A lot has happened in these last two weeks, but I did warn you all that I am horrible at keeping a blog up to date. Hopefully I'll make time to summarize parts of that time, but for now I think I'll just move on to the present :)
Today was our first "weekend" where we had a chance to decide what we wanted to do and where we wanted to go without having any other commitments. Most of our group decided to go out to the Pyramids. First off, the Pyramids do not look like the national geographic pictures. There are two different "gates" in and either road to the pyramids is pretty much part of Cairo. The far side is desert, but the actual Pyramid complex is really accessible and not "out in the wilderness" by any means. Also, the pyramids are surrounded by ropes to prohibit climbing, lots of police, and merchants who are excited to sell memorabilia to "rich Western tourists".
Our taxi brought us to a different entrance then the rest of the group. We tried waiting for a while, but it's really a bad place to wait because everyone and his brother wants to show you around or take you on a camel ride. Eventually we walked up past the Sphynx (it is much smaller than I imagined) and around the Pyramids. After trying to go inside a pyramid, we were told to walk to the OTHER gate to pay for the inside ticket. It was pretty awesome to be inside of a Pyramid, but honestly it was just kind of claustrophobic and non-climactic.
It was also a very strange sensation to be surrounded by so many tourists! We've grown so used to being the "strange" people who stick out that it was almost comforting to be surrounded by so many scantily clad westerners. We did notice that, even with our more conservative (western) dress and minimal grasp of Arabic, the merchants seemed to offer us more respect. Even with those precautions, I was draped with a turban/headcover thing, asked about my marital status, and semi-side-hugged by a camel driver. The people at the pyramids are quite aggressive and seem to know how to get what they want- but, in general, we stayed strong and persevered in our desires and bargains :)
We were only out there for a few hours, but we still came home exhausted- I have absolutely no idea how the Muslims are able to do Ramadan and don't eat or drink ANYTHING in this heat. We got back around noon, drank bottles of water, had our first fabulous lunch as a flat, and fell into bed for afternoon naps.
