So yesterday was a very interesting day. We started off by heading to the pyramids, Me, Shelby, Deb, Kerry, Kayla, Kaitlin, Alex, and another girl in our dorm. We'd never been there before and so we weren't exactly sure about how to get there. Shelby had looked on the internet and gotten directions on which bus to take to get there but they were still a little confusing. We had to catch a cab to Tahrir Square where all the buses go and apparently we were supposed to catch one of the Cairo Transportation Authority buses and we had the number for it but we couldn't find it. The directions said that we might have to hail one down but none of us were trying to do that. After being confused for a few minutes, Kaitlin went over to ask one of the bus drivers what we were supposed to do. The driver was really nice and took us over to the booth to ask for us and not only did he find our bus but he even flagged it down for us since it was flying down the street! We ran to get on and finally we were on our way to the pyramids. I thought that the ride would be about 2 hours or so to get there and since I hadn't slept much the night before I decided to take a nap. Much to my surprise though we got there in about 25 minutes so I didn't get much rest at all :(. The upside was that the bus ride was only 2 LE which is about 40 cents for us....amazing.
We had to walk a little bit up the road to get to the actual pyramids and were haggled the entire time by men who were asking if we wanted to ride a camel or horse. After refusing time and time again while quickly walking away the men finally got the point to leave us alone. At the admission gate to the pyramids we found out that the entry ticket for students was 30 LE and that was just to walk around the area. The ticket to go inside the Great Pyramid was another 50 LE. After paying the 80 LE, which was a scheme to make money, we finally got through and saw what we'd been waiting 2 weeks for....one of the ancient wonders of the world...PYRAMIDS!! We took a few pics before heading to go inside of the pyramid and everything was so beautiful. We were there really early...about 9 am so thankfully it wasn't too crowded. We climbed up the great pyramid to get inside and couldn't take our cameras in so I couldn't get any pictures of the actual inside. It was lit up by flourescent lights on the sides to easily see and VERY cramped. Most of the time we had to duck down in order to climb to the top and the shafts reminded me of a mine. The entire climb was eleveated upwards with slats of wood in a perpendicular position to climb up. It was a bit hard to get up with a lot of people trying to come down but we finally made it up there and got to the final room. It was so amazing to be inside the actual Great Pyramid of Giza. The room was very muggy and felt like Jersey on a hot summer day. We walked around for a few minutes, felt the granite walls and peered into the tomblike structure on the far side of the room. I don't think it was an actual tomb since they're supposed to be at the bottom of the pyramids but it was still interesting to see.
We climbed back down to the entry of the pyramids telling the tourists how amazing it was up there. Some of them didn't look amused at what we were saying but they just had no sense of humor. We took more pictures on the pyramid, goofing off and then got down just to be harrassed by another man trying to get us to ride a camel. He wanted to charge us 50 LE, but after walking another 5 minutes we found a guy who was only going to charge 20 LE for a short ride. Kayla and I, Deb and Kerry, and Shelby and the other girl from our dorm rode camels together. It was the craziest thing ever. The ride itself wasn't scary, just getting on the camel and it lifting itself up and then also getting down. We had a pretty good ride and I forget our camels name but the other girls had Michael Jackson. The guy who was leading us stopped when we saw a family of tourists so that he could take pictures with them. Afterwards when they wanted to give him a tip he tried to rip them off taking a 10 euro tip and still asking for more. Since he upset them so much they took all of their money back and we went on with our camel ride. After leading us for about 5 more minutes, our trip was up and we got off of the camel and gave him the fee he had asked for in the beginning of the trip, 20 LE. He tried to ask us for more obviously trying to scam us but we refused and left him there with his camel. A few seconds later a police officer told us to take him picture on his camel and then tried to ask us for a tip! People in these tourist areas are a bunch of hustlers.
