Exciting Weekend

This past weekend we had Thursday off of school and enjoyed a three day weekend. Remember that our normal weekends are Friday and Saturday s here. Seth and I had talked about going to Cairo for the weekend but never got around to planning it. Plus our new little kitty is too young to leave alone that long just yet. We planned on doing a lot of stuff around Alexandria that we haven’t done yet, museums and such, but ended up having a semi-lazy weekend.

I’ll tell you about some other people more exciting weekend first and then ours…

Our friends and fellow teachers, Clay and Susanna, did got down to Cairo for a relaxing weekend and to visit a friend that lives there. Susanna is 8 months pregnant and due to have her baby April 2nd. They went to the large popular outdoor market area called the Khan el-Khalili market. They had just bought a small inlayed table and were trying to hail a taxi when a guy rushed a Clay with a knife screaming. He cut Clay on the check and Clays reaction was to push him away with the table and was able to knock him down and pin him down with the table. Susanna and their friend were screaming and so the police and everyone else that was around came running to help them. There was soon a mob of taxi drivers, market owners, shoppers and police on top of the guy and helping Clay and Susanna. The police arrested him and Clay got a couple stitches in his face. They were interviewed by the local TV and soon it was all over the news and newspapers. It was quite the international scandal. We read reports that the guy had just been released from a mental hospital a few months ago after being detained for eight years after trying something similar. He is going to be tried for attempted man slaughter. The humorous part about this story is that in all the reports they say that Clay is in his fifties which really pissed him of since he is only thirty. The other funny part of this story is that our I.T. guy at school told us that our school website got over 800 hits the day after this story hit the news. You’ll also see in the reports (if you didn’t hear already) that earlier this week there was a bomb in the exact same place that killed one and injured several other French tourists. Just think about what a conversation starter that table will be for them, “Oh what a lovely table!”, “Yes, that table saved my life one day!”
Kansas City Star Newspaper Link
Egypt Today Link
Another Story

The other exciting event this weekend, was that several of our students went to AKan concert and the stage fell. Several of our students got hurt with one needing several stitches.

Now I’m sure I have you all very concerned but do try to realize that these are the only incidents that have happened the entire time we’ve been here and it’s a very slim probability that it just happened to happen to people we knew. Before you start to go all crazy and worry about us, watch your local news and think about how many shootings, stabbings, robberies etc. are happening right in your own city and you feel plenty safe there.

Now Seth’s and mine weekend is going to sound very boring in comparison but we are glad we stayed in Alex now. On Thursday we did go out shopping with some friends and had a nice lunch out at T.G.I.Friday’s… mmmmm yummy greasy American food! Then that afternoon Seth and I went to the Alexandria Bibliotheca and took the tour and then just walked around on our own for a bit. You defiantly don’t want to get a cab near a tourist spot if you don't look like a local. The cabbie tried to charge us twice as much as the amount should have been for that distance. We told him we live here and know what the amount should be and got out of his cab. We walked about three blocks away from the Bibliotheca before trying to get a cab again. Here is a link to a page that has better pictures of the library.

That night we went out with a co-worker, Wessam who teaches Arabic, and his wife. They are a young couple and very newly married. Seth has gone out with Wessam several times for guys night to smoke Sheesha and we had briefly met his wife at a couple school functions. They took us to a very nice local cuisine restaurant that was newly opened. This was defiantly not a tourist restaurant and Seth and I felt like we might have been the first non-Egyptians to eat there. There was no English section of the menu so Wessam had to order for us. Hospitality to guest is a huge part of Egyptian culture. They want and will do anything to make sure you are happy, including making sure you have had plenty to eat. Egyptians will constantly offer you way more food then you need or could eat and if you refuse they take it very personally. You should have seen our table and the amount of food Wessam had ordered for us. There wasn’t an inch of bare space on the table and the food was piled so high. Seth and I were already quite full from our large late lunch at T.G.I Fridays so another huge meal was not in our agenda. If we stopped eating for just a second, they would say, “What’s wrong? You’re not eating! You don’t like the food? I’ll order something else you like. Why are you not eating?” and they would put more food on my plate. There was seriously a point of time where I thought to myself, “Ok, Kristal, just keep eating and you can go through-up later.” I was that full and I didn’t want to offend them. And of course they wouldn’t let us pay for our meal either. After dinner we went to an outdoor mall area called Green Plaza and walked around and had an after dinner coffee and the boys enjoyed Sheesha. Which, they of course insisted on paying for also. We had very nice conversations all night and I was asking them about good authentic Egyptian gifts that would be good to bring home to family and friends. We ended up walking around the shops some more and they ended up buying both of us a gift. It is very common in Egyptian culture that if you say you like something, they will get/give it to you. I was warned early on to be careful about complementing my Egyptian friend’s jewelry (etc.) because they would literally take it off and give it to you because you said you liked it and they always want to make people happy. So we had a very lovely evening and enjoyed true Egyptian hospitality.

