So, yesterday. We were woken up basically when we had to leave, woops, quickly got ready and onto the bus. A couple people grabbed us bread to eat, which was nice of them. We met our guide and went out first to a museum of Memphis, fairly small, had a big statue of Ramses II inside and a fair bit of stuff open-air. Pretty cool, some nice statues, our guide did a good job teaching us various things.

From there we went to Sakkarah, a place known for carpet schools and the step pyramid designed by Imhotep, who may or may not have been the biblical Joseph. (Old Testament, with the coat and the brothers, not New Testament). Nice little Imhotep museum there as well as some cool architecture that wasn't reproduced any other type in ancient Egypt. After that we had a buffet, good food and.... well, the atmosphere was okay. “Semi-authentic,” not as hokey as I expected, honestly, but still a little hokey so I can't give it full credit. Better than expected, though, honestly.

From there to Giza itself, which is a growing city, by the way. Denny's been here enough times he told us about how far away the city used to be from the pyramids compared to how it is now. They are quite impressive, even if it did have the most aggressive vendors we've seen in Egypt. (The guy who grabbed my sleeve was not appreciated). Obviously still more than worth it though, Giza was fantastic, so amazing to climb up the one pyramid, take some great pictures of all six, see the Sphinx. On the way down to the Sphinx a lot of people tried to sell us stuff, the best two being one kid who knew he wasn't going to sell to us, so he just whipped out a bunch of postcards and said “one million dollars!” and a guy talking to David, whom David joked with that he'd sell the guy postcards in the next life, and they actually legitimately talked for a minute. David pointed out that some of them are real people, I pointed out that the problem is that so many aren't you never know. See: Arusha. Another one was telling us prices in English Pounds, so I was amused by that too.

After the Sphinx it was fairly late, but we had one more stop to make, the Egypt Papyrus Museum, the only official government papyrus store in the country. It really is more a store than a museum, they start you out with a demonstration showing how it's made, teach you the myth of the Judgment, and then try to sell you stuff. Granted, the demonstration was pretty interesting. I really impressed the guy by knowing cartouche (which I learned the other night from Allen's book on hieroglyphs), a little bit about the Judgment scene and the weighing of the heart, and the myth of Set killing Osiris. I didn't mean to impress him, but, well. He grabbed me and pulled me aside to show me a slightly smaller one of the Judgment that he really wanted me to have. I mean, it may have just been a hard sell, but considering how he kept sweetening the deal (giving me my name on it in Arabic and hieroglyphs for free for starters, and it just kept adding on after that) I honestly think he liked that I knew some mythology and thought I should have it. At least I'm going to convince myself that or else I REALLY got conned. He was actually a nice guy, I got his name and e-mail address as well. The other kids were talking to guy who apparently spoke 14 languages including Gaelic, so that was cool, they gave us a brief demonstration of how to see fake papyrus made from banana leaves or sugar cane, we got free bookmarks with the hieroglyph alphabet, and we headed back to the hotel.

Our guide was very good, by the way. He kept it academic, not shoppy, like Denny wanted, was very friendly, “my heart is open to you” was his way of saying we could ask questions, and he warned us excellently about how much we should haggle people down to, what cons to avoid (“free gifts” being the most insidious, I thought, they actually wait until after you come back out later to get you). Props to him.

Had dinner at the hotel, a delicious cheese sandwich and fries which came out to $2 with water, which was awesome. Chilled, walked with John, Jacob and Swaffie, back to the hotel, bed.

Woke up before the alarm this morning, about 6:15, showered, all that. Had a good breakfast, met an Australian named Ben that was working on a PhD in pathology and about to go on a tour of Egypt. He had some really cool stories about safari in South Africa. Got on the bus, and here I am, oasis in 3+ hours.

I'll be back at our hotel for one night before we leave, but I want to say this here before I forget. The City View has been really good to us. The staff is helpful well behind what we're paying them for, insisting on carrying our bags, always getting the elevator for us (they're a bit baffled by us using the stairs, actually, they've asked us why we do it so much), but even beyond that, the number of times they've helped us find a business or store we wanted is truly astounding. You ask a guy where you can get a coke or where the ATM is, and he walks you all the way there to take care of it, not just pointing the direction. So a huge thank you to the City View Hotel in Cairo, which has been absolutely one of the best places I've stayed on the trip so far. I wanted to give credit where credit was due.

For anyone looking to visit Egypt, by the way, the fact that the City View is across the street from the Egyptian Museum doesn't hurt either.

Wednesday, March 3rd, roughly 8:25-8:45 AM local time