We made it!!!

The trip so far has been amazing! The rides were long and I wasn't able to sleep to comfortably but we got into Cairo around 4pm. We started flying at 8am the previous day! Immigration wasn't nearly as bad as I though it would be, they didn't ask me anything. It was very confusing to figure out how to get a bus to the downtown metro station, we'd ask officials and police and they only wanted us to take taxi's. Eventually we figured out that you had to take a terminal bus to get to the actual bus stop.

From there we couldn't figure out which bus was ours cause the numbers in Arabic are really difficult to read. So we just asked a guy and he said his bus would take us close, it didn't have air conditioning though!! Man that would have been nice cause we we were sweating up a storm and my feet were killing me already!

So we rode around on the bus for a while and eventually the ticket guy and another girl asked us where we were going? Lisa tried as best as she could to tell them the downtown metro but everyone seemed so hopelessly confused. Didn't make me feel very at ease! But one nice girl told us to follow her and she could show us. We were nervous about getting off the bus but as it turned out she knew exactly where the station was since she had to get on a metro as well.

It cost us only two pounds so far which is incredibly cheap with the exchange rate around 5.65 LE for $1. It was one pound for the bus and another pound for the metro. Along with this being my first International plane trip (that plane was awesome!) and first time on a bus (other than school), this was also my first metro train ride. It was very cool and fast! A few "looks" from the locals but for the most part they were just observing us and plenty happy not to pay much attention to us.

So after getting to our stop our cs host Mohammad is at the stop waiting for us. He's a translator so that will be very helpful! Also a very nice guy who's hosted around 30 people. He was born and raised in Cairo and know the lay of the land as well as a lot of other helpful tips like what certain things should and shouldn't cost us. We get back to his house and the building is BIG, with tile floors and stark-white walls, he just moved in about 3 months ago so its sparsely decorated but we both have our own rooms and beds so that's great!

He then tells us there is a cs party on a felucca tonight and we decide to go even though we are both really tired. So he takes us to another metro station where we meet up with two more Egyptians as well as a guy from California, Oregon, and two people from Japan. There's also a guy from Siberia and a girl from England. Pretty good mix of people but of course I can't really remember their names. Anyway we were starving and this was a "dish party" aka potluck for Ramadan and every thing I had was very tasty. There was fresh mango juice and cookies, pumpkin rice pudding and some mini crescents. All were good and a welcomed addition to my tummy! We took tons of pictures and I think rode for around 2 hours on the felucca on the Nile. It was very pretty and relaxing, this cost us 10 LE each, kinda expensive but totally worth it!

After that Mohammad drove us back to some ATM's (oddly enough there were two on the same wall but they were different banks, Lisa and I apparently picked the wrong ones because we had to switch and then they gave us our money! Weird!) And after that we went to the grocery store to stock up on water and breakfast food for the Giza Pyramids tomorrow and it was weird how busy this grocery store was at 11pm! I got an apple and a water and it was around 4.25 LE. Cheap cheap!

That has been my day so far! Crazy to think that I'm actually here in Cairo! So amazing! I've really enjoyed everything so far, we haven't had any real problems with the people here and it wasn't such a big deal as I had made the modesty issue out to be, thankfully! I'm quite surprised by the housing, so tall and a lot of really slum dirty areas. Also the drivers are INSANE! I would never ever want to drive here! There are no lanes, no signals or lights, no one cares about the right of way or they simply just don't have it. Cars are constantly coming from every direction and instead of using signals they all "honk" ALL THE TIME! It's such a culture shock, other than that though its is super humid and hot! I've been sweating my ass off all day and can't wait to take a shower! With that being said I'll finish this up as its currently 1:20 in the morning and I'm exhausted!