Day 2 (a little late)

King (deceased).

This is the occupation listed on King Ramesses II's passport. Why did he have a passport? Because they had to ship his mummified body to Paris for examination of a fungal infection, which led to the discovery that Ramesses II had a mandible infection and that his original hair color was red. Yep, Ramesses the Great, the most celebrated pharaoh of Egypt, was a ginger who died from dental problems.

I learned this by questioning our tour guide at the Cairo Egyptian Museum after returning from their mummy exhibit, which fascinatingly features the incredibly well-preserved body of one of the most famous rulers in history. I may be fairly cynical, but even I was fascinated by being only a few inches away from him.



The exhibit reminded me of Body Worlds, except replace the crazy artistic stuff with ridiculously important historical relevance. Honestly, the Egyptian Museum is a place you could wander around for 8 hours, then come back the next day and still find a hundred things you missed the day before. The King Tut exhibit alone could take a whole day to fully explore. And yes, that includes the King Tut Funerary Mask which you'll recognize below, along with the entrance to the museum featuring the Lotus and Papyrus plants of Upper and Lower Egypt.


The Museum took up most of our energy for the day. We did hit up the revolving restaurant at the top of the Cairo Tower for dinner. The food was meh, but the views were amazing. Unfortunately none of those pictures worked out, but here's the tower from ground level.


Tomorrow is a heavy tour day, including the Muhammad Ali Mosque. More to come...

First Day Out...

So we decided to forgo a leisurely meal in the hotel and venture out into downtown Cairo to find food. We went to a little place called Paprika, pictured below. They had no menus, and only two options, fish or meat. It actually turned out to be great, and was a fun way to start off the trip.


Slightly less fun is the technique required to walk through the busy streets of Cairo. Many of us were surprised when the bus that drove us to the hotel from the airport pulled a 145 degree turn into oncoming 30mph traffic. I think all of us were surprised to learn pedestrians must perform the same trick to cross busy streets. To get an idea of what it's like, I have an overhead shot of us trying to cross the street towards the Nile...


Basically the idea is just to step in front of a car going 25 instead of 35, and hope they'll stop. Good times.

Came back in time to test out the pool before sunset, and grab a cappuccino to stave off some jet lag. And while there were no biblical figures in my cappuccino foam, it did make a pretty solid peacock. Check it out:


Ok, next up is drinks on the rooftop bar. I think if I wake up at 6am tomorrow I can catch the last 20 minutes of the Lakers game.

Arrived...

Two beers in the Sam Adams pub prior to takeoff were no match for the 15 screaming children that ran around buzzing everyone's flight attendant call buttons for the past 12 hours on flight 84 to Cairo. Shout out to David for talking his way into Business Class. You were the envy of our entire crew.

You know what the first thing you do in Cairo is after you get off plane? You're met by a bunch of people in masks and go through quarantine screening. Guess they're taking the Swine Flu pretty seriously. I accidentally coughed twice and it did not go unnoticed. Luckily the guy who questioned me spoke zero English, so I finally got through after shaking my head about 40 times.

Anyway, gotta run, but here's the view of the Nile from my hotel room. More to come...

T-minus One Day and Counting

It's the night before our trip to Egypt, and I haven't packed. Ok, I've prepared to pack, but I simply do not have whatever mental fortitude is required to physically put things in bags prior to the actual day I'm traveling.

So I'll save that for tomorrow morning, and instead I'm cleaning and watching the Endless Love scene from Happy Gilmore. Coming up next, the Bob Barker fight scene. Classic.

This is all part of my master plan to cope with the time change. For instance, right now it's 8am in Egypt. Who goes to sleep at 8am? Instead, I'm holding out for a nap around noon before packing and heading to the airport. Then my flight takes off at 11pm Egypt time, so once we hit cruising altitude I'll be out like a light. Perfect. In theory, at least. We'll see if my plan works out...