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Published: March 30th 2007
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Untitled Today I got up at 6am. My clothes weren't dry, so I dried them with the hairdryer - it worked. I ate some peanut butter crackers for breakfast, got dressed, and was out in front of the hotel by 6:50am. I was worried no one would come to pick me up since I couldn't get in touch with anyone yesterday to confirm. They finally showed up (a little late)!! The driver's name was Mohammed and the guide's name was Hussein. We started the 3 hour drive to Alexandria. We stopped at a rest stop about halfway there. My first experience w/ Egyptian public restrooms - it's true there's no toilet paper or paper towels, but there wasn't an attendent at this restroom asking for baksheesh. Almost to Alexandria, we stoppe to watch the fishermen - it was pretty interesting - they have a series of nets and the fish swim into the nets and the fishermen just dump them into buckets and take them into town. Once in Alexandria, we pick up another guide (MORE people to tip!!!). She ended up being very knowledgeable and her English was very good. We see the sights in Alexandria (Royal Palace and Gardens,
Pompey's Pillar, Catacombs, Citadel of Quaitbay) and then drop off the guide and go to lunch (which ends up being VERY expensive and I am upset b/c I wasn't informed ahead of time or allowed a choice). After lunch, we drive around Alexandria more - the guys want to show me EVERYTHING and they take pictures of me everywhere - it was nice. They also insisted on buying me all kinds of food!!! Finally, we head back to Cairo, arriving back at the hotel around 7pm. I check at the desk to see if anyone called about my luggage - they haven't. I go to my room and call EgyptAir - after giving my claim number, they tell me my luggage just left and is on it's way - I should have it in no more than 5-6 hours (there were a lot of bags to deliver and my hotel was far away, so I figured I'd be last on the route). I REALLY want to take a nice shower and go to sleep, but I don't have any clean clothes to put on and I know I'm going to have to deal with some people later on when my
bag shows up so I decide to just wait to shower. I kill time by watching tv. There was: Who Wants to Be A Millionaire in Arabic, Cirque du Soleil's Varekai, Who Wants to Be A Millionaire in German, Friends in English, last season's American Idol in English, Grey's Anantomy in Italian, and a story on World CNN about the pollen in Georgia and South Carolina!!!!! The luggage guy drops off my bag at 1:30am!!!! I didn't like that some random guy was allowed to come to my hotel room at such a time by himself (I would have thought a hotel employee would be w/ him - especially w/ all the security guards). Then, I go to tip him (which I shouldn't have to do in the first place, but it's Egypt) and he wo't give me my bag b/c I'm not tipping him enough. He says something about how he had to drive all the way out to my hotel frm the airport - of course he did, but he also dropped off a bunch of other bags along the way. I tell him that I shouldn't have to give him money for my bag - the airline
should do that since it's their fault he had to come out there in the first place. He ends up taking a decently large amount of money before agreeing to give me my bag. Once he's gone, I go to get my stuff out of my bag to shower and I find that all my toiletries are no longer in the outside pockets. Of course I freak out thinking they're gone. I try to open my bag, but the freaking TSA zip-tied the zippers together. Aswer me this: if you're not allowed to have anythind sharp in your carry-on, how are you supposed to cut a zip-tie?!?!?!?! I try to saw through it w/ a room key, but I end up breaking off one of the zipper pulls - one zipper down, one left. I open my luggage and luckily all my toiletries have been put inside. Unfortunately, my poor luggage has been destroyed!!!! The inside supports were somehow shredded. Hopefully it'll last for the rest of the trip and make it home. I'm so mad at this point that there's no way I'm going to sleep anytime soon even though it's 2am and I'm supposed to meet people at
10am. I shower and eventually go to bed.
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