Egypt: Day 1

Egypt memoirs: Day 1

We arrived in our hotel at around 3 pm. We already knew we would be staying in Giza, close to the pyramids, but we did not realize the hotel was practically at the foot of those large structures. From the hotel, you walk up hill about 300ft, pay for the entrance to the "park" and then 5 minutes later you are inside the pyramid. Paul and I dropped our stuff and decided to go check it out. On the way, we were barraged by a hordes of locals offering their services from taxies, and tour guides t0 rides on camels. They all wanted to give you a "good price" which is a vague term there. Our guide, whom we accidentally picked up, took us through the back way to the Second pyramid entrance. We walked through ruins of the worker's dwellings, looking into deep wells, walking through open roofed old rooms and into closed to public and therefore barred tombs. Several times some local guys with camels walked right by us. It was so fun to see those tall graceful animals.

The entrance to Second pyramid was smaller than I would imagine and located on the ground level. Once you go in, you have to practically double over to pass through the tunnel leading downward. I am still really surprise how Paul managed to make it in. The walk downward follows by a small straight hallway which leads you into another tunnel going back up, deeper into the pyramid. At the end, there was a burial chamber, with the stone sarcophagus still resting there, though, of course, missing all the other relics. It feels so strange to be somewhere so ancient. Thousand of years ago someone might have stood in the very spot you were standing in.

The first pyramid was closed for the day, so we just took pictures of it. Then we walked by the sphinx, visited a local shop where we watched them make papyrus and bought some rather expensive souvenirs (as we found out later). What we've learned from day one was that you either have to bargain like you've never had to before, or say "no" about a thousand times and then some.

The sun was going down and it was time to go home when we ran into a man we met earlier that morning. He volunteered to walk us home through Mena village which is located right outside the pyramid's gate. That's where our first adventure started. We walked through the street watching people sitting outside their brick homes, some selling different merchandize, some just observing the surroundings. Some kids were riding donkeys through the streets, others- just waved at us with huge innocent smiles, saying familiar "hello", some were trying to sell us post cards or other trinkets. Waahid invited us for a drink in his house, which we hesitantly excepted. We met his wife and kids, and some of his family who were extremely friendly, but we left shortly because we did not want to walk home after dark. This last part of our first day was a bit unnerving, but ended up being the highlight of the day.

Little boy Tyler

Tyler is such a fun little kid. He is so adorable and so mischievous. Two incidents happened this past week and I could not pass up writing about them.

A friend of ours invited us to come to a local gym for their free play hour. I thought the kids would be thrilled. When we got there, more people showed up then we expected and we could tell that the kids were going to have so much fun together. The gym leader was trying to involve kids with some activities, so they would nor run wild. I got distracted watching the kids going through obstacle course when I turned around and saw my Tyler in the mid-dive position from one gym mat to another. Those mats where at least 3 feet tall and at least 2 feet apart. It was a picture perfect moment, though I was not thinking of pictures at the time. I was in shock. I KNOW Tyler is pretty fearless, but I still could not believe he did that. I was distracted for only a couple of minutes!

So the second incident happened at Home Depot. I was buying some hardware for our bathroom and specifically told the kids to stay close. Lydia was standing next to me the whole time, while Tyler was exploring boxed toilets behind me. The where packaged so I, once again took a few minute to make up my mind of what I was going to get. When I turned around, Tyler was gone. I went in a little tunnel between the boxes where he was standing. Not a sign of my little boy. I started calling his name and heard a happy little voice, but could not pinpoint the direction. I thought he might be on the other side of the isle. How big was my surprise when I looked up and saw my son's smiling face looking at me from the the third shelf of home depot racks. He as laying on top of the merchandise. I could not even reach that high. I got stern with him and told him to get down, uncertain that he would be able to do so. Then I found a spot between the boxes where he was. There the boxes sort of made a step. He climbed up there and then used steel shelf frames as a climbing structure to get to the top. There was a family with 4 kids in the isle with me. You had to see the shock on their faces when they saw Tyler on top of the those plastic bottles on the third shelf. To tell the truth, I did not know whether I should laugh or cry. The good thing is, he got down, pretty much all by himself and was totally fine. That little rascal!

Update

So we bought a house in November and since then our life has picked up so much speed, we did not even noticed that we've neglected our blog for MONTHS. This is my appemt to catch us up to date.

So many things have tricepired since then. We moved, and with Papa Branner's help started a gazillion of projects we are still struggling to finish. The wall that was taken down by Dad is now completely patched and painted, which is as much progress as we've made. Well, we did do some small things like caulking the bathtub, painting and repainting a couple of rooms. Just to make a point of how slow things are moving along, we are still in the process of ordering the carpet that should have been in by Thanksgiving. But I have to say we have been busy and not just with the house. Matthew, Summer came to visit us just days after Dad left to go home (and rest from his labors) They spent Thanksgiving with us. That was a welcome break from an intense 10 days of working on the house. They left and we practically shifted into the Christmas gear, buying presents, planning trips and still working on the house. Alla and Vanya came to visit us for a few days which was very fun. They took us to the airport on Christmas. We flew to Portland for a fun filled time at the Branner house. The cousins had so much fun playing together and the adults had fun busying themselves with all sorts of activities from shopping, to participating in the tallent shows to skiing, and doing a whole lot of talking. It was so fun, busy and noisy. We loved it.

From then, Paul and I packed our bags and flew to Egypt, leaving our kids with the grandparents. We has so much fun there and will write about the trip later in specifics. But I have to say it was quite an experience to stay in the hotel right at the foot of the Giza pyramids. We could see them out of our bedroom window. Paul spend a few days in conference while I visited some tourist sights with wifes of Paul's collegues. Then we has some time to spend together, riding camels, visiting a whole bunch of Egyptian temples in Luxor. It was an unforgetable trip.

It was brutal getting back into the swing of things at home. Paul and I were jetlaged and therefore tired and later on sick, for what seems like forever. Only now life is starting to resemble some sort of normalcy. We have been so blessed to get a chance to travel so much recently. But, still, there is no place like home, even when you still sleep on blow-up mattresses.

Lost Photo and Dancing Daddy's Daughter

On Saturday we decided to take the kids out for fun. We were going to split up, boys together and girls together, but Lydia insisted on going with me, so we all hung out at Chucky Cheese's. No food, just games. Tyler puts tokens in everything indiscriminately. When he put a token in "sketch pad" machine, I picked him up so we could get a picture of the two of us. It turned out really nice picture of Tyler smiling with his unshaven, messed up hair dad squeezing him. But alas, we lost track of this gem at some point during the night, so it will never make it into Tyler's scrap book.

I had something fun and amazing to say about Lydia today, but I can't really remember. She's as amazing as ever. She loves to make up stories and dances. All of the extended family members who saw her at Christmas swore she's not only a four-year-old. And she performed an original dance for the family talent show that amazed everything. How could we not think ahead enough to pull the video camera out?