After the camel rides we made our way down to the Sphinx which was almost better than seeing the pyramids and we took more pictures down there. On our way down we passed groups of kids who were screaming out to us, smiling and waving. I don't know if it was because we were American or what but we definitely felt like we had celebrity status. At the Sphinx we met up with Shelby and her camel mate. We left after a few minutes to go back to Zamalek because we were all weary and hungry and ready to go. Trying to get a taxi was almost impossible. Either the driver didn't know where Zamalek was or was going to try to charge too much. Thankfully the girls all speak a little Arabic, so with all of there skills we finally got a cab back for 45 LE, breaking down to about $1.25 per person.
The cabbie was good and dropped us off about a block away from our dorms. We got back fine and were all beat so we just took showers, went to grab some lunch and then took naps because some of us were going to a football match later that night and some were going to go out to celebrate with Jackie, another girl in our dorms, since it was her birthday. I uploaded my pics on my facebook page, talked to my cousin for a little, and then went to sleep. The football match started at 7:30 so we were planning to leave the dorms around 5:30 but then around 5 pm Mae calls me telling me that I had 5 mins to get ready because the gates were supposed to be closing for the match at 5:30. I had just woken up from my nap and so had to rush to get ready, met up with the girls and then we took a cab to the stadium. We had a little trouble finding the place where our other friend Binita wanted us to meet her at but finally found her and the people that she was with. There was 6 of us girls and 2 guys who we came to be very happy to have with us. It was so crowded it was almost like a mosh pit, football is very popular over here! The guys were able to get us through most of the crowd after talking to the cops and we speedily got through the crowd instead of waiting in line with everyone else. We still got pushed and shoved but thankfully everyone was alright. The security was like nothing I've ever seen before. There must have been about 250 cops keeping the line in check and even more when we got into the stadium. We sat far up and had a clear view of the field. The match hadn't begun yet so we were just talking for a little while, taking in our surroundings. There was a guy next to us that wouldn't sit down, getting up to dance every few minutes. It was entertaining but a little annoying at the same time and then Deb and I had a girl in front of us who would turn around every time we made noise. So during the match while we were yelling and screaming we got a lot of looks from her. The match itself was crazy, the stadium was almsot filled to capacity with the opposing team's side near empty. Everyone was cheering for EL AHLY, Egypt's football team, singing chants and yelling to show their support. We ended up winning and afterwards everyone left the stadium yelling and people on the streets were endlessly beeping their horns in victory.
One of the guys that we were with, Mustafa, supposedly had a restaurant he wanted to take us to that he "owned" and since it was still early (the game ended about 9:30) he wanted to take us there so that we could eat and then he was going to drop us off where Jackie was celebrating her birthday. So after squishing into one car (imagine 8 people in a small Hyundai) we left to go to this restaurant. After a long, cramped and fast car ride we were all happy to be on our feet again and in one piece. The restaurant was beautiful on the outside and inside. I had a chicken mozzarella sandwich which Deb thought was disgusting but I thought was amazing and an Oreo cheesecake for dessert. The dinner was supposed to be free but of course nothing in Egypt ever is so we had to cough up money for dinner we weren't even planning on going to but only did because we thought it would be on this kid who supposedly owned the restaurant. Not a big deal. What really got us mad was that Mustafa's friend had to go somewhere and didn't get back for 3 hoursssss. Not 1, not 2, but 3 hours he was gone so by the time he finally got back it was 1:30 am and we still had to go celebrate with Jackie. We left as soon as this kid came back and made him drive us to where the rest of friends were. After many stops and asking for directions, we made it and left him for good for the night.
We didn't stay too long with Jackie because there was a 17 LE minimum to stay at the place they were going so we hung out for about 20 minutes and then Mae, Deb, Kaitlin, Kerry and I left to come back to the dorms. We got here and all had to sign in since it was past 10 pm and the guard gave Deb a hard time about if she lived here, wanted to see her id, keys and even went to look up to see if she really lived here. Out of 5 girls she was the only one who had trouble getting into the dorms and I told her it's because she's colombian LOL. So all in all we had a long day and even LONGER night but we still managed to have a lot of fun together. I haven't uploaded the pics from the soccer game but when I do I'll post some on here and my facebook.
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