PYRAMIDS AND CAMELS!!!

We also went to visit the pyramids and the Great Sphinx today!  Here's Kathryn kissing the sphinx!

Here's Kathryn, Zorro, and me at the sphinx!
Here we are again:
Here's all of us:
Zorro and me at the sphinx:
Me leaning on the pyramid!


Rana, Ali, and me in front of the Great Pyramid.
Here is our delightful, pee-sniffing camel:
Here are Rana, Ali, and I on our camel who is trying to lay down with us on top of him.
We rode the camels all around the pyramids!  Aliaa and Kathryn's camel was named The Peeing Camel.


There's Rana and Ali sitting on the pyramid.  Look at the size difference.  Can you see them at the bottom?

Old Cairo

Today we went to Old Cairo and saw the oldest churches in Egypt.  They were built back in the 4th and 5th centuries!  They were UNBELIEVABLE!  We walked along the old roads which are more like narrow little alleys where Jesus once walked.  It's hard to believe that Jesus walked there!  Here's one of the alleys:

This is the name of Jesus written in Arabic inside the Jesus fish in one church!
A stained glass window with the cross:
This is inside the church:
This is the word for God in Arabic:
Outside there were all these mosaics depicting scenes from the bible.  Here's me next to one:
Here's Joseph and Mary taking baby Jesus to Egypt after the angel appeared and told them to flee to Egypt to escape King Herod's murderous wrath.
Here's the angel appearing:
This is from the story of Joseph when he was pushed down into the well.  
This was the entrance to the gate of the church.  In Arabic, above the door it says, "Seek and you will find, ask and you shall receive, knock and you will enter."  

Alexandria, Egypt

Today we went to the city of Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great who came to conquer Egypt and free the Egyptians from the Persians.  It's right along the bank of the Mediterranean Sea and here's my beautiful sister standing in front of it!
This is the citadel of Alexandria - the fortress at the Med. Sea that protected Alexandria.
These are some ruins of a temple that was discovered.  Everything in Alexandria has a mix of Greek/Roman/Egyptian architecture and art.  There are elements of both mixed in together.  Like you can see the huge column of the temple right next two sphinxes.  
Here are Ali, Rana, and their cousin Maha walking among the ruins.
Here we all are sitting on the sphinx!  Zorro's there too!
This was an underground library that was discovered under the temple.  It was deep underground with passageways that lead to a little room that had many round holes in the wall.  They found over 200 scrolls in the holes, which is what makes them think that it was a library.
This was a beautiful picture my sister took of some boaters on the Mediterranean Sea at sunset!
Here's the Mediterranean Sea!
This is the sphinx with the big column behind it from the ruins at the temple!
Me, Ali, and Maha on the steps that lead down to the library at the temple ruins.

We also went to the Alexandria library which is maybe the biggest library in the world...I can't remember.  We went to the catacombs too - big underground tombs where they buried people. The ancient Egyptians carved the catacombs out 3 floors below the ground with lots of passageways and rooms and carvings!  It was so amazing down there!  I do have pictures but I'll have to upload them later!  We ate lunch along the Mediterranean Sea too!  Tomorrow we're going to visit the pyramids and I think Kathryn's going to get to ride a camel FINALLY!  :)  She really wants to ride a camel.  In fact she can even say "I want to gallop on a camel" in Arabic!  

Cairo - day 2

We had a huge day today - we were busy from the moment we got up at 8!  We visited several mosques and got to go inside to see how beautifully decorated they were!  We also saw the Citadel and several palaces!  In this picture, we are all there with the incredibly nice person in the middle who has the mosque.  At one of the mosques, there was a minnaret (a tower) that went up soooo high.  We asked if we could climb up it and the incredibly nice guy said yes, but it was totally dark and without lights, so it would be dangerous.  We had a little flashlight so we decided to go up!  The stairs were winding stone stairs, very narrow and very creepy!  It was awesome!  We climbed all the way up and this was the picture of Cairo at night that I got from the top!

Here's a picture of Ali on one of the felucca boats that travel on the Nile River!  We ate lunch on a felucca boat in the Nile River today!  It was so beautiful!  I couldn't believe we were actually eating lunch on the Nile River!

Here's me on the felucca boat!

Here's a felucca boat!  It's powered just by the sail and wind.

Here are Zorro and I eating lunch on the Nile River!
This picture is at the Muhammad Ali mosque at the Citadel in Cairo.  It is an amazingly beautiful structure with such intricate decorations and features!  We got to go inside!

Here's me against a wall overlooking all of Cairo!  
Ali, Rana, Aliaa, and I are walking along and talking about Egypt!
Here's Rana, Ali, and me sitting at the top of the wall that overlooks Cairo.  We were just sitting there talking and laughing and staring at the huge, huge city in front of us!  I love this picture!  This is possibly one of my favorites ever!

Our arrival in Cairo, Egypt

When we got to Egypt, our friend that we're visiting, Aliaa's, mother had prepared a huge feast for us for lunch!  It was SOOOO delicious!
We drove around Cairo and Aliaa told us that Fridays are the best days because there's no traffic since nobody goes to work or school on Fridays.  Here's a picture that shows an example of what NO TRAFFIC means to them.  I really don't want to see what traffic looks like!
Here's another example of NO TRAFFIC.  I kept saying, "So this is NO traffic?"  And she would say, "Oh goodness yes!  This is NOTHING!"
Here are some kids playing soccer in the street!
Lots of kids were drawing with chalk in the streets too and shooting confetti in the air!  Apparently they do this every Friday!
Here are all of us in front of a palace!
The palace was decorated with elephants around the walls because the person who built the palace was from India.  
This is the palace.  It was built by the person who designed New Cairo.
Here's a 3,000 year old statue in the middle of the road outside of the airport!  These statues and monuments are all over the place!
This is Cairo from the air.
Here's Cairo and the Nile River from the airplane.
And one more of Cairo and the Nile River as our plane was about to land.