Egypt, Greece, and Spain - Part 1

Thanks to Eese's excellent advice, I was finally able to get blogspot to work to load up pictures of my trip. I have had to do divide it into two posts. It was an amazing trip. I was incredible to be looking at some of the most amazing structures ever created by man by some of the most advanced societies. To see what man is capable of just blew me away. There are so many aspects of the trip that I loved, it is hard to choose. But, I will mention some of my favorites.

The pyramids, of course, were enormous and amazing. When you are standing at the bottom of them they seem to just keep going and going. And they are so HUGE.


I mean look at this. Look how tiny the people are compared to the pyramid!
My favorite one was the Red Pyramid, pictured just above, mostly because it isn't as touristy as Giza and there were few people there. In fact, when we went in the pyramid, we were the only ones in there. One of the coolest part was going in the pyramid. In order to get into the pyramid, you have to climb a big flight of stairs and then once you get in there is a steep decline that seems to go on and on. You have to crouch over in half to fit, and they put wooden boards horizontally on the path to try to give you some traction on this very steep decline. Inside the pyramid, it was very stale, and much more simple that I had imagined in my head.
Of course I had to give the Sphinx a kiss. You can't go all the way to Egypt and not do that, right?
On our second day in Cairo we went to Islamic Cairo. I really enjoyed it. I especially liked the Mosques that are still in use. There is a peace and spirituality there. I liked the decorations and yet simplicity in the patterns and materials.
When we went to the citadel, we were able to go into the walls around it and look at how it would have been defended. I loved this picture of one of the long hallways of the walls of the citadel.
Cairo was an interesting city. It is huge. And there seems to be no reason behind how they drive. There are no rules. They just drive along and pedestrians just play this game with the cars about whether the car will stop. It is also a really poor country. All throughout Cairo we would see big brick buildings with essentially no windows. This is where many people live. The roofs aren't completed because they keep the option of building another floor. I thought it was strange to see houses with no windows, but satellite. The city was also so dirty!! People just throw their garbage wherever, the streets, the nile, or wherever they happen to be when they need to throw something away. So you see garbage everywhere.

Alexandria was a pretty city (although I am sure we just saw the nicer areas). But the bay and the white houses of the Mediterranean were pretty. This a shot from the castle /citadel at the edge of the peninsula. A lot of the Egyptian relics of Alexandria are actually under water and Egypt intends to built an elaborate underwater museum so that people can see all the artifacts. Who knows when it will be done, but it sounds awesome!
In Luxor we had an awesome guide the whole time with a sweet bus to take us around. Here is Anne's face looking in from the back seat. Oh Anne. You are awesome. Don't be fooled by the cheerful face, she is a trooper. She had a kidney stone and would still come along with us everywhere. What a rockstar. Below are pictures of the valley of the kings and karnak temple, two of my favorite places that we went on the whole trip. I wish I had pictures from inside the king's tombs, but it wasn't allowed.
As you go into Karnak temple, it is so awe inspiring. You walk into a front courtyard with a huge obelisk, then walk into a room filled with these giant pillars covered in hieroglyphs. And I do mean HUGE pillars. You can see below how big they are compared to me, and you can barely see the top portion of the pillar. When you progress to the center of the temple there is a simple rectangular room with an altar in the middle. They refer to it as the holy of the holies and only the head priest and the pharoah could go in. It reminded me that at the center of all religions is the story of the messiah. It was so beautiful and simple compared to the elaborate temple that surrounded it.
Luxor was especially fun because we had a lot of variety to our activities. We went on an early balloon ride (we had to get at up about 4AM) to see the sun rise in a hot air balloon. Then in the afternoon we went on a felucca ride on the nile at sunset. Both activities were so peaceful and beautiful.
They gave us hats at the end of the balloon ride. Don't be jealous. It is pretty sweet.
A shot from the felucca on the nile at sunset. So beautiful!And that was the end of our Egypt adventure. We slept on a somewhat clean overnight train back up to Cairo and from there flew to Athens.