First let me apologize for the very long delay in blogging. It finally caught up with us. Our busy days in London meant we reached Cairo behind, and my shift in focus to my radiology presentation made it even worse. By the time I left for Orlando, we were still blogging London. In real time, I am writing this blog two weeks after the fact, and with the hundreds of pictures we have to upload, our time in Greece will weigh heavily toward beach and blogging (and soccer of course), and not so much toward the birthplace of Western civilization. My [View Full Entry]

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The Pyramids of Giza Breaking the pattern of the past few mornings, we are up and ready to leave for Giza by 9:30am. Tita Marie had the doorman pick up some taamiya and aish (bread) from nearby, and we breakfasted Arabic style with some fuul (like a chicpea mash) and fruit as well. I love the taamiya. It’s perfect - crispy and delicious, and a nice change from the usual chickpea falafel. Giza is only 12km outside of Cairo, so the ride is short. Our hosts have already been to Giza, and as it is quite a hot day and Tito [View Full Entry]

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Rule #1: Protection and worship go hand in hand Today, we get up really late (11am). After a “morning” of fruits, croissants, TV, and the Google, Khaled arrives to take us out for what will end up being a day of immersion into the Egyptian way of life. At 2pm, we hop in the midnight blue Jeep Liberty, our pimped out ride for Cairo, complete with driver (Khaled), captain and first officer (Tito Armando and Tita Marie), and gringo passengers (us). The first stop is the home to Cairo’s rulers for almost 700 years, The Citadel (Al-Qalaa). Sitting on a hill, [View Full Entry]

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Getting our bearings in a city of 18 million With our late night arrival, there’s no way we’ll get out of our beds early in the morning. The first thing on my mind is laundry, and I am ecstatic to see that Tita Marie has an American washer and dryer in the apartment. In fact, it’s one of the reasons they took the apartment in the first place. Score. Who thought I’d ever be happy about laundry? I only have three days in Cairo before I jet off to Orlando for my radiology conference, so I have to make the most [View Full Entry]

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England Zoo Today we wake up in London, but tonight we’ll go to sleep in Egypt. I can dig it. But before I can go make googly eyes at Nefertiti—I choose her because Cleopatra’s men always ended in destruction…man, she must have had the goods!—we will first have to deal with Heathrow International Airport. This is the place where the whole plot to bring down airliners using liquids commenced, thus, making traveling worldwide even more painful than the post-9/11 days. It’s not just 100ml size containers for your liquids inside the little baggie, it&rs [View Full Entry]

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Salisbury: Water Meadows, Cathedral, Poultry Cross, but No Steak We arrive at Waterloo Station with 15 minutes to spare to grab some baguette sandwiches and withdraw yet more money from the ATM. Who can live in London? We’ve seen one show and are broke again, and even with a student concession, this London Walks trip is about to run us £42 apiece. Our guide Chris has no problems raising her voice, so I’m guaranteed not to miss anything today even though the group is 30 big. The train ride southwest to Salisbury is about 80 minutes long and the English countryside [View Full Entry]

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The A.M. Hook Up Can’t leave London without a West End Show. Time to join all the other frugal tourists at the Half Price booth in Leicester Square at 10am. Only, the concession, or discount, tickets for Monty Python’s Spamalot are only sold at the Palace Theatre. Thus, this is our destination at 10am. No one is there to form a queue! This must be our lucky day. Since it is a few minutes before 10am, I leave Meli at the box office and explore a bit, basically retracing some of my steps from the last time I was in London. [View Full Entry]

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Difficult early morning A loud, annoying beeping wakes us up at quarter before seven. Is that the alarm? Because if it is, that’s obnoxious. Is it real? Will it go away? I get up and pull a bathrobe over my mismatched sleeping clothes (yes, a bathrobe would actually look better than what I wore to bed) while Lee pulls on a shirt and jeans. We walk out of our room and join the stream of people headed along the convoluted hallways toward the staircases. I’m not the only one in a bathrobe. Once on ground level but before exiting the building, [View Full Entry]

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Going Postal Picking up where Meli left off, we finally checked in and proceeded through the illustrious concourses of the airport. It really does put some of America’s best showcases to shame. It’s lit up like Vegas with high class stores, restaurants and lounges to boot. We trade in our remaining Dirham for British pounds and relax in the British Airways lounge. The red eye flight is a great time to catch a few zzzz’s, that is until the bloke sitting next to you with feet that smell like he walked through sh*t—I wish I had a better description or adjective, [View Full Entry]

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It is 7:40pm on Friday, April 27th. Now that is what you call up to date. I am sitting in area 3 of Dubai international airport six hours early for a flight. We’ve already been here for almost two hours. Even with a guaranteed late checkout thanks to our Starwood Gold membership and a trip the Deira souqs, we find ourselves here too early. I guess we could have tried to do more, but we’ve done everything we wanted to do (or could afford) in Dubai, and it’s time to go. Jumeirah Open Beach: So salty, you can’t drown Our lofty [View Full Entry]

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