I Fell Off a Camel...No Big D [CAIRO]

The number one thing on Lucas' list of things to do while studying abroad was to... stop referring to himself in the third person. The second was to... see the Pyramids.

Just kidding. Seeing the Great Pyramids of Giza was always number one on my list of things to do/see and that is why I saved my trip to Cairo, Egypt as one of my grand finales. So I spent too much money and traveled on a weekend when I should have been doing school work and was on planes, trains, and automobiles for two full days and got really bad food poisoning from which I am still suffering, but...I put a big scratch across one of the top things on my Bucket List. Thank God.

Thursday was a full day of traveling. From Florence to Milan by Train. Then Milan train station to Milan International airport by bus. Then Milan to Cairo by plane. And then the craziest cab ride I have ever been on in my entire life [note first blog on crazy Florence taxi's...crazier...WAY crazier]. We were exhausted when we arrived at our hostel in Egypt. WAKE UP CAIRO was the name of the hostel ironically, and the owners were awesome! One of them took us out to coffee and to smoke a hookah with him before we returned and smoked some hash with them before we went to bed.

+Hash is illegal in Egypt, but it is not a major crime because the majority of the population smokes it daily. If you are caught with Hash by the authorities they just take it from you and let you go. [I do not know this from experience...I promise! Only from our hash smoking Hostel owners]

= ( [this is going to be the symbol for ways I could have contracted this terrible stomach virus]
= ( #1.) from smoking from the same hookah and joint as an Egyptian.











When driving in Egypt, it is important that you are aware of that large button in between your hands on the steering wheel...that's right...the horn. It seems that Egyptian drivers speak in 'horn' all the time when driving. Here's a list of things a honk of the horn could possibly mean while driving in Egypt...

- Look out! You're pulling out in front of me!
- Faster! I'm right on your ass!
- Hi!
- I'm about to turn left.
- I'm about to merge into your lane.
- I'm about to turn right.
- Here I come in between you while straddling the double painted lines on the road.
- Fuck you!
- Thanks!
- Get out of the way pedestrian...I will hit you.
- Get our of the way police officer...I will hit you.
- I just like honking my horn out of pure habit!

...amongst numerous other things. It actually seems like they're at the point where they are desensitized to the sound of the horn, and yet we did not see one car crash. I am still not sure how we made it out of any of those cab rides alive.

= ( #2.) from wincing in fear for my life during ever taxi ride.

Friday, we rented camels and horses and took a four hour ride and tour to the Pyramids and the Sphinx. But before we even made it to the desert line...

= ( #3.) I feel off my camel...into camel shit...







It was no big D, but camels are tall mother fuckers. I fell a good five feet, cutting open my knees and elbow. So after a quick clean off with the bottled water and a shit-ton of Purel, I was back in business...a little more wherry of the camel from here on out though. But spite my early fall, the trip was amazing. The entire thing was surreal. I could not believe I was riding a camel through the Sahara Desert towards the Great Pyramids of Giza. I couldn't help but whistle the Indian Jone's theme out loud, which made our fifteen year old, little boy of a tour guide smile.

After the beauty and wonderment of the Pyramids we took a quick nap and then went on a Nile River Cruise for dinner. The cruise had an all you can eat buffet, belly dancers, and ...

=Birra of the Blog=
...and some authentic Egyptian beer! Luxor was the second Egyptian beer I tried and I enjoyed it the most. It has a lighter beer taste, similar to that of Becks. It's pretty good, being that it's brewed in a country that majority of the population doesn't drink alcohol.

= ( #4.) from the first Egyptian Cuisine I've ever had.









Saturday, we saw the Egyptian Museum, which isn't that great except for the King Tut exhibit, and then the Citial, which has the largest Mosque in Egypt [the Mosque of Muhammad Ali] and the Egyptian Military Museum. That was the other surreal thing about Cairo, it was my first visit to a Muslim city. It seemed like the prayers that were being called from the minerets of the mosques were constant. People stopping their daily lives shopping or eating at a resturant...to lay our a mat in a small narrow street and get on theyre knees, bowing over and over again in prayer. It was really breath taking and quite interesting. I can't help but say I felt, not uncofortable or threatened, but...just a little out of place, I guess would be a good way of putting it. But I am very happy and thankful to have witnessed it all.

That night we went out to a large T.G.I. Friday's club on the Nile River for some good old American food, some hooka, and some drinks.

= ( #5.) from God punishing me because I ate American food in Egypt...

Sunday was another full day of travel, unfortunately, this time, accompanied by vomitting and direahha [sorry for the graphic details]. I actually puked while the plane was landing into Milan. That's somthing I can laugh about now...I wasn't laughing then. So we made it to and from Egypt. We saw the Pyramids and alot more. We rode camels. I fell off one. And we all got food poisoning. No terrorist. No plane trouble [despite Frank's nightmare]. And no other problems except for a mild case of the shits and the want to go back again sometime before I die.

All's well that ends well...on my 'last horrah' trip studying abroad. It's crazy that I leave to head back home in just five short days. I will have one last post in Florence before I say 'farewell' to Europe for a while...and 'hello again' to the US of A.