The other two days of the weekend we had plans to go see areas of Alex that we hadn’t been to yet. However, we had such bad rain storms that we didn’t feel like going out. It was a good time to curl up with the kitten and a good book in bed. Last night there was a big lightning strike which had to be very close, it was the brightest flash and the loudest longest thunder crash I had ever heard. It shook the whole building and even rattled windows and doors open. Our little Sokkwi, who was not before, but now is terribly afraid of thunder storms. The lightning knocked out all of the internet service in Alexandria. It has happened before where the entire city hasn’t gotten internet back up for days. I was starting to worry that our parents would see on CNN about an American teacher getting stabbed and not be able to reach us. But obviously we got the internet back up today.

8 Days of “Happy”…and Then…

Unfortunately, there are some things in this world that you will never understand, no matter how hard you try. We experienced such an event Valentine’s Day 2009. Dakarai became sluggish over the weekend, we thought due to a late night with Seth sleeping on the couch. However, we quickly noticed his condition worsen. Without going into details, we took him to the vet and were told to nurse him with a syringe every 2 hours with electrolytes & water since he couldn’t even swallow for himself. At 8:30, Dakarai left us during a fit of being sick. Seth was holding him up since he had no body strength at all and didn’t even notice at first. We both cried and cried trying to make sense of what had just happened. How could something so happy and kind and friendly be gone so quickly? Why was this little guy gone after only 8 days of being in a loving home while mangy cats on the street live for years? These are but a couple of the things we still struggle with and will never quite understand. The staff here was WONDERFUL. They helped us find a place to bury Dakarai the very next afternoon. Even though most don’t speak a bit of English, many of the workers passed along their sorrow that our kitty had died. Work that day just flat sucked. We didn’t want to be there and were thinking of our lost Dakarai all the time. He truly lived up to the meaning of his name…HAPPY! He brought us joy and good times in our 8 days together. You have never met a more loving cat who had such a wonderful personality and was amazingly domesticated from the start! WE WILL MISS OUR DAKARAI!!!

While we were mourning, we discussed the idea of getting another cat. We agreed that we would eventually, but it was too soon right away and we didn’t want to betray Dakarai’s memory. That afternoon, while Seth had basketball practice (yes, he actually has a team!), a staff member was having trouble getting a small kitten out from his car – it had climbed inside of the wheels and wouldn’t come out. And it was loud!! Seth checked him out after practice on his way to a meeting and wasn’t going to mention anything to Kristal about him. But when he came back to the apartment, what should he find? Kristal was sitting out on the balcony with a pretty little grey and white kitten asleep wrapped up inside a shirt. Her excuse was that she couldn’t resist going down to look at the kitty but then none of the students down there were going to be able to keep him, so she brought him up. How can you say “no” to a defenseless little kitty? We sure couldn’t. Did Dakarai send him our way knowing how upset we were? Can we do justice to his memory with this new little guy? All we can say is we have another little kitty in our lives. We’ve decided to name him Sokkwi (SOH-kwee) which is Egyptian for “little fool.” Sokkwi had a good first check-up at the vet and loves to play and spastically pounce on his knitted mouse toy. However, he is not a quick learner, being taken off the bed a minimum of 20 times per day. We’ll write more about him later. We just wanted to let you all know of our transition.

Dakarai

Last night, walking home from a movie and dinner out with friends we found a little kitten out on the streets. Now this isn't anything special since in Egypt you can't walk five feet with out seeing a cat but this little kitten caught our attention and immediately wanted to be petted and picked up. We had been talking about getting a cat here since we miss our dog Desiree so much and Kristal is still very saddened by the loss of her cat Moonshine.

So we brought the kitten home and it was very happy to be along for the ride. Kristal went back out to the store to get some cat supplies and food and then we gave him a bath. An hour long bath! He didn't like it but he didn't put up much of a fight either and let us get him squeaky clean.

