Egypt Day One - Alexandria

So excited for Egypt! Growing up through school, we did an Egypt program every year. I feel like I know a bit about it. Definitely fascinating. Definitely exciting. I couldn’t WAIT to get off the ship and see Alexandria. The original city was conquered during the time of Alexander the Great. Alex was a Macedonian who conquered almost one third of the whole of Asia and the Middle East during his reign (he died at 33). In many of the places that he conquered, he renamed cities after himself (but the feminine version of his name) and ensured that the cities were built up into huge Metropolitan areas. Just a tidbit on how the city got its name. As you can tell, I’m a history nerd BIG time, and Egypt is SO rich in history. Our first day encompassed a SAS trip called the Best of Alexandria. It started early, and I have to say that I think it covered just about all there is to see…
We started around 9:30, as soon as the boat cleared immigration. We have to take our passports around Egypt (which is a little scary) or we can’t get on and off the boat. As we were on the trip, we were allowed to get them first, so we bypassed a HUGE wait. Nice! Haha.
The trip started at the Catacombs of Alexandria, and the bus ride there certainly dispelled some of the notions that I had about Egypt. I knew that it was a repressed country, and that it was on the level of China on human rights and freedoms. I knew that it was a developing nation and that it would not be clean and that there would be a LOT of poverty on the streets. There were beggars in China; there were beggars in Greece. I know what they look like and I know how I feel when I see them. Alexandria tops them all. The place is huge and it’s filthy. There are people who live along the rivers with dead animals in them, especially dead horses. There is trash everywhere. In China, there is a certain level of order. You know that there is still poverty and dirt, but at the same time, there are measures to clean it up to a degree. I’m not sure that there are any measures here. Not in Alexandria at least. It’s definitely the most “developing” (?, pc?) country that I’ve ever been too. Everywhere you look is a little “sketch”.
Anyway, when we actually got to the Catacombs, they were rather interesting. Our guide was a cute little lady and she did most of the explaining outside. The catacombs are basically a public cemetery that is underground. There are huge burial cites where there are multiple bodies placed (in big holes in the wall), and then more exclusive tombs. We went about three stories underground and toured them all. There was a festival room that we went to, and we were even allowed to see the more exclusive burial rooms with the really nice raised tombs. They would actually lower the bodies down into the catacombs and allow the family members to watch it go down the shaft to the burial “holes”. One historical fact I picked up.
After the catacombs we headed to the Alexandria National Museum. This was fascinating for me. The museum was split into different eras in Egyptian and Alexandrian history. I don’t remember it all, but there was a lot of different jewelry from the different time periods and some Hatshepsut stuff (B.A. lady Pharaoh). On the basement floor there was an actual mummy with the sarcophagus intact. There were three layers, and they were all beautiful. I’d never heard of the mummy, but there are an awful lot in Egypt in general…I always feel a bit uncomfortable going into places like that. I’ve read a couple books on Egypt and I hate to sound like a know it all, because I really don’t know that much at all, but I always come off that way. I want to tell James all the things I know, but then other people listen in and I sound like a little professor on the tour. I hate that. Lol. But I think James would rather know than me stay quiet about it…So Professor Jack reigned in Egypt for a few days.
Lunch was after. Really nice place down by the beach and Quaitbay Fort (which is a fort on the beach that literally looks like a ten story sand castle). We ate with the LLCs (which are like the RA’s  (Resident Assistants) of the ship) and a few professors. It’s different, but we relate better…still. Lunch was great, and we got a few shots of the beach the bay with the boats docked. Pretty nice overall.
Next was the Library! Highlight of the day for me! Let me give you some history (sorry):
The original Library of Alexandria was put together by one of the Ptolemys (who were the rulers of Egypt for years and years). This particular Ptolemy wanted to build a grand library, and in it house all the knowledge of the world. He took advice from the greatest philosophers of the time and gathered texts from all over the world: Archimedes, Aristarchus, Eratosthenes (people like that). The museum was huge and it was known throughout the area. Unfortunately, it was destroyed in a fire and all but one scroll was destroyed. Basically one of the greatest catastrophes ever. They’ve rebuilt a new “Bibliotheca Alexandria” in it’s place with a historical museum underground that we toured. The library is huge. It’s shaped like a disk to represent the sun and there is a planetarium dome where they show scientific films that represents the earth. It has a killer website where you can see almost every book in the library. You should check it out. I loved being there. There are students from the university next-door who were studying there and I couldn’t help but think how absolutely lucky they were to be studying in the site of the greatest library in history. I’m sappy like that.
Last on the tour was a palace that we saw from behind a gate and the gardens that surrounded it. Let’s just say that I’m from the desert, and we don’t do gardens. The Sahara is no different than the Sonora in that fashion.
We had dinner on the ship to be heap and then met with James’ roommate and some of our friends to go the grocery store. We split up into two taxies: James, Jack, Charlotte and Patrick, John, Maggie (Charlotte’s friend). Our taxi made it just fine (though we were haggled INTENSELY before hand. It seriously sucked). We waited for thirty minutes for John and the others till we decided to just go in. We finally found them in the food section. I guess that their taxi driver wouldn’t take them to the Carrefore and instead took them to the bazaar (called a Souk here) across the street instead. There followed a huge argument and John and them running from the taxi man till he caught up to them in another taxi and demanded money. Not a good first impression.
We grocery shopped for awhile. Got some coke and other necessities. They were running a deal that you could get three free sodas for every six you bought. We bough enough soda to get 36 other sodas. For free. Hahahahahaha. We ended up selling 24 to my roommate and we have another twelve to barter with. Productive night though the grocery store was an absolute mess and the taxi ride was a little extreme.
I can tell that this place is going to be different. It’s about as Islam centered as Istanbul, but they are more devout here I feel. There are NO women without a head dress. There are even women in full Habib (pronounced Ha-beeb) where there is everything covered except their eyes. They even wear gloves and all black. Our tour guide explained to us that Islam only requires that you dress modestly and have your hair covered as a female. This is called the veil of Islam. You may wear any color. If you are dressed in a full Habib, with your face exposed, then you are a “radical” Muslim. For those who are dressed with all but their eyes covered, then they are not originally Egyptian. Only countries like Saudi Arabia and countries surrounding it use the face coverings. All very interesting stuff. As we do not often cover our hair though and do not own Habibs, we get some different types of looks. And catcalls. And stares. It’s going to be interesting, and for all who aren’t travelling with a guy, I’m interested to see how their travels went.