Alexandria

Our morning started early at 7:30 AM, of course Diana and I slept way through our alarm. But we were able to make it and took the long van ride to Alexandria. First stop on our list was the Qaitbay Citadel. We spent a lot of time walking around the citadel with Karim, Abduh's son, as our guide. The view was absolutely amazing and the weather was perfect, a little hot but bearable. If only I could have gotten into the Mediterranean right then, that would have been glorious. Everyone got a little nuts and we took some pretty sweet pictures, I know I was on some sort of sleep deprivation high, who knows!


After exploring the citadel we headed over to the catacombs where we weren't allowed to bring cameras. We saw secret tombs where Kings and Queens and whoever else was buried, and some art work to fake out intruders. Then once we emerged from underground our van was met with police men who wouldn't let us leave without the second part of our group. Our van then had to wait until the other group went in and out of the catacombs. But we hung out and had a good ol' time in the van waiting for the other group.Once we were all ready to head out of there and go to the fish market for lunch, we realized that there wasn't enough time to drive, eat, and get to the Alexandria Library in time for our tour.
Joyce to the rescue, got everything in order and we were able to get into the Library for free after a minor waiting period. We were shown the reading room which had green and blue lights on the ceiling to ease the eyes. There were huge windows everywhere that were used to allow natural light into the Library. The magnitude of this library was ridiculous, 11 floors of resources with hundreds of computers, desks, and over six hundred thousand books even though the capacity was close to 8 million. We found out that the library contained an "Espresso Book Machine" which could create a book from any previous copy. They are still working out the logistics of it but it seemed like a great idea. Then on to two exhibits where we were able to relax and enjoy the Alexandrian history. The rare books room following the exhibits was amazing, with all types of old manuscripts, bibles, qurans, papyrus, everything. Then onto the panorama view of Culturama, a nine screen interactive display of Egypt basically. We got a look inside temples and tombs we had visited right from our seats!

When the tour finished and I was ready to keel over, we headed over to the fish market for dinner. We were too big of a group to go to the fish market, so we ended up in the neighboring grill where I had some yummy calamari and french fries and salad bar. I made sure to get nice and filled up for the long drive back to Cairo.

I took a nice nap on the way home, so I was up and ready for all of us to hang out that night. A bunch of us squeezed into me and Diana's room to watch Aladdin and of course SINGALONG!
Then as what normally tends to happen, Omar got hungry. So we headed to his favorite burger place, Route 66 in Maadi with seven of us squished in the car. Alyssa and I in the front, April, Asha, Diana, Andrew, and Drew. These burgers were HUGE but I can't say they were very delicious. Then back to the Hotel Flamenco by around 3:30 AM. Off to bed!