He is the friendliest, happiest, and most loving cat I have ever seen. He purrs constantly and wants to be with you at all time, preferably right up close and cuddling. He's already adjusted pretty well to his new home and to love it.

We chose the name Dakarai (Da-car-e) because it's an Egyptian name that means "happy" which defiantly describes this little guy pretty well.

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He's already learned that my knitting yarn is a lot of fun to play with.



Dakarai's first bath.



Seth's already trying to get him to the Dark Side.


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Knitting Knight

Did you know I can knit? ....I know, it surprises me too. Honestly, if someone would have told me three years ago that I would be a teacher, living in Egypt, and love knitting...I would have laughed.

But seriously, Seth's mom knitted me a scarf for Christmas when Seth and I were first together. I was so impresses with it that the next year for Christmas I asked if she'd teach me to knit. She didn't think she knew enough to teach so she got me an hour of knitting lessons. Suppose ably at the lesson I learned the basics of casting on, knit stitch, and binding off...but I was horrible at it and by far the worst in the class.

When we were moving to Egypt I wanted to bring a hobby along that wouldn't take up much room or cost too much. So I bought two "Knitting for Beginners" books and packed the one pair of knitting needles I had. I figured since I should be able to find all sorts of fancy Egyptian Cotton yarns that you're always hearing about, plus the fact that they have tons of sheep and lamas and other sources to make yarn out of; I thought it was the ideal hobby to do. But I soon to learned that you really can't find much Egyptian Cotton in Egypt (it's all exported). But after a lot of looking and asking I did finally find three decent little yarn shops in an area of town called Manchyae (market area). They have a decent selection and even some novelty yarns. They have several brands from Turkey, France and Germany, which is great because a lot of those brands are mega bucks back in the states and here they are supper cheap. I think the most expensive skein of yarn I've bought so far was about $2.50. However, it's nearly impossible to find needles and other knitting supplies here. So I just started practicing with some basic projects, reading the books and watching very helpful knitting video clips that I found on-line and I got better and better and started enjoying knitting a lot.

When we went home over Christmas I stocked up on knitting supplies. Seth's mom helped a lot, she knew a knitting store that was going out of business and got me a lot of great stuff for great deals. She also sewed me knitting needle holders for my straight and circular needles. I also got a lot of time to practice while hanging out at the hospital during Seth's dad surgery. I have now finished a couple scarves, a baby blanket, some baby hats, a purse, and a dog sweater.

I found out that a few other girls here also "kind of" know how to knit/crochet so I've started a Knitting Knight Club! There are five of us and we are meeting on Monday nights and we just started last week . I showed them my books, needles, projects, and some on-line sites that are very helpful and have free patterns. I also gave them a quick refresher course on the basics of knitting since they haven't done it for awhile and only knew a little. They each picked out a project that they want to start and this past weekend we all took the tram, which is a story in it's self, to the market area and got some yarn.

I was also watching baby Malcolm that night since his mom was sick and his dad was in Holland with the Model United Nations students. I felt very "domestic" knitting with a baby on my lap.

I'm really excited about our little group, we're all really good friends to begin with and it's great to have an excuse to have a girls night. Our husbands all like it too because they get together and play video games while we knit.

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Dahshur

Last weekend a group of us rented a van with a driver and took a trip to Dahshur. Dahshur is a little bit south of Cairo and is where the Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid are. These are believed to be some of the first pyramids constructed in Egypt. They were build almost 5,000 years ago by pharaoh Senfru who ruled during the 4th dynasty. These are two very unique pyramids due to the fact that the Bent pyramid sharply changes angles half way up in it's construction and the Red pyramid has a subtle sheen of red in the sun light due to the limestone that was quarried for it's construction. Egyptologists are not sure if the Bent pyramid changed shape due to the fact of the inexperience of the engineers and they were afraid is was going to cave in or due to the lack of time and needing to finish quickly.

The Bent Pyramid is actually on Egyptian military ground and you can not get very close to it, however, we were able to climb up and go inside the Red Pyramid. This was not as great of an experience as it sounds though. The entrance is about half way up the pyramid and is about 1 meter by 1 meter wide. It has about a 60 degree incline down with no stairs but only little metal poles going across every so often to help you down. So you are very cramped and hunched over and squatting going at a very steep uncomfortable incline. Did I mention that people were trying to come up at the same time. There is only one light about halfway down which doesn't provide much light so it is very dark most of the way and you can't see the bottom at all and we had no clue how far down it was. The further you went the hotter and stuffier the air got, not to mention the very bad smell of ammonia that made you gag. At the bottom there are three rooms that you can view and also got a very good look at the stacking of blocks on the ceiling. Here is a link that has a very good picture of the entrance.

