Egypt Part Two

The next day we spent in Cairo as well. Our tour was proceeding on a more or less historic time line. Yesterday the Step Pyramid and Giza, today we saw more of modern Cairo.

Now keep in mind when I say modern, this is relative to the pyramids.

Here is a picture of ancient Babylon, where according to the bible the Holy Family fled to when baby Jesus was very young. I think they are supposed to have lived here for 18 months.

A mosaic to commemorate this event:


Next it was up the time line another millennium or so in Cairo's history. Here it was out with the Romans with their Christianity and in comes the Caliph and Islam. Like all the rulers in Egypt before them, the new Muslim rulers had a little bit of 'monument envy' and each ruler had to make his mark. Thus Cairo is also full of mosques throughout the city. Some of these mosques are more utilitarian in style and design, while some are as impressive as any Gothic cathedral in Europe from the same time line. We were able to take pictures in this mosque. A rarity that we were even allowed in. Without further ado, my first mosque experience:

Tough to get pictures that do justice to this immense building, but here is the ceiling:

The courtyard:

And the overall view from outside:


Next it was off to one of the things that I was really looking forward to: THE MARKET!

It is hard to show in a picture the chaos that is the Cairo central market. First the place is huge, but not consolidated in a main square or open area. It basically sprawls over a huge area of old Cairo. Imagine the narrow pedestrian only area the still exists from the middle ages in any European city. The area where they made the streets curvy and confusing so if invaded the people trying to 'sack' the city would get lost in the streets thus giving the royals time to flee. Now imagine that area but in one of the largest cities of the middle ages. Now imagine lining this area with endless shops and also the street with another layer of stalls on both sides of the alleyways. This only starts to explain the Cairo market. And in all this immense area of commerce, not one price tag.

That's right, everything has to be haggled over. And to get your attention they try anything. Our favorite had to be 'pretty lady, you very lucky!' followed by 'how many camels?' In reference to how many camels did I have to pay Paty's dad. This became a little of a running joke because as you were walking through any market in Egypt; be it Cairo, Aswan or Luxor you would here the ever present 'how many camels?'

Lastly to fill out our whirlwind tour of Cairo it was the Cairo museum of Ancient Egypt.


Pictures are strictly not allowed inside, but this is where they keep the loot from King Tut's tomb. Among other things. It is safe to say that never in my life will I see so much gold in one place. One piece in particular was 110 kg (242 lbs) of pure gold.

Then we were off to the sitting train to Aswan for the night. But first a stop at the hotel to freshen up. At the hotel we had a little surprise waiting. Apparently one of the people from our tour was also having a birthday (40 years old) and so they had an impromptu birthday party for Sally and Paty, as today was Paty's birthday.

The train to Aswan was in a word, long. If you can afford the sleeping train upgrade, it is worth the money to have your own cabin and a bed. We left at 10 PM and arrived in Aswan around 1 PM.

Before I go on to Aswan and what a markedly different part of our trip, a few thoughts on Cairo. Cairo really reminds one of Mexico. Not the Mexico of Cancun, Cabo and Puerto Vallarta; but Mexico City and the countryside of Mexico. It is really poor. And parts of countryside are super dirty. The government has some problems keeping up with the population's basic needs.

That being said, even with the abject poverty we saw in some places, never on our trip did we feel unsafe. The crime rate is close to zero. This is obviously an offshoot of the Muslim government and the legacy of 'if you are caught stealing, we cut off your hand'.

And for the duration of our trip we only saw one person begging for money. Everyone does something to earn a living.

While they won't steal from you, they have NO problem ripping you off. I referred to it earlier, but it is hard to hammer home that nothing has a price tag. Even in some of the stores you have to haggle as a matter of your daily existence. For instance, we bought a blanket/scarf thing that is a typical tourist purchase. The guy started the price at 450 Egyptian Pounds (5 Egyptian Pounds roughly = $1). We ended up buying the blanket for 50 Pounds. And even then I don't know if we really got a good deal. But how do you try to sell something for $90 and settle for $10? This happened all the time. So, like I said, the Egyptians will never steal from you but they will rob you blind.

