Egypt so far...

Egypt has been an overwhelming country and I've only been here for 2 days. Since i'm positive i won't remember everything i want to at the end i'm writing about it now (the air conditioning isn't 1/2 bad either).

Day 1:
Bridget and I woke up at our normal 8:00 for port days and got breakfast with Taryn and watched us pull into Alexandria. My first question was which way is land because the port made a semi circle and it all looked equally industrial. After breakfast we went back to the room and got ready. I had a S@S trip yesterday called the Best of Alexandria so I went down to meet the buses and they informed us that everyone needs their passports and sent all 3 buses of students up to the 7th deck faculty lounge to get them (aka made us wait in line for 45 minutes because they didn't figure it out the night before). Once I had my passport sat on the bus for another 30 minutes while everyone else got theirs and then finally (an hour and 15 minutes late) we left. That was my first encounter with Arab time.

We went to the catacombs first. They were discovered by accident when a donkey was pulling a loaded wagon and fell down the hill into what is believed to be either a chapel or a place where people were killed. (Kind of opposites eh?) The catacombs had a long twirling stair case with 58 stairs and they reminded me of the Cupola at St. Peter's Basilica but in the opposite direction. In the center of the staircase is a large opening that looks like a well and it is where they lowered the mummies and sarcophagus's down to the tombs via rope. At the very bottom of the stairs there was a room with 3 big tables. The guide scared us at first by telling us that that was where they mummified the bodies but then she said that was false and it is actually where the families of the dead would have meals together to remember the person. After the dining room we went to seen the actual tombs. It was originally built for a governor of Egypt and his wife and son. It was interesting because Egypt has been ruled by many different people in the past such as the Greeks and Romans so all of the art in the tombs had 2 versions of everything, the ancient egyptian version and the greek/roman version. For example, outside of the governor's tomb there was the egyptian goddess of protection (i think her name is Bes? maybe) and also Medusa who was the greek goddess of protection (yeah the lady with snakes for hair who would turn you to stone just for looking at her...). The tomb was originally private and only for that one family but eventually it turned to a public tomb and was used for up to 300 other mummies. we got to walk around the public tomb and it looked like safety deposit boxes in a bank only dustier and bigger. The tomb of the governor and his family was beautiful. There were carvings everywhere and everything had some kind of symbolic meaning (i just had no idea what it was). After seeing the tombs we went and looked at where the donkey fell down (I asked. It was alright and lived) and also saw some rando horses bones. Our guide Miranda didn't know why they were there but some historians think that the area was a chapel to the goddess Nemesis who was the goddess of sports and so horses would be buried there along with their owners. (polo players perhaps?)

The Catacombs are in the 5th district of Alexandria and that is the poor district so my first impression of the city was that it was crowded, dirty, poor, and 100% unsafe to walk around in. That isn't entirely true. There is a much nicer area (which we went to later) and overall Alexandria is really dusty and crowded but it isn't all dirty (well... as dirty as the 5th district) and its not AS unsafe as the 5th district either.

After the catacombs we went to the National History Museum (Which is in the District of the Waterfall aka the rich area). The building started as a private home and then was the US consulate before being donated to Egypt for the creation of the national history museum. We started by going to the basement to see a tomb and a mummy. It wasn't as creepy as I imagined. It just looked like a long, dirty ball of rags with really big feet. After that we looked around at a bunch of statues and jewelry and pottery and pretty much anything and everything that they could cram into the rooms. The last exhibit we looked at was pretty cool. Alexandria is sinking (due to coastal erosion which i can tell you all about thanks to my fabulous oceanography professor) and some tombs that were originally on land are now under water. The last exhibit was all about the underwater excavating that has been going on. My other favorite part of the museum was learning about Hepsetshut (that is definitely not spelled right but i'm doing it phonetically because i didn't write it down). She was a queen of egypt but in all of her statues she is portrayed as a man except for her smile and make up. I'm not sure why she's my favorite. I was tuning out the guide by the time we got to her statues but apparently she was a pretty good queen.

