I'm back...it feels good to sleep in your own bed again!
We had a great last day in Cairo. Afaf and Hassan
picked us up from the hotel and took us to the Khan el Kalili market after all...and they were right about the parking..it was chaos at best but we got a spot. I'm really glad we went! It was a cool place to shop...I only wish we could have had more time to leisurely roam through, but for the sake of my wallet it is good we didn't! We shopped for a couple hours and had a really good lunch/dinner at 3pm(our last Egyptian meal, sniff...)
I bought a really cool Arabic guitar..it is called an oud and it is a kind of lute. It was a pain to lug with me the whole way home but will be an awesome souvenir and hopefully I will figure out how to play it...I'm not sure I'll be able to find enough info about it because it's kind of obscure. I did manage to find out what to tune the strings to but it isn't the same standard tuning of a 6-string and the Oud
has 11 strings so regular 6-string chords won't apply either...that and there are no frets which would require real precision to play and hit the right spots. It may just become decoration, but that will be fine too. I also bought some perfume. Sue got this 40 pound marble "mummification organ jar" it will look cool in her house and thankfully we managed to fit it in her luggage!
Afaf and Hassan took us back to their house to wait for our plane..it left Cairo at 4am so we slept at their house until 12:30 and they drove us to the airport . We were very lucky to have them to take care of us on our last day!
The flight home was looooong. I can't sleep in a sitting position so wasn't able to get any sleep on the flight to Frankfurt and then there was the 6.5 hour layover in the Frankfurt airport. At least there is enough stuff in the Frankfurt airport to entertain us a bit. We both bought our bodyweight in german chocolate and Haribo(german licorise).
The last flight to Calgary was the worst part: 10.5 hours cramped on an airplane. By that time we were exhausted and sick of sitting around...not to mention we had been awake the better part of 48 hours. Guy, Sue's husband, picked us up from the airport and I was so glad to be home. My house has never looked so good. My wonderful mommy left me flowers and stocked my fridge so I had some dinner and unpacked a bit. I wouldn't let myself go to bed before 9pm so I could switch myself over to the different time zone and avoid waking up at 3am wide awake. Despite my efforts though, I awoke at 4:30 wide awake but remembered that Sue gave me an emergency Imovane before we left the plane so gulped that down and slept until 10am. I still feel a litte crappy...but should be back to normal in a day or two. I think a shower will help..I wanted one so bad last night but remembered to late that I turned my water tank down to vacation setting and it wasn't hot enough...I settled for a quick hot tub instead.
And now for the main event: Pictures. Enjoy!
THE PYRAMIDS
AFAF AND HASSAN
THE WESTERN DESERT
ASWAN
NILE CRUISE
VARIOUS TEMPLES: ESNA,KOMO-ONU,EDFU,KARNAK, ABU SIMBEL, AND LUXOR
PARASAILING
SUNSETS
MY 30TH BIRTHDAY DINNER
LUXOR
SHARM EL-SHEIKH
CAIRO
.
We had a great last day in Cairo. Afaf and Hassan
picked us up from the hotel and took us to the Khan el Kalili market after all...and they were right about the parking..it was chaos at best but we got a spot. I'm really glad we went! It was a cool place to shop...I only wish we could have had more time to leisurely roam through, but for the sake of my wallet it is good we didn't! We shopped for a couple hours and had a really good lunch/dinner at 3pm(our last Egyptian meal, sniff...)I bought a really cool Arabic guitar..it is called an oud and it is a kind of lute. It was a pain to lug with me the whole way home but will be an awesome souvenir and hopefully I will figure out how to play it...I'm not sure I'll be able to find enough info about it because it's kind of obscure. I did manage to find out what to tune the strings to but it isn't the same standard tuning of a 6-string and the Oud
has 11 strings so regular 6-string chords won't apply either...that and there are no frets which would require real precision to play and hit the right spots. It may just become decoration, but that will be fine too. I also bought some perfume. Sue got this 40 pound marble "mummification organ jar" it will look cool in her house and thankfully we managed to fit it in her luggage! Afaf and Hassan took us back to their house to wait for our plane..it left Cairo at 4am so we slept at their house until 12:30 and they drove us to the airport . We were very lucky to have them to take care of us on our last day!
The flight home was looooong. I can't sleep in a sitting position so wasn't able to get any sleep on the flight to Frankfurt and then there was the 6.5 hour layover in the Frankfurt airport. At least there is enough stuff in the Frankfurt airport to entertain us a bit. We both bought our bodyweight in german chocolate and Haribo(german licorise).
The last flight to Calgary was the worst part: 10.5 hours cramped on an airplane. By that time we were exhausted and sick of sitting around...not to mention we had been awake the better part of 48 hours. Guy, Sue's husband, picked us up from the airport and I was so glad to be home. My house has never looked so good. My wonderful mommy left me flowers and stocked my fridge so I had some dinner and unpacked a bit. I wouldn't let myself go to bed before 9pm so I could switch myself over to the different time zone and avoid waking up at 3am wide awake. Despite my efforts though, I awoke at 4:30 wide awake but remembered that Sue gave me an emergency Imovane before we left the plane so gulped that down and slept until 10am. I still feel a litte crappy...but should be back to normal in a day or two. I think a shower will help..I wanted one so bad last night but remembered to late that I turned my water tank down to vacation setting and it wasn't hot enough...I settled for a quick hot tub instead.
And now for the main event: Pictures. Enjoy!
THE PYRAMIDS
AFAF AND HASSAN THE WESTERN DESERT
ASWAN
NILE CRUISE
VARIOUS TEMPLES: ESNA,KOMO-ONU,EDFU,KARNAK, ABU SIMBEL, AND LUXOR
PARASAILINGSUNSETS
MY 30TH BIRTHDAY DINNER
LUXOR SHARM EL-SHEIKH CAIRO
.