It is actually a nice way of doing things, that is once you get used to it.

Now, we have arrived in Aswan. Aswan is much smaller than Cairo. We really started to feel more comfortable here. After the 15 hour train ride we had about 30 minutes to clean up and meet up with the group for some more tours.

First up was one of the things I really wanted to see, the Aswan High Dam. Unfortunately the dam is so large it is hard to get a handle on the enormity of project when you are on site. But, according to what I have read, this dam provides 51% of Egypt's electricity needs. It even allows Egypt to export excess electricity to Sudan and Jordan. The Nile is a large river.
From atop the dam looking towards Aswan:


Next we took a boat ride to one of the monuments that was moved when they created the dam. Yes, in the 1960's Unesco spearheaded an effort to move as many monuments as possible from the low areas that are now or would soon be covered by water to higher ground as close as possible.

Us at temple:

The island behind us, if you look to the left you see some wooden pillars that look like they used to be part of a pier or dock. This is where the temple used to be before the dam.

It was really impressive as you could not tell that the temple was moved.
Some more pictures of the temple:

Inside the cathedral every wall is cover with carvings such as this:

Irish Post

Okay, by the title you probably think this is going to be a post on Ireland. Well sort of. Read on.

I got a Christmas card yesterday from the Willman's. Nice picture of Jon, Marcie, Taylor and Taryn petting a dolphin in Cabo from their trip this fall. The thing is, the postmark from Bend, Oregon was December 20th. I got the card on the 25th of January.

Great work Post Ireland! The moral of the story, as a few of you have come to realize, is my mail is a little slow. If you send me something and I don't respond it doesn't mean I am being rude, I might just not have received it yet.

On a totally unrelated note, Paty is famous!

Paty's press

I am working on the rest of the Egypt post, should be done soon.

Egypt Post Day 1

This might be a lengthy post and I apologize in advance, but there is so much to talk about it is going to take a while.
p.s. In retrospect I am going to split the post up into multiple small posts.

By now you all know that we decided to go to Egypt pretty much last minute. Because of that I did not do as much research as I normally do when going to a new country. I pretty much knew exactly what you would think. Pyramids, Cairo, Cleopatra and such. And since we were doing a tour I didn't feel the need to 'bone up' or 'cram' for the trip.

So here we go.

First off, we arrived in Cairo at about midnight on Saturday. We were picked up by Egypt Uncovered, our tour group, and transferred to our hotel. We were in the room around 1 AM. Luckily our hotel had a 24 hour restaurant. So we ate and were in bed by 2 AM. Unfortunately we had to meet our tour host in the lobby at 7:30 AM. Needless to say, we were tired.

It is hard to describe Cairo. We really didn't see enough of it to give you a good impression. But one fact that will help you understand, 23 Million people people and zero street signal lights. Controlled chaos personified. People drive around the city at night with their lights off. I asked our driver, who also had his lights off, and he said that the street is lighted why should he use his lights? Of course the horn is another thing. This gets used often.

Our first day we were really tired, but we went off adrenaline as these might have been the best sights in the trip. If not the best, then the most memorable:

Our stop was the Step Pyramid and some tombs around the area:

This is the first pyramid built and is over 5,000 years old. Still in pretty good shape.
The tombs were about one mile away in the same area. Until the last century they were buried under the sand. The entrance is literally five yards from where Paty and this typical camel guy were posing:

Inside the tomb, the Egyptians were very inventive as this is Original paint:


This is most likely the last pictures of close up on the tombs and monuments I will
attach. I just wanted to try and convey how detailed the carving is and how you can still clearly make out the colors on a stone that was painted in 3,000 BC or older.

A good portrait of Cairo, it goes from city to desert almost like someone has drawn a line on a map:

Yes, that is a police camel.

