Greetings!! Today we are going to do more sights of Cairo, Old Cairo, an old Mosque, the University among other things I am sure it will be an interesting day. Tomorrow we are planning on going to the pyramids. We will be making that trip with many warnings that we have received around the breakfast tables. One coupe felt so hassled by the tricks of the taxi drivers, tourist handlers, games and tricks, that they felt their day was quite negatively impacted. Nothing better than some good tips!!
We talked to a woman who went into Gaza in March with the Codepink group. She has arranged a group of her own that is connected with Codepink that is leaving a day after us. Her description of Gaza is quite bleak.


Yesterday I spent the morning with my niece, Tara, while she shopped for a cell phone. In the pursuit of doing so, we found ourselves in a market and on various side streets. The atmosphere was chaotic and an assault to the senses. Tara was impressively successful purchasing a phone, and later, finding a card to add minutes. After the phone, we hooked back up with Madeline and Joel, and went back to the market with shopping interests. Madeline and I each bought a pair of shoes from a skilled 10 year old shop tender who drove a hard bargain. Joel bought a pair of men capris. Then we ate some Egyptian sandwiches from a street vendor and finished it up going to a tea shop. It was all quite fun.
Then we were off to the British Museum. We decided to be self reliant and chose to take the Metro. After crossing streets (which can be incredibly harrowing, best technique is to find another person crossing, and then tail gate them, but a better tip that we learned at breakfast is to tail a woman carrying a child, or someone with a cane!!!) taking staircases that did not lead to the Metro, and spinning our wheels, we asked some girls where it was, and they took us to the station and bought our tickets for us!!! Well, at least our self sufficiency will be improved for our next journey! We were off to the Egyptian Museum.
Then we walked to the Nile river which was another completely different environment. There are a lot of very decorated boats that take tourists out for an hour boat trip. It looked like they all had very loud music and some people were dancing. We had a nice dinner based on a recommendation, then called it a day!!!