Free day

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Today was a free day as the tour starts only tomorrow. We did not do much today as a lot a places were closed until late afternoon because Friday is a sacred day of worship. We did go for a walk along the Nile. As we passed by a mosque we heard the call for prayer over a loud speaker.

We got a lesson on how to cross the street from our program director (PD) : « just grab hold of a local and cross with him ». Even though there are areas marked on the street for pedestrians to cross, cars don’t stop. So crossing the street is an art. After our walk we ran into our PD as we were entering the hotel and we were all proud to announce that we crossed the street all by ourselves. But of course today the traffic was much lighter . Seems like their weekend is Friday and Saturday as she mentioned that on Sunday traffic would be back to normal. Every time we entre the hotel we have to go through security.

Also the pool was closed today because they were preparing for a wedding reception. Roger and Deanna ran into some relatives of the bride (I think the father) and after chit chatting with them were invited to the wedding. During our Happy Hour today ( to meet other travellers on this tour) we mentioned to our PD that we would have loved to see the bride. She told us go see. So Lise, Marc, Sue and I went. We could not see the bride so we tried to get closer but we were stopped by security. We did get a glimps of her from afar. She had on the same type of dress as we wear in Canada. We have a view of the pool from our balcony so I took a picture from above. It is a pretty lavish wedding. I counted 28 tables with 10 places . The white floor that you see is a temporary floor over part of the pool.

The music is very loud as our room are just 9 stories up from the pool area. The hotel left us a note apologizing in advance for the noise and the inconvenience. We each got a pair of ear plugs. Not sure if it will help.

Other pictures are of the Nile taken from our balcony.

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