The Beginning

Monday, December 12, 2011
After years of saving, months of planning, and days of packing, we were finally ready to go.  We loaded 8 people (my mom was with us),15 suitcases and 8 carryons into our two cars.  We left at 7 a.m. and had two friends drive us to the airport.  We were off on our adventure! 

We made it to the airport without incident, but found out our flight was delayed by a half hour.  We flew to Salt Lake City, where we met up with Mom and Dad Harper who also joined us on the trip.  We then flew on a 10-hour flight from Salt Lake City to Paris.  We tried to sleep, but it didn't really seem like night--most of us got 2-4 hours of sleep.  We hoped to at least see glimpses of the city as we flew in (it seemed so sad to be so close and yet not get to do any sightseeing in Paris), but it was pouring rain.  So the aiport is all we saw of Paris.  Maybe next time... 



Paris Airport

We had another delay in Paris, so five hours later we finally took off for Cairo.  This was a 4 and 1/2 hour flight.  We landed very late, 11 p.m. local time.  Someone from our tour group met us as we disembarked.  He helped us get our entry visas, go through customs, and get all our luggage on the tour bus.  It had been over 30 hours since we left home.  We drove about an hour to our hotel.  William fell asleep on the way, which meant he didn't want to sleep later when we finally climbed in bed.  They had dinner waiting for us at the hotel, even though it was nearly midnight.  We ate some dinner, then finally got to our rooms.  We had time for about 4 hours of sleep before the wake up calls came at 6 a.m.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Even though we were totally sleep deprived, we were excited for our first day of sightseeing.  We started by driving through Cairo and going to two old Coptic churches .  Here are some of my first glimpses of Egpyt out the bus window.

 It was very hazy since the winds were blowing in from the desert. 

The first church was called the Hanging Church.  It was from the 4th century A.D. and called the Hanging Church because it was built atop an old Roman fortress and had no actual foundation. 

 It was a beautiful old church.

Outside were some beautiful mosiacs which told the story of Mary and Joseph fleeing into Egypt after Jesus was born.  I learned that there was already a thriving Jewish community in Egpyt that had been established by the prophet Jeremiah about 600 years earlier. 

The second church, which I didn't take any pictures of, was built atop the grotto where Joseph and Mary supposedly lived when they were in Egypt.  We also visited a Jewish synagogue nearby.

Next we left and drove to the Egyptian Museum.  This is right in Tahrir Square, where all the recent demonstrations and violence have been. 

Street Scene in Cairo

Tents of Protesters in Tahrir Square

We drove through on the tour bus with our armed guard, who was with us the whole time while we were in Egpyt, and I didn't feel in any danger. 


Egyptian Museum

 We spent about 2 hours inside the museum on a guided tour seeing the highlights, most of which were King Tut artifacts.  We couldn't take any pictures inside the museum.  It was built back in the 1930s (I think) by a British man and it didn't look like it had been updated much since.  But the stuff inside was amazing!  We saw the real gold mask of King Tut and the golden buriel boxes, plus lots of vases and jewelry and artifacts.  It was amazing to think how old the items were.  David worked hard and finally got William to take a nap while we were in the museum.