Laura got to experience some wonderful Egyptian male harrassment. Most of it was pretty mild, but at one point, a young guy walked by and said, "I want to f*** you." I turned around and started yelling in Arabic and Laura just started laughing. It was an experience.

Too short of a time later I had to take Laura to the airport and send her off. It was wonderful to have both her and my Mom visit and show them the touristy places in Egypt but also how I live around here on a daily basis. They'll tell you, it's no picnic, but once you get used to the trash in the street, the harrassment, and the insane traffic, well it feels like some twisted Dr. Suess/ Tim Burton version of home.