An awesome encounter in Alex!

---

We make our way to Alexandria by train from Cairo. I immediately like Alexandria and feel like it's a really lovable city.

The city was founded by Alexander the Great in In the morning we start the day off with a walk along the promenade and make our way to the library. The library is huge, and you can feel the centuries of literary greats easing and making discoveries all around you- oldest library in the world.

Following the library we make our way to the castle of Alexandria, which was originally the site of Pharos, the lighthouse of Alexandria and one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The Castle of Alexandria or the itself Qaitbay is where we chance upon meeting some amazing Egyptians that I will remember for a long time.


While we are walking around the castle taking photos we chance upon a couple of Egyptian guys our age who ask us where we are from?

"Egypt" my brother Ivan Kruchkoff replies. The group love it and ask my brother if they can take turns taking photos with us.

We all take turns taking photos and then they give us the grand tour of the castle which is really a lot of walking around laughing and taking jokes together.

Brawny, Zanon and Mohammed or Food Captain are all Egyptian and live in between Alexandria and Cairo. Samara and Muhammed are cousins of Brawny and are from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The are in holidays before Samara and Muhammed leave the country. They don't have money for a hotel but then on the other hand they haven't slept and they haven't needed a hotel the past 2 days because they have enjoyed each others company that much.

We speak about how things are in Western culture and how things are in Arabic culture and they explain how they have been raised with the greatest respect for their parents. Each morning they kiss their parents when they wake up on the cheek or on their hand and seek their parents approval for whatever it is they are going to do that day. That's how it was for their parents, that's how it's been for them and that's how they expect it to be with their children.

They suggest we get lunch following our castle visit. Keen to show us thier Egyptian hospitality they insist on paying for the lunch. We of course want to show them our guest hospitality and insist that we pay. We try to argue it out whilst pushing my dad to slyly buy lunch. Following lunch we enjoy ice cream together, followed by a great game of dominos together where we are introduced to Dolmes cheating word in Arabic by Zanun. We finish the night off taking lots of crazy photos and chasing handkerchiefs together. We feel such an amazing connection at the end of the night.

We exchange numbers, and for the rest of our trip Brawy insists to ring us and confirm we are well and having the best trip in this great country of his.

---