Stop for lunch, had to share with Simba:


If the step pyramid, the camels and the lion didn't drive home that we were a little ways from home. This is really your 'we're not in Kansas anymore moment':

Cairo in the background. No that is not fog or a dirty camera lens, it is smog. Cairo is among, if not the ,worst air quality city in the world. Thirty times worse than the recommended maximum by the World Health Organization.

But enough about the ills of Cairo, the pyramids of Giza are one of those things that you have seen all your life in pictures. It is one of Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Now everyone has heard of the seven wonders, but can you name any besides the pyramids at Giza? I couldn't either, because this is the only one left. What I am trying to say in my long winded way is that pictures can not do the actual sight justice. It is one of those sights that exceeds expectations. I highly recommend it.

Some more pictures with the pyramids and us. Together and seperate in case you are friends with only Paty or only myself:



This picture is back for an encore:

There is something else here, a little monument called the Sphinx:

Adios Cairo

We are now at the Cairo airport, getting ready for board BA flight 154 to London Heathrow. Been a good trip. LOT'S of sights to say the least.

I wasn't able to get the blog done yesterday as the internet kept fading in and out. So I will try to sort through the 395 pictures we took over the past 10 days and get some highlights posted soon.

Thanks for playing along at home and following our excursion through Egypt.

On another note, I was NOT able to watch the Championship games yesterday at our hotel. They were not on TV, but concurrent to the first game's kickoff they were showing 'Any Given Sunday' a movie about the NFL. The irony was not lost on me.

First Look, maybe....

We are now back in Cairo. I am sitting in my two bedroom hotel suite at 9:30 am. We upgraded from the sitting train to the sleeping train for the ride back from Luxor to Cairo. The sleeping train is a good way to travel. You get your own little cabin that turns into two bunk style beds for the night. It was quite comfortable when compared to the sitting train we experienced from Cairo to Aswan. But then Paty started feeling bad in the middle of the night. It got worse from there and now she is napping in the hotel room. I am currently stealing some random wifi signal that is trickling in from my seventh story hotel window. I don't know how long it will last but I might as well use it while I have it. So I am going to try and upload some pics for a 'first look' of Egypt.














Okay, it looks like I am going to slowly be able to get these pictures up. So I will start to get some explanations and more pictures while Paty rests.

The view from our hotel room RIGHT NOW in Cairo. If you can tell me who is supplying this wifi connection, then you are much smarter than I:

Greetings from Luxor

Hello all, currently at an internet cafe in Luxor, Egypt. We are literally on the Nile river while typing this. Still no wifi access so no pictures to upload, sorry. Looks like they will have to wait until we get back to home, er Galway, for art of the trip.

First thing, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Natalie! Seems like I am always at some remote location when one of my siblings has a birthday.

We sailed into Luxor last night on the cruise ship and spent the night moored in Luxor. This morning we saw the Luxor temple and the Karnak temple (for those of you that are old enough, the Karnak temple was made famous by none other than Johnny Carson when he did his Karnak prediction skits with Ed McMahon laughing on cue). The temples were VERY impressive. Large OLD buildings.

Tomorrow is the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens, two different places. But both on the east bank of the Nile outside of Luxor. This is where they found King Tut's tomb.

It feels like we have been here for years. There is so much to see in Egypt it is really overwhelming. 3 more nights and we are heading to the airport. After tomorrow we have a free day in Cairo on Sunday. We haven't decided what we are going to do. Maybe go back to Giza and the main pyramids or else wander downtown Cairo or the darkhorse is upgrade from our shabby hotel to the Hyatt and lounge by the pool all day. I know that seems like a cop out, but trust me this trip has been a exercise in mental acuity and stamina. Might be nice to veg out for a day.

Oh and to add to my list of firsts from the last post:

First time we had to carry toilet paper EVERYWHERE.

Egypt Update

Hello from Aswan, Egypt!

Going to be a short post, I am using the lobby computer at the princely sum of 1 Egyptian pound per minute.

I tried to hook my computer up to their network, but it did not work. Too bad as I could have downloaded a few pictures.

The trip has been a blast so far. Very tiring, but a blast.

