Egyptian Museum and Tahir Square

So, the Egyptian museum is located on one side of Tahir Square, you know, where all the revolutionaries were hanging out last year?  It looked pretty peaceful when we drove by...

And it pretty much was - there is some evidence of the revolution still very visible.  This building used to be the headquarters of Mubarak's party, and it happens to be RIGHT NEXT to the museum.

Red building on right, Museum.  Burned out building on left?  Party HQ.  I have no idea how they kept it from spreading, but it's darn lucky the wind wasn't blowing that way.

The museum has the most incredible collection of artifacts, but like any of the cool places, you can't take your camera inside.  Had to check it outside.  :(  

But that's ok, I can just tell you what we got to see -

-Copy of the Rosetta Stone (original is in the British Museum)

-a whole bunch of stone carvings, and the fun fact I learned? If the beard on the Pharaoh is curled at  the end, it was made after he died.  If it's straight, he was still alive.  Totally cool factoid.

- the Pharaoh who built the Great Pyramid, Cheops or Khufu, has only 1 statue that has been found, and it's literally only 3 inches high

-King Tut's treasures are REALLY COOL, and I can't even imagine what must have been buried with someone like Ramses II, if King Tut "wasn't important"  The collection is unbelievable, and the golden headpiece you always see the pictures of, is just as impressive in person

-mummies are creepier in person, especially a whole room of them.  Crocodile mummies?  Creepy.

-you could spend 30 days, all day long, looking at the stuff displayed and it wouldn't be enough time to see everything

-our guide told us that the basement storage is jam-packed, and they are building a larger museum out at the Giza Plateau, that is supposed to be open in 2015.  So that means, probably 2020.....

We spent about 2.5 hours there, and I could have spent longer, but we needed to get back to Giza and check into our hotel and get ready to go see the sound and light show at the Pyramids

We arrived at our hotel about 530pm, and needed to leave about 615pm for the sound and light show.  Of course, it took 30 minutes to check in, so we only had 15 minutes to drop off our stuff and wash our hands.

The sound and light show was pretty much as expected -it was nice to see all the monuments lit up at night, but Chris pointed out to me later that it sounded a lot like a bad version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which it totally did.  I'm glad he didn't tell me until we had left, because I would have LOL.

Then we went back to our hotel and ordered some dinner.  A little background on our hotel - the Mena House Oberoi.  It was originally built as a hunting lodge for the Egyptian kings, and then was converted to a hotel around the turn of the 19th century.  It's the closest one to the pyramids, and I took some photos of the old pictures they had displayed around the hotel.

This one is from 1943, and you can see the grounds of the hotel in the foreground, with the pyramids in the back.  Amazing that it has been there for so long.

We had dinner at the restaurant, and I ordered a chicken kebab dish - which was fabulous, here's a picture of my dinner (what is it with me and food pictures?)

The totally hilarious part?  The rice was shaped like a pyramid.

We then went to bed, since we had to be up at about 530am to make our trek back to Alexandria.