December 3rd

December 3rd
We three kings of Orient are, bearing gifts we...
Today we had breakfast at Al Capone's and relapsed into our general Dahab routine. Snorkelling for most of the morning...the waves were getting water into my pipe (Smartie is sitting on my lap right now). The fish were really neat though. I saw a parrot fish that was many colours and had a beak! There was another fish that I liked better that shimmered in different colours. We learned that it is illegal to take coral and other things like shells from the beach.
Then we go to the Koshary House. Koshary is rice, pasta, lentils, tomato sauce, onions and chick peas. There are three options: small, large and special. It tastes quite good. Then we go back to El Salam and sit by the fire. Today we get supper by the fire too. Right now, supper is being cooked. Yummy!

December 5th
Up on the housetop reindeer pause, out jumps good ol....
This is our first full day in Cairo. We got to the Sara Inn Hostel last night.
Breakfast is included and it consists of bread, jam, butter, spreadable cheese, and an egg and cake and tea.
Then we went to the Indian Embassy to get visas. That was about an hour of filling out forms. We need to go back after a week or so I think to give up our passports for a 24 hour period.
Then we went to a shwarma place for good food. Then to the Egyptian Museum! We were walking down the street towards it when a guy stops us as he's walking by and asks if we want to go to the museum. We say, "Umm...yes...why?"
"Well, it is the time for locals only so you will have to wait until one o'clock."
"Oh, thank you." He begins to walk away...he turns back.
"If you want, I can show you some 'government shops'. Actually today is it's annual sale: 50% off. It's just down here, let me show you."
"Actually, we would like to look at something else."
"No, no! Just let me show you! It's just down here!"
"Okay, maybe we will come back later."
"Okay," he says, and walks away. I then told Papa how the Lonely Planet guide says this scam, word for word. I told him exactly what the guide says and a guy stopped and said "We aren't all like that you know."
Papa said, "We know, but one guy just tried that on us."
"Well, the museum is closed however. It is siesta. But if you want you can come to the 'government bazaar'. It is cheap and good quality."
"No thank you, We're not in the mood for shopping," we quickly told him.
"No, no! It's just over here!"
"No thank you," said Papa very firmly.
"Okay, okay...darn..."
I thought it was quite funny that two people tried to scam us with the same thing in a row and the second one knew we had just had the trick played on us. Mama thought it was kind of rude.
Then another guy came and told us....just joking.
WE got across the street and since it wasn't siesta time we got into the museum just fine. We walked into the massive building. Four giant statues flanked the doorway. They all had the royal head dress of Egypt and big abs.
We started at the Old Kingdom, the base of the great Egyptian civilization, and began to work our way forward in time. There were little statues of people and children and then some wood panels of people. One of them was the chief dentist. There was a statue of the Master of the Secrets of the Toilet as well. The reason why they could tell the names and titles of these people was because on the base of each statue, on the left side of the feet, there were hieroglyphics.
There were lots of sarcophagi and they all had Egyptian hieroglyphics on them. I drew a bunch in my journal.
We moved on and there was a statue of someone's steward. The group of hieroglyphics at the base was interesting. I came to realize an interesting fact about Egyptian statues. They aren't just of Pharaohs and gods, they were also of common people a well, unlike Roman or Greek statues.
We saw the death mask of Tutankhamen. His tomb was completely sealed everything was preserved and untouched by tomb robbers. Because of this, archaeologists were given a really good idea of how Egyptian tombs were laid out.
We also saw a GIANT STATUE. It was really big. Papa thinks thirty feet high. Then we went back to the hotel.

Jonas