We have already experienced a lot of firsts on this trip:

First tour group with an itinerary
First time in Africa
First time in a Muslim country
First time at a restaurant that did not sell any alcohol
First time at an authentic pyramid! Very cool, definite wow factor.
First (and, I pray to god, hopefully last) 15 hour train ride from Cairo to Aswan.

Tomorrow is our first cruise ship experience, three nights on the Nile river. I think the pace of the trip is going to slow down once we get on the ship. We have seen a lot of really cool sights so far, and have the pictures to prove it. But it has been GO GO GO from the moment we landed.

All for now, I just wanted you all to know that we are fine. No bathroom problems or random bacteria as of yet. We are having a great adventure!

Leaving now

We are now in the Shannon Airport queueing for our flight to Heathrow.

We land at Heathrow Terminal 1 and need to be in Heathrow Terminal 4 in one hour.  No problem right?  Wrong.  This is going to be like the virtual half marathon.  Or at least the half half marathon.  Good luck to us!

Chris out from Shannon airport

Football, er soccer, news

For those of you not saturated by English news, it has been announced that David Beckham is coming to play soccer for the LA Galaxy in the MLS. Effective August, he will be suiting up in the US of A.

This is a really big deal for US Soccer, more in a marketing sense than a playing sense. But it opens up the doors for big European stars to come to the US. Beckham is only 31 years old, so it is not like he is washed up. On a related note, his yearly contract is actually more than A-Rod's making him the highest paid contract athlete in the history of sports. Crazy. Reportedly 5 years for $128 US Dollars. Post note, they are now saying the contract is in Pounds and not Dollars in essence making it $250 Million dollars for 5 years.

Of course Forbes just announced it's year end estimates for Sports stars, including endorsements. Tiger Woods made $99 Million dollars in 2006, so Becks has a little ways to go still.

On a related note, but less a big deal here, Claudio Reyna (aka US Soccer's Captain American) has requested to return to the states to play for 'personal reasons'. Good chance he will be playing for the New York Red Bulls soon.

Probably the last post before Egypt. Bought a book today and got a haircut. All ready.

Travel News

Okay we are all booked up for the next trip. Thanks to all of you, three people, that left comments on the last post suggesting places to see.

We have decided to go to Egypt. The land of sun, sand and pyramids. Really I don't know much about Egypt except what I have seen in pictures throughout the years.

Here is our itinerary:
http://www.egypt-uncovered.com/tours/egypt/nile.php
Start date is January 13th and we return January 22nd. Flying out of Shannon airport connect in London Heathrow then on to Cairo. So a nice flight.

I know that is like three days away, but I JUST reserved the trip today.

The things I do in order to generate content for this blog!

We did take the luxury boat upgrade. The feluca sounds intriguing, but the whole not having a bathroom thing is a little too much.

I have a feeling that we are going to need a vacation from this vacation after it is all said and done. We are reenacting our own version of Planes, Tranes and Automobiles, plus boats.

I have been looking through the Egypt book I bought and it is overwhelming. They say that to properly see the country you need a month. Since Paty is only working in Europe and not enjoying the Europe holiday schedule, 9 nights will have to do.

Rest assured there should be some good pictures on this space in the next week or two.

Post Stats

So I now have a program that tells me how many page visits this blog receives. It is pretty cool, but better is the map I can access that shows me where the page visits originated from.

The usual suspects are very prevalent:

Vancouver
Seattle
Camas, thanks Shannon
Portland
Lynwood
Zurich
Wuxi, South Korea with one view (either Keri or Andra but not both)

But then there are some anomalies:
Waverly, WA (?)
Patterson, looks like New Jersey
Allegan, maybe Illinois
Riga
And most strangely, two people from Bogota, Columbia have checked Tobinblog.

Strange.

Roma day 3, 4 & 5

Before I get started, let's all hope that the grammar editor is paying attention on this post. I was up until a little after 5 AM last night. Saw a VERY dramatic SEAHAWKS PLAYOFF VICTORY! I am pretty sure I woke up half the apartment building when Romo fumbled the field goal snap by yelling with excitement. I know I woke up Paty.

