Transition to Egypt

Yom Kipur- all roads in Jewish areas are closed as is the airport. We stayed as long as possible in our hotel room then walked around again. Had lunch at a local place in the market. Mike and Michael went back into the old city to shop. We returned to the Garden Tomb and took a tour this time. There were two different groups having worship services. We sat around the lobby a while then walked a few blocks to get gelato. I don't think they get many tourists.

I won't bore you with the details of our experiences in the Tel Aviv airport. We left Jerusalem at 6:30 as soon as the roads opened. Our ten o'clock flight was delayed so we left after midnight. We got to our hotel in Cairo after 3:00 AM! We have a much fancier hotel here, but we lost our free internet and gained CNN. I sort of miss Al Jazeera. Coincidentally Lynn and Mike's friend TR works for them in Washington.

Friday, Oct. 10: On the bus at 8:00 again. Sort of hard when I didn't get to bed until 4:00! We went to the pyramids and Sphinx at Giza. The pyramids are visible from our hotel. They are as astonishing as you'd imagine. Mike and Michael rode a camel, of course. We saw the solar boat that has been reconstructed. It is very large as it was actually used on the Nlle and then buried with the pharaoh. The one bad experience was getting through a very crowded, narrow passageway to get closer to the Sphinx. Michael decided to be aggressive with some young Arabs in the crowd. For a few minutes I thought we might make headlines.

We took the afternoon off to unpack and recover from yesterday. This evening we went back to the pyramids for a sound and light show. It was very comfortable and much less hectic. After 8:00 we had our Welcome Dinner at the hotel that we had missed with our delay.

Tomorrow we are taking a train to Alexandria for an all day visit.

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