After our pyramid excursion we went back to Cairo and to the CityStars mall which is a huge 7 story mall with tons of restaurants, theater, and entertainment.

By the way, our legs hurt so bad for several days after that steep incline down and back up the pyramid all hunched over and squatting like that.




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Super Bowl Party

While you guys got to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday, they just showed it here last night (Tuesday), so we hosted a small Super Bowl Party in our apartment for anyone that wanted to watch. Seth did not want to find out the final score so for the last two days he has not gotten on the internet or watched the news so it would still be a fun game for him to watch. They just showed the game without any commercials so those of us that were more interested in Super Bowl commercials had to watch them on-line. Sad, I know.

Also last night, I got a massage. There is a nice local lady that has been coming to the school for years to give massages. She comes right to your apartment and does a full body hour long massage for only 50 Egyptian pounds (LE)! Fifty Egyptian pounds equals $9.00! She is a really good masseuse too, I can't believe I can get a full body hour long massage in the comfort of my own home for less than ten bucks! I have scheduled a weekly appointment with her.

Hot News

We made the newspaper! Ok, it might not be the hottest news in town since they do a story on all the new teachers each year. The newspaper is called The Gate, which our journalism class puts every few months and the picture at the top is the front gate to our school which has been a important symbol of the school and surrounding community for 80 years. It is also posted online here for you to read. It was a nice article, although not entirely true...Seth and I were surprised to learn that we knew how to scuba dive when we read the article. The upper school girls had a lot of fun looking through our wedding pictures and choosing one for the article.

Presidential Inauguration

We've made friends with the head of the American Consulate here in Alexandria since we've been here. She is young and newly married too, a lot of fun to hang out with and on our school board. She invited us over for an Inauguration party to watch President Obama sworn into office. We had a very good time and mingled with some interesting people to chat with. She had several guests that were being hosted by the consulate either for political, business, or social good will travels to Egypt. She also had American snacks where were a great treat.
Egyptians are very excited about our incoming president. They are huge Obama supporters, however, whenever I ask someone why they can never give me an answer. All they know is that he promises "change" and they want "change". But then again, when I ask what do they want changed they really don't know that either. I've had several occasions out in public where someone has come up to me and asked if I was an American and then said, "Yes, Obama!" and show that they are so happy we elected him.

New Year’s Resolution

While we were home we realized just how many people have been reading our blog. It made us feel really good to know that so many people were interested and also that it helps so many of our loved ones feel more secure with our new life style. We also found out that a few people that we don’t know personally but are friends of our friends or family have also been interested in following our blog and learning about the Middle East. “Hello new friends, nice to have you reading too.”

We also had a lot of really good conversations with people that made me realize how many misconceptions are out there about Egypt, the Middle East, and Islam that I am very proud to be brining a first hand experience to people. I also know now what type of things you are interested in reading about.

So this year my New Year’s Resolution is to be better about posting more frequently on this blog. However, I have a request. We want to know what you are thinking and who is reading our blog. We’d love some feedback. At the bottom of each post there is a little link that says “comments”, please click that and leave us a comment once in awhile.

Home for the Holidays

The old classic Christmas carol was right, there is no place like home for the holidays. Over all we had a nice trip home and enjoyed our time with family and being back in our own country. Seth’s dad’s surgery was very successful and the entire family appreciated all the love, concern and prayers we got from so many people.

It was fantastic being with family again, especially during Christmas. We really enjoyed spending time with our nieces and nephew and we were trilled to see our dog Desiree again and soaked up as much time with her as we could. We apologize to all our friends and family that we missed out on seeing; hopefully we’ll get to see you over the summer.

I was missing winter weather in Egypt but we defiantly got our share of it on this trip. It was snowing when we arrived and we had several snow and ice storms and even one freak wind storm while home. I was ready to get back to the consistent weather of Alexandria.