Roma day 3, 4 & 5 were Christmas Eve, Christmas and the day after Christmas; which is also a holiday in Italy. And all of Europe for that matter.

Rome was really dressed up for the holidays. Most all of the alley's had light strung across them. It made for some really cool walking at night. This is a daylight picture of a typical Rome alley. You can see the lights above:


So we went to the Vatican, we wanted to see the Pope do his blessing. We got to Vatican square at noon. The square was PACKED. There must have been around 200,000 people there. I thought this was a typical Sunday. But it turns out that we just happened upon the Papal blessing at exactly the right time:

Saint Peter's square is large. Let me emphasize that, the place is HUGE! I can't imagine how many people pack in here for big events. They put a really large Christmas tree in the middle of the square, next to the curiously omnipresent obelisk.

I felt like I was in the middle of a Dan Brown novel at times with all the obelisks.

The square cleared out a little bit after the Pope left. It turns out they all went inside Saint Peter's.


Of course we did as well. But don't worry, like the square the Basilica is LARGE. There was really too much to take in. It was pretty much the definition of sensory overload. Everywhere you turned there was another 'Masterpiece'. Here is one by Michelangelo:

I am sure this is by someone famous and has a famous name that you will most likely recognize as well, but I wasn't kidding when I talked about the sensory overload as I have no idea what the name of the sculptor or piece is:

This is the best picture I have that illustrates the vastness of Saint Peter's. Notice the small figures on the right, these are actual people:

Outside with that dazed sensory overloaded look on my eyes:

After the Vatican we walked again all over Rome and ended up at the Spanish Steps. There was some US gospel choir playing on the steps with a huge audience. They were quite good. Must have been a really cool deal for them:

For Christmas Eve dinner we ended up at the same wine bar that we were at the night before. We were a little more dressed up this time. We had two of the best Italian bottles of wine ever as part of the dinner. And the food was really good as well.

After dinner we somehow hooked up with two guys that worked on luxury yachts. One was a Captain and the other was first mate for a different ship. We had a great time and learned a lot about the luxury yacht game. The captain was a little tight lipped as to who he worked for, but after the third bottle of wine we pried out that the yacht he capt'd is owned by an Argentinian billionaire whose name now escapes me. But the moral of the story is we had a great time and Paty now knows not to try to keep up drinking with what amounts to a sailor on shore leave. Christmas morning came very early for Paty. We had no presents, but we did do stockings that we picked up in the square earlier in the trip. It was nice, just a harsh contrast to our normal Christmas.

For Christmas day we decided to tour more of ancient Rome. It's not like they could close the Coliseum or anything.
Christmas Day on the Circus Maximus. It looks a lot more impressive in Gladiator, but this is where they used to have the chariot races and such.


It turns out they can close the Coliseum, so we were not able to go in. We did walk circumnavigate and take many pictures. Here is one:

Maybe next year's Christmas card?

The rest of the day was pretty much low key as everything was closed and Paty was still coping with her night of revelry with the sailors! I drank most of a bottle of good red wine that we had picked up earlier in the trip and we had a mini West Wing marathon in the apartment.

As I mentioned the day after Christmas everything is closed as this is a big holiday as well. So we went back to the Vatican as we missed the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel on Christmas Eve.

The Sistine Chapel is actually inside the Vatican Museum. In a totally different building from Saint Peter's. The museum was qutie cool, most of the hallways looked like this:

The best hallway in the museum was undoubtedly the map room. This room has many ancient maps from different eras painted on the walls. It was quite cool!


But undoubtedly the highlight of the Vatican Museum was the Sistine Chapel. It really is quite the sight. You are not allowed to take pictures, but everyone does anyway. Here are the best two pictures I got while trying to be indiscreet with the camera:

and the ceiling:

As you can see, we were extremely lucky all trip with the weather:


That is the trip, or at least the highlights. Rome might be our favorite Europe city. It has such a mix of sights that are unparallelled and then you take the great food and wine into consideration and there is really no comparison.