Saturday and Sunday (First day in EGYPT!!!)

I packed all day and got ready for Egypt. When we got to the airport we found out that the Ghana soccer team was flying home from Cairo on the same plane that was going to take us to Cairo. There was a huge crowd at the airport and a ton of media and a red carpet and everything for them. When they landed there was a huge celebration which we had the priviledge of watching from the airport terminal- it was so awesome to witness. Of course our flight was late because of all of the commotion, but we didnt mind it was so awesome to experience. We finally boarded the plane. The flight was nice- it was only 6 hours and we got dinner and breakfast and mostly slept. We landed in Cairo at like 7am and got our visas to enter the country. By the way- people were smoking in the airport... like everywhere- it was so weird because smoking is not allowed in any of the other airports that I have been in (not that ive been in alot but still). Come to find out every male person in Egypt smokes... they smoke in restaruants, on trains, on boats, on busses, in hospitals, on the street, while they bake things in the bakery... I actually cant think of a situation where they dont smoke... ITS INSANE!!! A cab driver found us and told us that he could take us to the hostel that we were planning on staying in. Its called Dahab Hostel and we looked it up online before we left and decided that it would be a good place to start. Of course when we got there we found out it was full, so the cabbie said that he could take us to a nice place that he knew called the Bostan Hotel... since we really didnt have any other options we went with that one. Traffic was INSANE!! I have never seen anything like it at all!!!! They are the craziest drivers too (even crazier than in Ghana) no cars stay in the lanes- it was like the white lines on the road meant nothing. I saw my life flash before my eyes about 8 times on the way to the hotel. People in Egypt speak Arabic which was also a big change from Ghana. The cab driver didn't know much English and it was a challenge to explain to him where we wanted to go and negotiate a price. I also noticed that Cairo has a constant smog of polluted air... it was also like at least 100 degrees when we landed. (Taking a break to explain Egyptian currency- they have Egyptian Pounds (L.E.) and the exchange rate with American dollars is about 5.6... so like if you have 20 LE its equal to about $4 rough exchange- It was really hard to get used to because everything seemed so expensive- I pulled 200 LE out of the ATM at the airport... and it was gone so quickly... we split the cab ride which was about 40 LE each... the hotel room for one night was 65 LE which is $13 and then after lunch I didnt have very much money left- i felt like OMG this is going to be so expensive it was just really hard to get used to spending such a large amount and number of bills especially compared to ghana and the US... in the end the trip was actually a lot less than I thought it would be which is nice!) Okay so back to the hotel. It looked scary from the outside-all of the buildings look old and run down in Cairo so we didnt know what to expect, but we were pleasantly surprised when we stepped inside. We were greeted by Aladin who spke great english (thank goodness) and said that his boss who owned the hotel also owned a travelling agency that makes plans for people and that after we freshened up we could meet back downstairs to talk about it. We were shown upstairs to our rooms. We had a three person room and a two person room for all 5 of us. The rooms were nice- comfy beds air conditioning hot water (yay). So we all showered and met back downstairs to talk about what we wanted to do while in Egypt. We were going to try and plan everything ourselves which I now know would have never ever worked out lol so we are so lucky that we ended up where we did. We told Aladin a rough idea of what we wanted to do and within 45 minutes he had our whole 10 days planned... it was AMAZING! We got started right away. In an hour there was a car waiting for us outside to take us to the Egyptian Museum which holds all of the artifacts that are discovered in the pyramids temples and tombs. We had an english speaking tour guide that the hotel arranged and everything it was so nice! There is no way that we could have even managed to get to the museum or get an english speaking tour guide let alone plan everything else so I think that going with a travel agency is necessary when talking about Egypt- just my opinion. Anyway... cameras were not allowed in the museum :( so I can only talk about the things that I saw. There were amazing things from Tutankhamen's tomb, everything plated in gold. We got to see all of the mummification tools, and a ton of mummys and a ton of statues- it was beautiful and SO interesting. I love Egyptian history :) I also noticed a few things at the museum... most women cover their entire bodies (i dont know how they do it in the heat) and always wear head scarves... with some women they cover everything but their eyes- it was really intersting to see. The whole country is muslim so a lot of stuff is catered to that like prayer centers along the streets and a bunch of other stuff that I will mention later. The one boy that was with us (Tom) kept on getting asked if we were his 4 wives because men are allowed to have 4 wives... he also got offers to trade us for horses and camels lol. A lot of the times people only talked to Tom and assumed that he spoke for all of us like we didnt have an opinion or a mind which was really really hard to get used to! After the museum we went to a perfume oil shop and a guy did a presentation on the different kinds of perfume oils that are made in Egypt... apparently its a pretty booming business. At the start we were all served Hibiscus tea. its sooooo good omg! They serve it cold and it tastes sort of like sour tea and flowers...??? i dunno how to describe it but it was really good. We got to smell the different oils and then learn how they make them- it was really nice. After that it was getting pretty late so the driver and tour guide took us back to the hotel.We went to McDonalds for dinner lol! I havent eaten McDonalds in like forever, even before I left the states but thats where everyone wanted to eat- so I had the best fries and milshake of my life lol. There was also a hardees, KFC, and pizza hut- Cairo is a VERY touristy town. After that we were all pretty tired so we decided to walk home and go to bed. I am still trying to catch up on my blog Im doing the best that I can. Today I have class all day, Ive only slept for about 3 hours, and tonight I have to pack for Mole Safari park because we leave at 6am tomorrow morning. I will be back on the 1st so I will try to update my blog all the way when I come back. Im going to put on a few of my fav pics from Egypt :)