Alexandria is a beautiful city where we wish we spent more than a day. It's very clean and has a European flare. We took a train and it was a good way to see the country. The train station in Cairo looked very dumpy! It looked like it was under construction and there was fabric coverings on most of it.
The train station from the outside...
The train station from the inside.
The train station from the inside.
The train ride experience was one of the trip highlights for a couple of reasons. The obvious: the scenery on the train. The less obvious: the experience of the military officers. Let me explain...the Egyptian government takes tourism VERY seriously because it's the #1 source of economy in Egypt (there's been terrorist attacks in Egypt before). To make sure we made it from the bus to the train safely, about 30-40 military officers, all with automatic machine guns, escorted our group. It seemed like an excessive amount of officers. I really couldn't get a picture since you're not supposed to take pictures of them. The officers made sure none of the Egyptians got in our way too. Fawzy, our program director, said this is standard procedure. It makes you feel unsafe because there's all these guys with guns around you.
It's probably a good time to mention that whenever we are on a tour with our group, there is at least one military officer assigned to us. He sat on the bus and followed us on all of the tours.
It's probably a good time to mention that whenever we are on a tour with our group, there is at least one military officer assigned to us. He sat on the bus and followed us on all of the tours.
Military officers protecting our tour group from the moment we got off the bus to when we got on the train.
Two hour train ride to Alexandria...
On the train ride we saw lots of animals such as cows and donkeys, homes, hanging clothes, kids swimming and it got more green as went north along the Nile delta.
On the train ride. I wish we got a good picture of all the garbage - there were HUGE piles of garbage, like 10-20' high. These pictures don't do it justice.
Interesting comment I overheard on the train ride (background info - the bathrooms are dirty and the kind where your pee/poop go on the tracks):
"Today would have been a good day to wear my Depends." (pretty sure 1/2 joking...)
"Today would have been a good day to wear my Depends." (pretty sure 1/2 joking...)
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Like other old places, the walking area is uneven and inconsistent. Someone from our group fell at this site and the ambulance came. It turned out she went to the Alexandria hospital, found out that her hip was broken, and then had to be driven to the Cairo hospital for hip replacement surgery. I think a lot of people prayed for her, and praise God, that her surgery went well. We saw her on the 2nd to last day of the trip and she was upbeat, and ready to head back to the U.S.! Praise God for the Egyptian doctors and staff that were able to take care of her!After getting off the train...
There was a small area of artifacts outside of the Roman Amphitheater. Since Alexandria is near the Mediterranean Sea, they are now finding artifacts through excavations in the sea.
Artifacts - notice pictures in the background of the divers finding these items.
Large obelisk found in the Mediterranean.
The Roman Amphitheater was both historic and beautiful! It's believed to have been built in the 2nd century and this was found in the 4th excavation and took 30 + years to excavate.
Large obelisk found in the Mediterranean.
The theater has the perfect speaking location - where the voice is amplified so all could hear. We had it to ourselves (just us two) for a while and it was great! It sounded like you were echoing in both ears.
The Egyptians think the amphitheater was most likely not used for entertainment bur rather a school lecture area. They thought this because of some artifact findings in the red section. After, it was believed to be a worship area for Christians!
Honey.
View of the amphitheater with no tourists!
The Benson's! standing the perfect speaking spot.
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The Egyptians are very proud of the Alexandria Library. It costed $280 million to build in the early 2000's. It's very modern in terms of architecture and technology. The library has a system to print any book on demand in 5 - 20 minutes but they are waiting for copywriter's issues to clear before going public. My guess is that it may take a while.
The library was fairly big and there were a couple of museums downstairs.
Catching up on physics, in his native language of Arabic.
The library was nice, glad we saw it, but would have skipped if we were not on the tour. I feel the library is shown to tourists for political reasons. I felt the the library tour was to display a sophisticated and modern Egypt, overshadowing the corruption that goes on (maybe I'll get into that later in an entry), and the country wanting you to tell your family and friends that Egypt is beyond the stereotype.
However, I could be bias towards library tours, since I don't read.
However, I could be bias towards library tours, since I don't read.
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We ate at hotel restaurant that overlooked the Mediterrainan Sea - the scenery was beautiful. There were a lot of people on the beach and Alexandria is a popular place for wealthier Egyptians to vacation.
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We then stopped for 15 minutes to stick our feet into the Mediterranean. I think it's funny that we spent such a short amount of time there but we did enjoy every moment there!
The beach was beautiful. We have never been on an all shelled beach, instead of sand. After thinking about it, we should have taken some of these shells back home. :)
I wanted to run in the ocean! I love the ocean.
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Still in Alexandria, we then went to Qaitbey Fort, the supposed location of the Lighthouse of Alexandria (one of the Seven Wonders of the World). The lighthouse stood for 1500 years but then was damaged by two earthquakes, one in 700 and 1300 A.D. So this fort is the general location of the lighthouse.
The Qaitbey Fort was built between 1477-1480 to fight against the Ottoman Turks.
We ended up buying a little bit of stuff (junk) from some vendors. Lot of this junk is $1 so it's hard to pass up even though you know the quality is horrible. For example, I bought a deck of cards that I will never use because the card thickness is super thin and would be very difficult to shuffle.
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We took the tour bus back to Cairo (3 hrs) and stopped at a very random rest stop. I got ice cream, paid for it, and then found out the worker was pocketing the money for himself. His supervisor came over and yelled at him (I didn't know this but you were supposed to go to a cashier area to pay and then bring the receipt to the worker to get the ice cream).
Anyway, that's not why it was random. It turns out, there was a mini-mini zoo outside of the building - caged ostriches, deer and llamas! If I knew there was a zoo outside, I probably would not have gotten ice cream.
Anyway, that's not why it was random. It turns out, there was a mini-mini zoo outside of the building - caged ostriches, deer and llamas! If I knew there was a zoo outside, I probably would not have gotten ice cream.
Deer.
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That night we walked around our hotel in Cairo for a bit to try to find a grocery store. Checking out grocery stores is one of my favorite things to do when traveling! You learn so much about the culture there...no joke. Also, it is fun to look at how items are packaged.We did not walk around too long, mainly because we felt uncomfortable just us two. So, no grocery store was found!
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