Day 2: Alexandria

Here we are already at Day 2! I LOVE Egypt. Everyone here is SO friendly. As you ride around on the tour bus everyone smiles and waves at you. Of course I take this friendliness with a healthy sense of skepticism. But I’ll give them this…. They are a WHOLE lot nicer than Greek people.
We started out our day with a LONG bus ride to the city of Alexandria. Traffic, as always was atrocious. We toured the city on the bus for a while. We went by the place of some guy and spent some time wading in the Mediterranean Sea.
Our first major site for the day was the Catacombs. This place was pretty sweet. There were a bunch of openings that looked a little like honey-combs where they would put the mummified bodies. Mummification takes a total of 40 days for a commoner and 70 days for a Pharaoh. Christians used this catacomb as a place of refuge to hide. One of the major symbols through out the catacombs was a shell. This was representative of Christ because at the time period this was built Egypt would have been under the control of Pagan Rome. The place was musty and dank! And we couldn’t take pictures.
From there we were off to see the Pillar of Pompeii. I don’t remember a whole lot about this site. I’m sure it was important and I’m sure I’ve learned about it somewhere but my mind is drawing a blank at the moment. There were 2 sphinxes there and I asked Kathleen… Are these mini-sphinx? She looked at me kind-of funny and said, There’s no such thing as mini ones. You’re probably thinking of the Great Sphinx. Then shook her head and laughed. What can I say… I’ve never claimed to be the sharpest tack in the box.
Next we went to see where the foundation of the Light House of Alexandria used to be. There is a castle of some sort there now. WE got some beautiful sunset pictures with the Mediterranean sea crashing in the background. This is one of the 7 Ancient Wonders of the World. So if you ever feel like being a real smart-alek when someone asks you what your favorite wonder of the world is, say… Are you talking about the Ancient 7 Wonders or the Modern Ones, because there’s a big difference.
Our guide Osman, who is really really cool, apparently only remembers a couple of people’s names. Mine happens to be one of them. So he asked me questions and if I answered them right then he paid for ice cream. If I got them wrong then I paid. I got them both right. Yea me! Well he made sure I knew the answers in advance but I guessed really close when we were going over the questions.
See if you know:
1) What is the population of Egypt?
2) What is the population of Alexandria?

Answers:
76 million
5.5 million

I guessed 80 and 5. So I wasn’t that far off. But I wouldn’t want the group to
have the wrong information. So Osman helped me out a little. He came through for us later that evening with some of the most AMAZING ice cream I’ve ever had! It reminded me a little of sweet and condensed milk. This tops even Blue Bell. And that’s saying something right there.
We didn’t actually go here but I did get to take a picture of the modern day Library of Alexandria. It’s built on top of where the Ancient library is believed to have been. I really wish we had gotten to go visit it!
So day 2 has come to a close. We spent a lot of time of the bus so there’s not TOO terribly much to write about. Tomorrow we get to see the PYRAMIDS OF GIZA! Can’t wait. There’s sure to be a medium if not LONG entry. So enjoy!

Love, Rebecca

Day 2 Pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2004565&l=7483c&id=1523040053