After the museum we stopped by some pretty mosques and went to lunch at a greek restaurant (??). The food was DELICIOUS! I finally got some hummus and a bunch of other stuff that i had no idea what it was. I know one thing was some kind of rice rolled in grape leaves and there was some kind of really salty cheese in a fried ball and then something that had to to with spinach but it was really good. For the main course they gave us a choice between veal and sea bass so i asked if there was a vegetarian option and they gave me some buttered noodles with mushrooms in it (yay!) and then i have no idea what dessert was but it was ridiculously delicious and i think mine was gone in about 2 seconds flat.

After lunch we went to the library at alexandria (they call it the Bibliotecque at Alexandrina and i have no idea why). It was HUGE! 3 buildings, 9 floors, 3 museums under the buildings, a rare books section, whole separate libraries for both children and young people, and more stuff that i can't even remember right now. It can hold 2,000 people reading at the same time and up to 1 million books. After a short intro the guide showed us how to navigate the libraries website. It was really funny because at one point she wanted to show us how to find english documents and she showed us a page with 7 tabs at the top. She said, "You click the 5th button on the top" and clicked the 3rd one from the left. After a second i realized its because she speaks/reads arabic so she starts from the right when she reads! After that we had some free time so me and my friend Melanie went to check out the rare books section. We asked the librarian if it was ok to come in and she said yes but don't touch anything so i walked around with my hands in my pockets. The books were really cool. They all looked really old and had titles in english, arabic, and french. I saw everything from dictionaries of tropical diseases to law encyclopedias to guides to American military weapons. I think they might have all been original copies of the books. After looking through there for a while me and Melanie went on facebook (yay!!!!) and then it was time to go. Thats when the trouble started.

The prime minister was giving a speech/press conference/seminar at the library that day and we weren't allowed to take the stairs up 1 floor to the exit. Instead we had to wait for the elevator which wasn't that bad except that everyone else had to wait too on the lower floors and our floor so they were all full. I somehow got separated from the group and it took me 10 minutes to catch an elevator. Since i left 5 minutes to get back to the bus (where all of my stuff was since you can't take bags inside the library) I was only 5 minutes late. After weaving through the crowd and going to my group's meeting place I was only 7 minutes late but my delightful S@S sponsored tour guide had left without me. Thats right, a female tourist who doesn't speak arabic was left alone in Alexandria by Semester at Sea with no money, no phone, no green sheet, no passport, no ID card. All i had was my camera and a used ticket to get into the library. I looked around for the bus for a while but I didn't want to stray too far and miss anyone who might come back for me. I saw some S@Sers after a while and I asked them if they had seen my group or the buses and they said they had left a long time ago but they were going to the bus station and i had no money and couldn't join them. Then i saw another S@S and asked him the same thing and his exact response was, "you're only like an hour walk from the ship." yeah right!! an hour walk in a country that doesn't exactly see women the way that America does with no passport or money??? HELL NO!

So i went back and asked all the guards i could find if they had seen my group and the only one who spoke english didn't understand or hadn't seen them (i couldn't tell) so i decided to look for any other S@S bus and demand that they let me on. After walking about a block i found one and I asked if they had seen bus 1 and the driver looked a little confused and that is when my bus driver came hurrying up carrying the bus 1 sign that the tour guide had and going "bus 1? bus 1?" Needless to say by then i was crying and was a mix of really happy to see him and really pissed to see him. It was 5-10 minute walk to the bus. They had obviously driven for a while before they realized that they left without me. When i got on the bus the tour guide and the S@S trip supervisor were trying to be all nice and all "Oh Emily there you are! are you alright?" and I can say that i was polite but i can't say that i was very nice.

After that we stopped by the Egyptian president's summer home which is about the size of 30 of my summer home (especially since it consists of 2 palaces) and then we headed back to the ship. I stopped at the tourist stands and got an Egyptian shirt so that i have something i can actually wear in Egypt and morocco and i got a Kartoosh (again phonetic... don't judge) which is a necklace with my name written on it in Egyptian hieroglyphs. And then i had dinner and bummed around the ship.

Whew! just one day took longer than i thought it would so i'm going to go eat dinner and do today later.

ps. i have a sweet bruise from bungee jumping that finally started showing today. it only took 5 days for it to appear. goodness!