Up and Around Cairo

This week before orientation, Mom, me and Ellen spent our time doing some touring around town and some relaxing outside. We took a driver to Ain Soukhna which is a resort town about an hour out of Cairo on the Red Sea. Watching the rock formations zoom by us I was reminded of all the geological history lessons I had learned about the area; how it used to be under water and how there is still water hundreds of meters underground. We stayed at the Stella di Mare Grand Hotel for one night of relaxation and lots of eating. We arrived at the hotel and checked in pretty quickly. We dumped our bags in the room and changed into swim suits with our clothes on top. There was a little bit of a wait for food in the outdoor eating area. Since it is winter in Egypt there is the slight chance of rain and the poolside restaurant had been flooded out! We had just missed the rain and saw traces of it everywhere. After some food we went down to the beach and waded in the water a bit and walked up and down the shoreline. Dinner was a wonderful buffet filled with lots of mysterious but very sweet tasting desserts.

The next day was spent soaking up as much sun as we could on the beach and using our towels as blankets when the sun would be covered by clouds. We made it back home with a few quick rain showers and started planning for our Alexandria outing.

We decided to spend one day in Alexandria and would travel by train. We made it to the train station at about 7:15 and bought tickets for the 8 am train. With the extra time we sat in the cafe they had there and had a cup of tea and croissant. The train was pretty dirty on the outside, but on the inside we found our seats and we spent most of the time reading or watching the delta farmland pass by. When we got to the station in Alex we hired a taxi for the day and sped of to the Roman catacombs that are famous in Alex. They were really neat and you could barely see anything special from above ground but as we descended into a spiral staircase that seemed to go on and on we entered an ancient world. There were mixes of paintings and carvings with all Greco-Roman design. The amount of space down there was very surprising. The modern day water level actually floods parts of the catacombs during the winter so they had laid down board in parts so we can get across. I guess that is just Egypt for you. Next then it was off to the fortress/Citadel and had some amazing ocean views. What was really fascinating was that there were more Egyptians there than tourists. We also visited the Library at Alexandria which was very modern and up to date and we as well visited King Farouqs palace and its gardens. The ride back home was spent with us lazing around the train and looking at pictures from the day.
Brianna Lehnert