Welcome to Egypt!

April 25, 2010, 3:00pm we stepped off the plane at the Cairo International Airport, after 22 hours of travel and only a few hours of sleep on the flights, and embarked on our adventure. I had seen the pyramids from my plane window as we flew over Giza and was already excited to see what lie ahead for us in Egypt.

Signs in the airport were in Arabic and English so it was easy to find our way through the big airport. At the restroom I was greeted by a friendly attendant who handed me toilet paper to dry my hands on and, I assumed, wanted a tip from me in return. I played dumb tourist and smiled and walked out as I was not about to tip for using a public restroom and only had my large and valuable US dollars on me. Culture shocker number 1: Egyptians think you should pay to use a public restroom, even if, as we later came to find out, the bathroom is poorly kept up and has no toilet paper, as in the case of the restrooms at Karnac Temple.

Seeing Egypt from my window

We made our way through the airport, purchased our tourist visas, changed some money into Egyptian Pounds, went through passport control, luckily claimed all our pieces of luggage, then headed out into the throng of taxi drivers anxiously awaiting their next passengers. "Taxi?" they all asked as we passed (something we would come to hear constantly as we walk anywhere). Michael used his Arabic to negotiate a taxi ride to our hotel while I stuck close by him, quietly taking in my first views of Egypt. It was hot, but definitely not as bad as I was expecting (we just needed another 3 weeks to allow Summer to really hit), and the airport looked large and new and quite first-world. We only had to drive about 15 minutes before we saw slums and realized that yes, Egypt really is a third-world country.

As the warm breeze blew in on us through the open windows, and Michael conversed with our driver in Arabic, that first taxi ride was a great time to take in the views of downtown Cairo. Mosques, with their tall minarets, dotted the landscape surrounded by buildings, apartments, and narrow roads filling all the space in between. Laundry was hanging out over most balconies and the dessert sand was visible in the distance. It was all so new and different and it was neat to just take it all in while we drove. I was glad to have a seatbelt as traffic was busy and crazy. As we came to find out, most taxi drivers remove their back seat belts or buckles, or both, so I was pretty lucky to have a functioning seat belt on our 30 minute ride.

We arrived safely at our Maadi Hotel, checked, got our luggage put down, then collapsed on the bed in our small, but nice room. We were both tired from our long hours of travel, forwards in time, and it was too much to think about what time it should have been for us in the US. A 10 hour time difference from Utah to Cairo makes for a pretty good case of jet lag. We were told it's best to stay awake until a normal bedtime hour, so we got off our bed and went exploring our hotel. Up on the roof of the hotel we had a great view of the surrounding city.

We arrived a day later than everyone else so we weren't sure what the rest of the group was up to, but we ran into a couple of Michael's classmates on the roof who informed us of the group's schedule for the evening. That evening our whole group convened in the lobby and we all walked to the church building for a little orientation meeting and security briefing from the embassy workers of the ward. By this time we were exhausted and just wanted to sleep, so we when finally got back to our hotel, we hit the sack in an attempt to sleep off the jet lag.

Our second day here we got to go to the pyramids at Giza and ride camels! This was definitely a highlight.

View as we drove by

Standing on the big pyramid

Love that camel face!

Our camels and guide

The sphinx was also really cool to see!

Michael with his friends Andrew, Jeremy, Shawn and Trevin and Mr. Sphinx

My kiss with the Sphinx

We loved our trip to the pyramids and it was a great kick off to our time in Egypt. We stayed in the hotel with the group that whole first week and we filled our time with exploring Maadi, eating the yummy cheap local food, getting cell phones, getting our first cases of the runs, finding apartments then moving into our apartment. Everywhere we went it seemed there was someone to tell us in their Arabic accent, "Welcome to Egypt!" or, the other favorite, "Welcome in Egypt!"