We defiantly satisfied a lot of our food cravings while we were home, especially with it being the holidays and the abundance of food around. Kristal’s mom was great about asking what foods we missed and cooking them for us. However, we didn’t get to any of the restaurants we were missing; we’ll have to go to Chipotle and Cold Stone this summer. The other great thing about coming home is that we got the chance to pick up a few things that we didn’t think to bring or realized we can’t get in Egypt and also a few warmer clothes since it doesn’t stay in the 100 degree range all year round like you always imagine the Egyptian dessert to be like. The number one thing we bought to bring back....Crystal Lite! And I think I should get some kind of award for my skills at packing and the way I was able to make every single one of those packets fit into something else as to not take up any extra space.

But after a month of living out of a suitcase and jumping around from house to house we were ready to come back home to Egypt.

Coming Home/ Eid el-Adha

Coming Home

Seth and I are coming home this Saturday Dec. 6th. Seth’s dad is having major surgery in Indianapolis, IN on the 8th and we wanted to be there with him. We’ll be spending most of our time in Indianapolis but will come down to Kansas City at some point depending on how well Mr. Spurlock is doing. We were lucky that this upcoming week is Eid El Adha and then we start winter break on the 19th. So we get to be home for a month with only missing 7 days of school. We’ll be returning to Egypt on Jan. 1st.

We are really excited to come home, especially for Christmas although we wish it was for better circumstances. We can’t wait to see our dog Desiree as well as our family and friends. Plus we have a list of food that we miss and can’t wait to sink our teeth into. On the top of that list is a nice big glass of ice cold real milk, Mom’s pumpkin bread and cranberry tea. We’ll also have to make a stop at Chipotle, Panera Bread Company, and Cold Stone Creamery. We are also looking forward to going out to a bar and getting to order alcohol. Surprisingly, neither one of us is missing driving, although it will be nice to be able to get in a car and not pray that you’ll arrive at your destination alive every time. It’ll seem almost weird to be in a country with traffic rules.

Although we are looking forward to coming home, at the same we are disappointed that we are not staying here. We are going to miss out on several school/staff activities that we were looking forward too as well as the traveling we had previously planed for over the breaks. We were going to take a cruise down the Nile River, see Luxor and Aswan as well as spend New Years Eve at the pyramids. I’m sure we’ll be able to some other time though.




As I mentioned earlier, Eid El Adha starts next week. It means the Feast of Sacrifice and takes place approximately seventy days after the Eid el-Fitr (the feast after Ramadan). The Eid el-Adah coincides with the end of the pilgrimage to Mecca; the culmination of the pilgrimage, the Day of Afaft, is the day before the Eid. This is when the pilgrims spend the day in prayer and devotion on Mt. Arafat, where the Prophet Mohammed delivered his last sermon.

The Eid el-Adha is a celebration of the obedience to God shown by the Prophet Ibrahim because he was ready to sacrifice his firstborn son when asked. Ibrahim was rewarded for being a true believer when a sheep appeared in the place of Ismail, and it was sacrificed instead. For this reason, Muslims slaughter either a sheep, or if they are able to afford it, a cow, to commemorate Ibrahim's trust in God. People have been buying their sheep or cows for the past week or two and fattening them up, they keep them tied up on the street outside their door, or just in the alleyways with someone watching them. I’ve even seen a couple on balconies. So it’s been interesting walking around town the past couple of days, and we saw even more when we were in Rosetta last weekend. It’s sometimes comical every once in awhile when one will escape and seeing people chase after it. People have arrangements with butchers to butcher them before the Eid but sometimes they do it themselves. We keep on being told how horrible that butchering day is and how all the streets are flowing red with blood. We’ve been told we want to get out of town or stay inside and not even open a window that day it’s so disgusting; so I’m glad we’ll be gone. With the meat, they keep 1/3 of it, another 1/3 has to go to relatives, and the last 1/3 has to go to the poor. If they are rich they will usually just buy two animals and give the second to the poor. So during this time, Mosques are filled with meat for the poor.

There is a special dawn prayer on the morning of the first day of the Eid. So if we were staying here we’d hear on the loud speakers from the five mosques we live by; the congregation reciting over and over again: "Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar, la illah il Allah" (God is great, God is great. There is no god but God).

Holidays With the Schutz Family

Working Thanksgiving Day sucked in principle, it is irritation that for an American school we get all Egyptian and Muslim holidays off but not a very important American holiday off. However, our chefs worked very hard all day and prepared us an extremely nice candle lit Thanksgiving Day Dinner. It was very good and nice to share with our Schutz family and then the coaches from the soccer tournament that we are also hosting this weekend.

