Howdy-
So, day two in Egypt, and things are great, but i'd better
start at the beginning.
On monday, the plane left 2 hours and 20 minutes late because
of bad weather on the east coast. Basically, we boarded the
plane at 5, sat on the ground until 8, and then flew the 7
1/2 hours to Paris. By the time we got to Paris (about
10.45am local), our connecting flight was long gone. Air
France put us up in one of the hotels connected to Charles de
Gaulle airport. We waited about 3 hours for them to look for
our luggage so we could change our clothes. They found about
half of it in that period of time (mine included) and then we
wandered around looking for the airport tram. The airport,
however, is basically in the middle of nowhere so we ate our
free ham and cheese sandwiches and then decided to do the
whirlwind tour of paris.
Paris is expensive, very expensive. And the fact that the
exchange rate for euros awful doesn't help either. The metro
into Paris was 7.70euro (about $9.50) each way. I have to
admit though, Paris is probably the most beautiful city i
have ever seen. We got off the metro at the Notre Dame stop
and got some pictures in front of the church. We then walked
across the Seine and down to the Louvre. The building is
enormous and the courtyard (where the glass pyramids are) is
about the size of kenilworth. We then kept walking through an
enourmous garden at the end of the champs elysee. The whole
street is bounded by rows of trees and cafe after cafe. (by
the way, the marriott paris is right on the street and looked
really nice). We ended at the arc du triumph and then headed
back. We had broken up into groups and three other people and
I got on the metro to go back to the airport where you could
catch the shuttle to the hotel. It took us about an hour and
15 minutes to navitate the metro, but we really didn't do
anyting wrong. We just spent a lot of time looking at the
maps and deciding what train to take and where to change
trains. We managed to make it back with 4 minutes to spare
before they stopped serving dinner at 10.30.
The next morning we were at the airport and checking in by
8.30 for our 10.15 flight to Cairo. At 10.15 they were still
trying to figure out how to adjust the walkway to the plane
and get the door open. they gave up shortly after that and we
were moved to gate 88 from gate 92. Walked down the walkway
from gate 88 and down a flight of stairs to the tarmac and
boarded a bus that drove us 50 meters to gate 92 where we
walked up the stairs to the walkway and on to the plane. We
arrived in Cairo about 1 1/2 hours late. Passport check and
customs was virtually nonexistant. Someone from the
university met us there and walked us through one of the
passport windows as a group where they glanced inside each
persons passport to check that we had bought a visa-not to
see that the picture was of us- and then stamped each
passport. We then collected all of our luggage at the baggage
claim and then the man from the university walked us through
customs where we held up our passports and the waved us
through without even looking at anyone's bags. We then got on
a minibus from the university and drove to the residence hall
in Zamalek.
The dorm (they call it the hostel) is really beautiful. They
said that it was built in 1991 and everything seems pretty
new still. The rooms are enormous, probably three times the
size of the dorms at U of I. The only slightly wierd thing is
that there are guards at the bottom of all the staircases
making sure that no females try to enter the male side of the
building and vice versa. The women also hace a seperate
street enterance that they can use that goes directly up to
their rooms. There are security guards everywhere. There are
about 4 men in white uniforms with large guns that stand in
the street around the building. Just outside the enterance
there are another 3 men who are employed by the school that
make sure only students come in and then there are another 3
guards inside the doors that glance in your bags to make sure
you don't have any alcohol.
Last night the professor took us all out to dinner at a
restaurant that was outdoors and right next to the nile. It
was tasty. This morning we went to the the pyramids at giza.
We climbed up the side of the pyramid about 15 ft until the
one of the guards started waving at us do get down- we got
some good pictures anyway. At the third pyramid (the
smallest) we went inside into the main chamber. Basically, it
was hot and looked like rock and that was about it. The
sphinx was amazingly cool. It is exactly like every picture
you see of it except that it seems a little smaller (though
that might be because we were just looking at the pyramids
which are so huge).
After the pyramids we went to the AUC main campus back in
cairo, got a quick lunch in the cafeteria, and then went to
listen to a lecture from one of the professors about
Alexandria- which is where we are going tomorrow.
Anyway, it is 1 in the morning (which means it is 5pm in
chicago) and the bus to Alex leaves at 7 so i am off to bed.
Tomorrow, I am going to try to post some pictures from today
on a website or livejournal or something.
Hope everyone is doing well.
-Colin
