Giza

On the way to Egypt, we stopped in lots of biblically and culturally significant spots. You know how it says that the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years?? ok remove wilderness from your mind and instead think of mars with oxygen, or better yet, Hades wasteland of death and despair. The Zin desert/wilderness is amazingly hot and awful- and i was in the bus for the greater part of it. ha. We stayed at a Kibutz (a socialistic Israeli agriculture commune society) becuase it is about a 12 hour drive to Cairo. Approaching Cairo, we saw thousands and thousands of empty, half built buildings. They look like abandoned cities that have never been lived in. Just half built and abandoned. Seriously miles and miles of these lining the roads as far as one could see. It was really bizarre and ghostly. Once we entered Cairo, nothing changed. no building is finished and 99% of it lookes like crap. ha. I asked our guide a few times why on earth it is like that and he said it is a cultural thing here in Egypt to build as much as you can with all the money you have becuase metal, cement, etc are just getting more expensive, so you build your level to live in, then as many levels above as you can for your sons and their families, until you run out of money. Everyone does this, making the country look like a trashy construction sight with homeless people living in some areas. hmm.
The pyramids can be seen all over Cairo and Giza (which are seperate cities) and loom in the hazey distance. When we first caught side of them, everyone in the bus went crazy. the pyramids!!! they exist! they weren't a hoax! To be honest, I teared up a little. This has been my dream for as long as I can remember. I was the little 8 year old girl who would go through National Geographics and cut out everything having to do with Egypt and make posters. After checking into our hotel "The Oasis" (the name fits the place believe you me! it was beautiful), we hit the sound and light show on the pyramids and sphinx. Even though it was a lame show, it got us so excited for the next day!
We had to wake up early in order to get in line to get tickets to go inside the largest pyramid! Apparently Americans are the only people in the whole world who really stand in line. You don't understand. Lines in the middle east are not obligatorialy, and not necesarrily even an option! our guides kept yelling at us to kick people out of the line, be rude, and squish in. As a result, we have all become much ruder line standers! :) After forever (Egypt has had 6000 years to perfect the art of Beaurocracy and boy have they), we got to climb up indside the 400 foot pyramid! THEY ARE MASSIVE. One block is a little shorter than I am. There are lots of blocks. There is not much to see inside, and someone claustrophobic would have a rough go, but it was fun to lay inside of Pharoah Keops' stone coffin. hehe it was my idea and after everyone did it too. We weren't allowed to take pictures, but i'm sure imagination would do better in this case anyway.
We explored the sphinx and necropolis too. Prof Brown (the most expert man on every subjuct i have even known) talked to a small group of us about the relgion of Egypt. It sounds foreign and kind of bizarre, but really it hits very close to home. He spoke about the cleansing and purifying process the Egyptians had and how concerend they were with moral worth and ethics and the importance of imortalilty and eternal life. They built these grand edifices, the pyramids, as a visual reminder of what they needed to be aiming for. He put many ideas in my head concerning all that; gaining this perspective really set the tone for the whole trip and made it worthwhile on a completely new level.