On Saturday evening we all got together and put up a Christmas tree and decorated the dinning room for Christmas. It was so nice, we had Christmas music playing and we iced sugar cookies and drank hot chocolate. It’s great to have this nice family here away from home.

Rosetta

Yesterday we got invited along on a day trip to Rosetta, Egypt by our Head of School, Nada and new baby Malcolm and some of her friends from Cairo. First though, we stopped by the soccer fields and watched one of the boys and one of the girl’s games. We are hosting the ISAC soccer tournament this weekend. The other four schools are from Cairo, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, and Go Falcons!

Rosetta is where they found the Rosetta Stone in 1799 and how they were able to relearn the ancient lost language of reading hieroglyphics. It’s only about an hours drive east from Alexandria along the Mediterranean Sea coast; it was a lovely drive with all the tropical palm trees and orange groves which are now in season.

We were a little disappointed though that we didn’t get to see any museums or anything about the Rosetta Stone. So many things are closed and under reconstruction since they are tying to create a place that will attract more tourists. We stopped at a little restaurant on the water front to order some food for lunch. The owner was very happy to serve us and informed us the food will be ready in one and a half hours. When we were shocked by this, he said, “Fresh Fish!” He was literally going to go out and catch the fish and then cook for us. After much debate we decided this was ok but we were going to go see the town while he fished, we gave him half the money for the meal since we was worried we wouldn’t come back.

So we took a nice long walking tour of the village and saw around nine Ottoman houses from the 17th century and also the Azouz bammam (public bath house) from the 18th century which is almost entirely intact since it’s made out of marble. I really like the ceiling which had little holes covered in stained glass to let in the light. In one area the holes were all sorts of different shapes and colors and it reminded me of the little marshmallows in Lucky Charms.






Since we were so hungry and were still waiting for our fish to be caught we bought some very good cookies from a baker in the street. The whole two hours that we walked around a little local girl followed us around the entire town. It didn’t help that we gave her cookies. The little girl was not our only companion on the walk, like always when we are out touring, it’s inevitable that the military police always get alerted to our presents and one (or several) always joins us for “our protection”. Not that there is anything to need to be protected from, it is very safe here and very few instances of trouble of tourist. It is just that, they are always very concerned for Americans safety because they don’t ever want to have to deal with our government if there was a safety issue and they really want to increase their tourism industry. I think part of it also is that Egypt has a mandatory service in the military law and I think there are just too many military men and they just plain need something to do sometimes. The funny part about it was that Nada’s friends from Cairo are Canadians that teach at the Canadian school there and they were shocked because they never get military escorts. Nobody ever cares about the Canadians. When we went back to our little restaurant to enjoy our “fresh fish” our military escort turned into a full truck load of men. And by the time we left town we had a whole caravan of military trucks ahead and behind us. So I can now say I have been escorted out of town by the police.

Happy Thanksgiving.

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Cairo Trip

Today was a very exciting day and one I’ve been waiting for a long time and will never forget. We spent the day in Cairo with our friends Debbie and her husband Mahmoud. Debbie is Canadian and has taught at Schutz for fifteen years, her husband is Egyptian and a professor at the Science Institute.

We finally got to see the Pyramids in Giza up close and personal. It was an amazing sight. On the Giza plateau there is the Sphinx, the Great Pyramid, three other large pyramids as well as several other small pyramids, some ruins and even some Greco-Roman ruins, and the Heliopolis. We didn’t have a whole lot of time to spend so we didn’t go inside of any of the pyramids or see the new Solar Boat Museum, or take a camel ride out to see every single pyramid close up; but we did climb the Great Pyramid! When you get right up to it and try to climb it, it is a pretty awe inspiring monument. Each block is huge, about five feet tall and very hard to climb up. I can’t imagine how they moved them and build these things. The Sphinx isn’t quite as big as I imagined it to be, although when I thought about it every picture I’ve seen they are always below it looking up so it seems bigger. It’s still pretty big though.
It’s sad that the city has grown so close to them. On one side the city is pretty much right up next to the pyramids, which is odd because when you see pictures it looks like they are way out in the middle of nowhere. On the other side of them it does stretch out into the open dessert. I hope they stop the building from getting any closer though. It’s also always sad to me when we are out touring that Egypt hasn’t taken precautions to preserve their national treasures and they don’t have national park systems set up like we do in the states. It would be nice to also have signs and guides to give educational background on the landmarks and security to help control the tourist. There was a lot of security at the pyramids but they didn’t care what people were doing and there was also a ton of trash all around.

