September 14-27th (Vacation Pt. 2)

Immediately after the sphinx, our tour guide wanted to bring us to another local restaurant. Having still had some stomach pains from the last one, we as a group opted for the wussy option and went to the Pizza Hut in view of the Sphinx. It was a pretty good call, though, because immediatley afterwards we were heading home and another 7 hours in a bus with gastro-intestinal discomfort would've been very bad indeed.

The way home was pretty uneventful, except that we didn't have an escort, nor were there any other buses with us. Just one single lone tour bus driving the empty streets through the desert of Egypt. Fortunately, nothing came of it.

The next day, loaded with our newfound knowledge on proper bartering techniques, we were ready to do some serious souvenier shopping. The first stop was to a little shop in the same shopping plaza we went in on the second day. The kid working the shop at the time was a novice and was easily talked down. I got a shotglass for Kelly. The kid wanted 45 pounds (~$9) for the thing at first, but I talked him down to 15 (~$3). "But it has metal on it!" says the kid. "I know," says I, "15 pounds. No more." I won.

Our biggest victory was our last- we had only 50 pounds left in our pockets and thought we'd see if we could steal a papyrus scroll for it. We went in the papyrus shop and Savannah started looking around. She found a couple she liked and then asked the shopkeeper the price. 1000 pounds, he said, as he looked at me. I laughed and started to walk out. He said, "No no no, I was only joking, my friend! Please! Name me a price for this!" (Joking my ass. He was looking to make a month's pay in one fell swoop.) Knowing we only had 50 pounds and thinking we'd have to have a little bit of wiggle room in the negotiation, I said, "I'll give you 40 pounds for it. That's all we have". The guy looked incredulous. "240 pounds" he offered. After awhile, I finally got it through his thick melon that we only had 40 pounds on us and we were going to walk out of the store with nothing if he didn't sell us the scroll for that much. Eventually he conceded. Its amazing, he was trying to sucker someone into buying a papyrus that costed him less than 40 pounds (it must have, or he wouldn't have sold it to us for that much) for 30 times the price. We walked out with the scroll and quite happy.

One of the most telling experiences we had aslo came on this shopping trip. We went into a souveiner shop to buy a couple of things for Timmy and Katie and started up a conversation with the shopkeeper. We said we were from Canada and he looked at us with surprise. Apparently he has been trying for some time to immigrate to either Canada or Australia and was thrilled at the chance to talk to somebody from there. Well, at this point, I didn't have the heart to tell him we weren't indeed from Canada, but the conversation was enlightening any way. The shopkeeper is a Coptic Orthodox Christian. There are quite a few of them in Egypt- Cairo's population of 18 million has over 8 million of them. Despite this, non-Muslims in Egypt are treated like second-class citizens. The guy was telling us about how his sister (who lives in Alexandria) will walk down the street without wearing an Islamic head scarf and gets spat at. Any good jobs are impossible for a non-Muslim to get. Promotions in the military all go to Muslims. Worst of all, Christian Egyptians can't even freely travel the country. They need a special pass to go from one province or district to the other. All this, he said, is why he is trying at any cost to leave Egypt. He preferred Canada because his brother is already living and working there (in Quebec), but he said it's easier to immigrate to Australia. Just for giving him a good conversation about Canada and living in North America, he gave us a good deal on the stuff we bought and tossed in a couple of freebies on top of it. I thought at first he may have been telling us all this stuff to get some money off of us, but he never asked for money or even our names or anything, so I figure he was probably legitimately trying to immigrate to Canada.

The last day of the trip we went on a snorkeling voyage into the Red Sea. It was a boat ride out to a few differant coral reefs, plus a nice sandy island where we could relax for awhile. Timmy absolutley LOVED being in the water. In his bathing suit, you could sit him down right on the shore where the waves could lap over him, and he'd be happy all day. He cried each and every time we had to take him out of the water. The last coral reef we stopped at, we were able to get the coral tour guide to take a picture of the three of us swimming in the Red Sea. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to tread water while trying to keep a baby afloat!

After our final hurrah of shopping, we went back to the room to pack for the next day. We were leaving Egypt the following evening but had to be out of the room by noon. This effectivley meant we were camping out in the lobby of the resort from noon until five when our bus to the airport came. Timmy did alright, all things considered. He crawled around the lobby and there were plenty of other guests in the same boat as we.

Getting to the airport the next day, we found that nobody was checking in anyone. Because it was Ramadan and we got to the airport at 6, they shut down all operations to let everyone take a dinner break all at once. It seemed a very inefficient way to run things, but then I remembered what the Christan shopkeeper said about Islam dictating absolutley everything in the country.

The flight from Hurghada back to Frankfurt was an easy one- it started in the late evening, so Timmy was sleeping through most of it. Immediatley upon landing (around 1 a.m.) we went to take a bus to Frankfurt's other airport, Hahn. The bus, however, left about 2:45 a.m., so we sat in the terminal and drank coffee for awhile. The bus ride to Hahn is about an hour and a half long (4:15) and when we got to Hahn, it was time to check in for our flight to Ireland. The flight left for Ireland around 6 and we landed around 7:00 a.m., Ireland time. Although this made for an incredibly long night, it went about as smoothly as possible.

The last bit I'll put online tomorrow- all about Ireland.

As for today, Timmy's been very good. Last night he had trouble getting to sleep, but since we'll be home for awhile now, we're letting him cry it out again. He eventually got down after around a half-hour. The problem is he likes to stand in his crib and toss his pacifier out, and then he'll cry until someone replaces it. In the end, though, he got to sleep without the pacifier. Today's naps have gone well, too- with the pacifier, but with little fuss.

Timmy has three molars total, now. Just before leaving for Egypt the third one was coming through. It finished erupting in Egypt and now he chews like a cow.