ammogirl

Anyway there we were, on the Nile, eating lunch.  Being that we were A) starving and B) dumb we all piled our plates high and ate away.  It was good!  Truly!  We were all diggin the Egyptian food.  At this point, seeing the people fishing from the trash-filled Nile and eating fish were totally unconnected.  Naive.

After lunch we headed to the Egyptian Museum.  This is where all the  Tutankhaman artifacts are held, when they aren’t out touring.  I will tell you, we were really, really stoked to go here, and a large part of that was due to the fact that it was a museum, which was sure to have air conditioning. Because, if you don’t remember, it was damn hot.

However, for whatever reason, the Egyptian Museum does NOT have air conditioning.  What it does have is ninety-seven million visitors inside its walls at any given time, making for a really uncomfortable, unenjoyable experience.  I am telling you, it was ridiculously hot.  It smelled, and it was hot, and it was so not fun.  Okay, seeing the King Tut stuff was actually pretty cool, but we couldn’t take pictures, which sort of dampens the coolness.  You know, because photographic memories don’t work so well IN THE FIRES OF HELL.

Afterwards we headed to the hotel, where I took a bath and washed my sweat-drenched clothes in the sink, because who knew we would need ten thousand different outfits for social events (dinner with the tour group).  How hot was it, even at night?  My dripping capris and t-shirt were bone dry within the hour.  Ugh.

Sooo…we’ve established that it was hot in Egypt, I think.  So just keep that general theme in mind, I guess, or don’t, because I’ll probably mention it again.

After dinner we went to a lightshow at the Pyramids, which was super cool but didn’t start until 1030pm.  At that point we had been awake and on the go since 6am.  Little tired, and let me tell you I slept hard that night.

The next morning we piled back in the bus and headed to: Saqqara, Lunch, the Pyramids/Sphinx, and Memphis.  At the risk of totally complaining (which I am, I’m completely whining about this, I realize that, so I’ll keep it short): neat to see, one time will definitely be enough.  There.

I’m sure the heat and the beggars and the trash and the overwhelming dirtiness  (and the food poisoning) put a damper on the experience, but I will go on the record to say: I did not enjoy Egypt and I never, ever want to go back.

That afternoon, Taylor started feeling sick.  The rest of us were not 100%, but we put that down to the heat.

That night, Taylor started throwing up.

And then, you know, the other end.  The next morning I took her to the ship doctor, who gave her antibiotics, an anti-diarrheal, and weirdly, some probiotics (not weird that he gave them to her, just weird that a doctor prescribed them).  We were in Cyprus that day, but by the time the two of us made it back to the cabin it was clear that none of us could really go anywhere.

It was a long day.

The next day we were docked at Rhodes.  We had an excursion booked, but none of us could be more than an elevator ride away from the bathroom, so we had to miss it.  I went back to the doctor that afternoon to get more medicine, and that’s when I found out that several families on our Egypt excursion were suffering from the same thing.  I think they issued a lot of Loperamide those couple of days.

Unfortunately, the rest of the trip was definitely affected by that; fortunately the rest of the trip was spent in Greece so it was super easy to have a great time, regardless of any gastrointestinal distress.

Greece was so beautiful.  We didn’t have enough time there, for sure.  Our next big vacay will be at least one week there, if not more.  The difference between the ancient history in Egypt and the ancient history is Greece is so large–I can’t really explain it but although all the places are now tourist sites, it seems like the Pyramids are just commercial, while the Greek sites are more…real?  I don’t know.

Overall I give the entire vacay an eight.  The Egypt interlude is more amusing than anything, even taking into account that we missed Cyprus and Rhodes.  We’re really glad we went.

Now we’re back, and back at work, and it’s raining here.  The girls flew to Alaska yesterday, so John and I are kidless for five weeks.  I should be doing homework.  My house is a complete mess but I don’t care, and now I’m going to go read.

Tschuss!!