The other thing that surprised me about our visit is that I was expecting bus loads of American and European tourist at the pyramids but there wasn’t. There were maybe two or three tour busses but you didn’t really see them much, who was there was hundreds and hundreds of Egyptian school children. They were what we would call “inner city” children and it was probably the first time they had seen the greatest thing about their country even though they probably live just a few miles away from them. And although, they were probably from Cairo they were acting like it was the first time they have ever seen an American in person. I was surprised how many kept on coming up to me and taking my picture. I joked around with the first few and held out my hand and said “baksheesh” after they took my picture which means tip. You’ll see a lot of camel owners or venders asking for baksheesh if you take a picture of them, but after awhile it got tiring getting my picture taken.

After our lovely adventurous romp around the pyramids we went to the Mena House Hotel and had a charming lunch in the tea room with a great view of the pyramids. The Mena House has been there since the late 1800’s and is absolutely gorgeous with it’s marble walls, mirrored ceilings, and intricate wooden mashrabiyya. It’s been a dozen old famous movies and hundreds of famous people have stayed there over the years.

After lunch we changed into some nicer clothes and went to the Cairo Opera House, we had tickets to see Stomp. I had been wanting to see Stomp for several years and think it is the coolest thing that I got to see it at the Cairo Opera House. The performance was amazing and I would highly recommend it. It was very creative and entertaining.

After the show we went to the Grand Hyatt hotel, first stopping at the Hard Rock Café Cairo to get a few souvenirs but didn’t eat there. We had a lovely dinner at a Lebanese restaurant right down at the waterfront of the Nile River. It was so peaceful and relaxing watching the felucca’s sail by and the lights from the Cairo tower change in a nice light display. The food was great and they had local women make traditional Arabic bread in a brick oven.

It was a wonderful, exciting day with experiences we will never forget. It helped to get out and do something fun so I wasn’t so upset about Moonshine.

In Loving Memory

After 17 wonderful years of love and companionship we had to put down our cat Moonshine. She had been living with my parents and had been fighting cancer for the last six years. The tumor had returned and grown so big that it was the best decision for her but the hardest one for me, especially since I was so far away. I felt like such a bad person, abandoning her when she was so old and sick. I said goodbye to her over skype but it was really hard and I cried horribly for days. I had secretly been hoping that she could hang on until I got to see her in December so I could say goodbye in person but after my parents let me take one look at her on skype I knew it would be cruel to make her hold on just for my selfish needs. My parents made her a nice little place to rest in the back yard.
She was a wonderful cat for so many years of my life. I got her as a kitten from the stable I took riding lessons at and she has been through so much with me and my family including moving states four times. She absolutely loved playing with our first dog Taffy, but by the time my second dog Desiree came around she decided she hated dogs with a passion, even though Desiree loved her. What she did love though was tuna juice, quail feathers, head butts, and napping in the sun. She was a beautiful Russian Blue but she was born with genetic mutations. But they were the best mutations ever; she literally had thumbs and could pick up pencils. I will miss her funny little mitten paws. She slept with me and my family in bed but it was funny because the older she got the more she thought she moved up in status. She started sleeping at the foot of the bed as a kitten, and slowly moved up the bed until by the time she was at her oldest the thought she had earned the right to sleep smack dab in the middle of your pillow and don’t even think about shooing her away.
She was a wonderful cat and will be missed dearly by many.

PTA Bingo Night

The annual PTA bingo night was tonight. It’s the PTA fundraiser that has become a tradition at Schutz and is a very popular night. The auditorium was packed and children of all ages, parents, and staff really enjoyed themselves and get pretty serious about the game. The reason why it’s so popular is because they have some really nice prizes to win, like plane tickets, weekends at a five star resort, day at a spa, and dinner for two at some of the nicest restaurants in town. We were really hoping to win the free plane tickets but all we won was a meal at McDonalds. Oh well, we can’t all be big winner and we had a lot of fun. Bingo does get really frustrating though when you’re down to one last number to be called to win that big prize and you never get your number called.

Monasteries Trip

We took a trip to several Monasteries on this day but I haven’t had time to write a good story and post pictures a bit it yet. So don’t forget check back in a few days to see it.