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Email from 7/20. Posted by 24601.

Hello again! This is another Egypt update coming to you from Luxor, Egypt.
It is amazing how much we have seen since my last e-mail. This tour keeps
us very busy and on the move! Whenever we have 2 or 3 hours off, everyone
just crashes! In fact, most people are crashing- but for a different
reason. In Europe, you drink, have a brutal hang over and stay in bed all
day. In Egypt, you drink 3 litres of water a day and still get “The
Pharoah’s Curse” where you get brutally sick and stay in bed all day. Gord
and I haven’t been REALLY sick, but have been sick nonetheless.

My 27th birthday was very memorable, really. What did I do? Had absolutely
horrible stomache cramps and spent the day in bed. I got up, went to a
temple (to view, although after those cramps I thought about praying!) got
back on our ship and ate a bun for dinner. After dinner, the crazy
Egyptians surrounded me and sang me Happy Birthday (could have been
anything, really as it was in Arabic) for a really long time. It was at
least 3-4 minutes which is a really long time when you think you might
faint! I got a birthday cake there as well. It was really neat.

Now for the sights. Let’s see…. We hopped on a plane and flew 1/2 hour
to a Temple Ramses II built for himself. This temple is unique as it is the
only temple a pharoah built for himself instead of for a God. It was so
neat to look at all the hieroglyphics (SP??) and see that some colour is
still left in the pictures. Just a small note- beware of Egypt Air. We
were a bit frightened when the plane started making clunking noises!
Everyone clapped when we landed and looked quite relieved that we had
escaped death once again!

We had a dinner on our boat where everyone dressed up in Arab clothing which
was really neat. The “dresses” the women wear are HUGE. I could have fit
at least 3 of me in it.

We have seen about 4 temples now and are almost templed out. Today we went
to the Valley of the Kings which was just amazing. It isn’t actually a
valley, but is among huge rocks. We saw King Tut’s tomb and 2 others as
well. It was just amazing!!

Next, we are off to ride a camel which should be very, let’s say,
interesting. I may not be able to walk for a few days!!

Thanks so much to everyone who e-mailed me back. It was great to hear from
you! Keep ‘em coming! I’ll respond to those e-mails when I am on a faster
computer. It takes between 2-4 minutes to get to a new message to read!

Take care and I’ll write again soon!!

Lori

P.S. Thanks for the card and the gift Mom and Dad!!
P.P.S. Just a few more days till London Rob!! You ready? Bring extra zip
lock bags for me kay? Large and small ones.

Email reposted by 24601. Dated 7/17
Hi everyone! After a bit of rushing around, Gord and I are finally in
Egypt! Our flights were long, but fine. Our British Air flight was awesome
as we as we all had individual T.V.’s where we could select which movie we
wanted to watch. There was also a really funny guy sitting next to Gord.
He always ended up misinterpreting things we told him which took the
conversation in interesting directions!

We arrived in Cairo late Friday night and were picked up by a shuttle bus.
As we drove to our hotel (cushy huh?) we saw that people were all over the
streets even at 1:30 in the morning! There are small parks (pavement with
benches on it) where FAMILIES were sitting in the wee hours of the morning!
I saw some men fishing in a questionable looking canal, people walking all
over and shops and Kiosks that were still open.

We have seen the most amazing things, both culturally and in seeing the
“sights”. We saw the Pyramids (Amazing! A camel and camel guy followed us
everywere begging for us to take his picture, so he could charge us), the
Sphinx (very cool! Actually, what am I saying? It was damn hot out!), a
perfume shop (they gave all of us mint tea to drink as they put various
samples of perfume on us), a paper shop (where they make Papyrus- Egyptian
paper. The list just goes on and on!

The landscape is amazing too. Desert on one side and houses (they look
like boxes stacked on top of one another) on the other. Egypt is a very
poor country and a very dirty county. I love watching the people and seeing
how their culture differs from ours.

I am out of time and Gord is breathing down my neck to use the machine!

Take care and please e-mail!

Lori