Alexandria, and how I almost got thrown out of the mosque...

The morning came to early after our very full day yesterday - the ship was now due to depart at 3pm vs our original time of 6pm, so we needed to leave from Cairo very early to be able to see the sights and get back to the ship by about 2pm.  Our hotel (as I mentioned yesterday!) was really awesome, and here's a picture of what we saw from our room balcony when we opened the curtains at about 545AM

Hey look!  It's the Great Pyramid Charlie Brown! (if you don't get the reference, look at the date...)

At about 6am we walked over to the main building to grab some breakfast before meeting our guide at 630am and leaving for Alexandria.

Alexandria is about 3 hours away, on the northern coast of Egypt.  The drive is a bit crazy, like all drives in  Egypt and I took advantage of the long stretches of desert to catch a few winks, which is hilarious since I NEVER sleep in cars.  In this car, I couldn't stay awake, more on that later.

The drive was fairly uneventful, and we arrived in Alexandria about 930am, and went directly to the Catacombs......where we discovered every other cruise ship tourist.  The lines were a little on the long side, but we made it downstairs and checked out the burial chamber and a few other things before we left and stopped at the Roman Theater.  This theater was discovered in the 60's, and is one of the largest outside of Italy.  Parts are fairly well restored, and we enjoyed seeing it

We went down and stood on the "Magic Point" in the center of the amphitheater, and were barely talking above a whisper, yet it could be heard everywhere (a bit like the dome area in JBS cafe.....!)  Good thing I wasn't telling any state secrets or anything.

Next, we went to the former Palace of King Farouk, surrounded by the park of Montazha.  There are 360 acres of gardens, and the palace is still in use by the current president, so we weren't allowed inside. Here's a photo of the outside -

Next, we drove to the Fort, the site of the former lighthouse of Alexandria.  The fort was nicely restored and had a beautiful location right on the ocean. The Lighthouse fell victim to an earthquake in 1477, and the Fort was built on the site to help defend Alexandria.

I was able to use my panorama camera feature again.......Cool, eh?

Then, off to the the Abo Elabbas Mosque, the biggest in Alexandria.   The mosque was quite beautiful from the outside, and our guide spent some time telling us about Islam before we went inside.  I had to enter thru the women's door, off to the side, so the guide walked me partially over there and then said he'd meet me inside with Chris.  I took off my shoes, gave them to the guy (along with $1, as everything's a dollar in Egypt...) and proceeded inside.  The women's area is in the back, and separated from the main  area of the mosque by a wooden screen partition.  Our guide motioned to me from the other side to come over thru an opening off to the left.  When I tried this, I was basically pushed back into women's area and spoken to very loudly in Arabic - our guide came over and tried to rationalize with the guy (also in Arabic) and it was about a 5 minute very animated conversation before I was allowed to come around the corner and sit on a little bench.  Waleed then explained the inside of the mosque to us (also very interesting, but a bit uncomfortable after the earlier incident) and then we split up to walk out.   I made it out to the front of the mosque before Chris and Waleed did, and was waiting when they came out.  Waleed was extremely apologetic and indicated the guy who had stopped me was really just looking for money (if I paid, apparently it doesn't offend if I come inside) and he talked with one of the leaders at the mosque as they were leaving and the leader apologized directly to Chris in English after speaking briefly with Waleed, so I guess that's something.  

We then drove to the port (past some more piles of trash) in the crazy traffic, and were deposited outside the ship at about 215pm, perfect timing.  Here is a photo of me with our driver (Akeem) and Waleed (guide)

The ship was supposed to leave at about 3pm so that we could make the convoy to head thru the Suez (which apparently started at 1am!) but the ship was not leaving on time, due to the 4 missing people who showed up about 325pm.  We pulled up the gangplank and took off after that.  Crossing the harbor was actually quite pretty, and we saw the entire Egyptian Navy tied up as we were leaving.

Dinner was quite good, I had Osso Busco (braised veal shank) and Chris had a NY strip steak.  Mine was way more awesome, and because it was Halloween, they had replaced the glass candleholders with carved mini-pumpkins.  I convinced Joey the waiter to let us take ours, because it was so cute.  He even let me keep the tealight until it needed to be recharged.   I named it "Joey Too"

Then we went upstairs to the Halloween costume contest - I am amazed at how many people brought costumes to wear, or got something in Egypt.  Then it was off to bed, as we were running on fumes. 

More to come tomorrow, as we pass thru the Suez Canal!