nick is tall. and sometimes, he does strange things with his legs...
i am one hundred feet tall.
view from my apartment
bedouin nick with me and charlie brown
posted by Mera @ 5:26 AM
1 comments
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
nick is tall. and sometimes, he does strange things with his legs...4 more days...
wow, i have really neglected this blog in the past month. i apologize--quite a lot has happened so i'm going to try to catch up over a couple of posts.
nick came to visit a couple of weeks ago! it was pretty hysterical walking around with a 6'5 blond haired, blue eyed american man--as if i didn't draw enough attention to myself already. but at least the catcalls were directed at him this time: "lucky man."
almost immediately after he got off his flight, we hopped on a bus headed for sharm el sheikh: a beautiful resort town in the sinai. we spent the weekend on the beach relaxing, eating good food, and pretty much in the anti-egypt. it was bizarre, actually. the resort was so full of europeans comfortable in speedos and itsy bitsy bikinis that i couldn't have felt farther from egypt. AND, i had my first snorkeling experience--apparently the snorkeling and diving in sharm is some of the most beautiful in the world. we took a boat for a couple hours until we were in sight of saudi arabia, and then we spent all day in incredibly warm, blue waters. absolutely amazing. everything is so vivid underwater--i don't think the pictures can possibly do it justice.
we spent the rest of his time in cairo--i wanted him to be able to see as much of the city as possible, but there is just so much to see here. we walked around coptic cairo for a day, looking at churches from the FIRST century (incredible) and even got to see some of a coptic orthodox service. the emphasis on icons and incense is much more intense than in roman catholicism, and the singing of the priest has a distinct middle eastern chant feel--but the latin chants are the same. it was really, really cool.
we also went to the pyramids--while a lot of people expect the pyramids to be in the middle of the desert, they are actually just on the outskirts of the city. if photographed from the right angle, you can see them rising out of the city background. we walked around for a while, just admiring the sheer size of these ancient tombs, and then hopped on a camel named charlie brown to continue our journey. our camel driver was pretty hysterical, actually--he gave us advice about how to not get robbed, and showed us pictures of his friends, and (much to my delight) dressed nick up like a bedouin. it's a rough business these days at the pyramids. he mentioned to us how we were his first customers of the day, and that business has dropped severely since 9/11. what's ironic about cairo is that violent crime is incredibly low and that tourist police are on almost every street corner to insure foreigners' safety, but people are still afraid to come here. it's sad--it's a city with a lot to offer.
nick came to visit a couple of weeks ago! it was pretty hysterical walking around with a 6'5 blond haired, blue eyed american man--as if i didn't draw enough attention to myself already. but at least the catcalls were directed at him this time: "lucky man."
almost immediately after he got off his flight, we hopped on a bus headed for sharm el sheikh: a beautiful resort town in the sinai. we spent the weekend on the beach relaxing, eating good food, and pretty much in the anti-egypt. it was bizarre, actually. the resort was so full of europeans comfortable in speedos and itsy bitsy bikinis that i couldn't have felt farther from egypt. AND, i had my first snorkeling experience--apparently the snorkeling and diving in sharm is some of the most beautiful in the world. we took a boat for a couple hours until we were in sight of saudi arabia, and then we spent all day in incredibly warm, blue waters. absolutely amazing. everything is so vivid underwater--i don't think the pictures can possibly do it justice.
we spent the rest of his time in cairo--i wanted him to be able to see as much of the city as possible, but there is just so much to see here. we walked around coptic cairo for a day, looking at churches from the FIRST century (incredible) and even got to see some of a coptic orthodox service. the emphasis on icons and incense is much more intense than in roman catholicism, and the singing of the priest has a distinct middle eastern chant feel--but the latin chants are the same. it was really, really cool.
we also went to the pyramids--while a lot of people expect the pyramids to be in the middle of the desert, they are actually just on the outskirts of the city. if photographed from the right angle, you can see them rising out of the city background. we walked around for a while, just admiring the sheer size of these ancient tombs, and then hopped on a camel named charlie brown to continue our journey. our camel driver was pretty hysterical, actually--he gave us advice about how to not get robbed, and showed us pictures of his friends, and (much to my delight) dressed nick up like a bedouin. it's a rough business these days at the pyramids. he mentioned to us how we were his first customers of the day, and that business has dropped severely since 9/11. what's ironic about cairo is that violent crime is incredibly low and that tourist police are on almost every street corner to insure foreigners' safety, but people are still afraid to come here. it's sad--it's a city with a lot to offer.
posted by Mera @ 4:44 AM
0 comments
