Had a bit of a sleep in this morning. At least as compared to the last week. Eight thirty start and we were picked up by Abby again. It was nice to see her and tell her about our cruise down the Nile. We started the day by going to the Egyptian museum. I loved it. I so wish we had more time to look around. I think the idea of going early was to avoid the crowds but if we avoided any you couldn't prove it by me. There were huge amounts of people. Though I suppose it might have seemed more since we were all trying to see the same exhibits some of which were pretty small. Abby was telling us that the Egyptian museum was the first museum in ever until the original was washed away in a flood. The pieces that were recovered are displayed outside the museum. We weren't allowed to take any photos but Abby assured us that there are plenty of pictures on the DVD we bought. I also got the answer to a question that had been bothering me. All throughout this trip we've seen temples and tombs and mortuaries and statues but not once did we see any of the ancient palaces. Abby told us today that it was because the ancient egyptians valued the afterlife more than they did this life. Why spend much money on the living when it's so short? Apparently their palaces were made of simple mud bricks.

We saw all the treasures of Tutankhamen and learned of his story which was all new to me. The treasures were so beautiful. I especially enjoyed the box with the jackal statue. The jackal was so life like we could see him slightly leaning to the left and his tail looked like it was moving.

I also liked the jewelry. There was nothing that I would ever wear or even think about wearing but the detail in each piece was amazingly intricate even on the smallest pieces. We decided not to pay extra to see the mummy room but we did see a few mummy's of the later people of Egypt. Another thing I learned was that it wad everyone in ancient Egypt that was mummified, not just the rich. All the cost was paid for by the government of the day.

In the end we were a bit late meeting Abby cause I kept getting distracted by new exhibits.

We had lunch on a really beautiful floating restaurant. I found it quite amusing that they played Christmas carols for entertainment. Nothing with lyrics just the music but it still made us laugh. We mentioned it to Abby and she had no idea. They obviously don't listen to carols here.

Rob and Maureen stopped in for lunch at the same place. It was nice seeing them even just in passing. They had been to see the citadel in the morning and were going to the museum after lunch and we were doing the citadel next.

The citadel was built to defend Cairo against the crusaders. But since they never made it to Cairo it was never used for that purpose. Instead it was used for a variety of things before Mahamed Ali built a beautiful mosque there. The mosque it made mostly from alabaster and it looked like it would glow in the sun if it was cleaned. We had to wear these long robes to go in as we weren't covered enough nut that was fine. It was more than worth it to se the inside and to learn a little about the Muslim faith.

From there we went to a bazaar. This was a very strange experience. We stopped in at a beautiful silver shop and I spent even more money. We wandered the streets for a bit. We didn't get too mobbed unless we showed an interest in something. I got some nice small perfume bottles for a third of the price he first told me but that's nothing compared to the deal Bec got. She bargained the guy down from 1200 pounds to 150 pounds. I would have liked to have had a closer look at some things but really I could have spent forever in there and I had spent enough money. It was mostly tourist junk anyway.

After that we headed back to our hotel which I was more than happy for. The bazaar was really quite overwhelming. We still have part of the afternoon left which was plenty of time for a swim. The water was simply beautiful. We must be getting used to the heat here because we aren't nearly as exhausted as the last time we were here. We laid by the pool and I typed out my blog. The sun goes down quite early here, it was getting dark by about five thirty. The lights by the pool came on and there was a lovely breeze. It was just perfect.