End of Egypt

Ok sooo.. to finish up Egypt. Our third day in Egypt we first visited the Mohamed Ali Mosque. It had silver domes and was huge. It was over looking the whole city and we took some awesome pics of the entire city. The mosque was pretty cool. You can't wear your shoes which i enjoyed but the ceilings were sooo high. But then the lamps hung down so low.. maybe 10 feet in the air. It was cool to see a different religious place of worship. After this we went to the Hanging Church. It was a Catholic church and had really cool mosaics and wood working on the walls. Its "hanging" because its over this ledge and there is an area where you look down and only see ground... pretty cool. We also learned that the ceiling was build like Noah's ark upside down. Pretty neat. We had a quick lunch and then went to the Egyptian Museum. They had so many different artifacts it was pretty cool to see. We got to see and learn a lot about king tut and his tomb. It was cool seeing all the old things they found in his tomb. We also went to a bazaar afterward and got our bracelets made.

Soo.. the next day we woke up really and drove 3 hours to Alexandria. This was my favorite part of the trip.. besides the pyramids of course. Here we first went to the Roman Tombs of Catacombs. We learned about how much of an influence the Greeks and Romans had in Egypt. We went underground and saw the tombs... which was different from the original Egyptians. They had a lot of people all buried in one large tomb underground and they would have ceremonies under there and BREAK PLATES. ya that was sweet. We also saw Greek Egyptian art that combined Greek and roman gods with the Egyptian style. It was really neat to see. After this we went to the Roman Theater. It looked like a small Ampitheater, all made of marble. It again was neat seeing Greek and roman culture in a place like Egypt. You can truly see the history first hand. We then got ice cream and walked along the Mediterranean and saw the Qaitbay Citadel. This was like a huge castle right along the coast and was considered one of the most important strongholds for Egypt and the Mediterranean. We then drove down the coast to the Montazah Royal Palace. This palace was surrounded by 350 acres of beautiful gardens. It also over looks the sea. Here people from the community are free to walk around and enjoy the area. We ended the day by visiting the Alexander the Great Library. The architecture was very unique. It was neat to see it actually in function. We went inside and there were a lot of students studying and doing work, rather then it just being another tourist sight. We then slept the ENTIRE way back to Cairo.

The next day we visited 3 different mosques. The first two Rifae Mosque and Sultan Hassan Mosque we located right next to each other. They were very old and huge. We went inside and had to cover our heads to respect their religious beliefs. It was cool to learn all about the the Muslim religion and about these specific mosques. It was hard to wrap my head around how these people follow such a religion that makes women feel so suppressed. I understand that is their personal opinions and beliefs but even just having my head covered for 30 mins while the other men didn't have to caused me to feel as though i was not "equal" to men. It was defiantly an experience but I'm to strong headed and all about being equal to men that i couldn't handle being a women living in that country. It was ever prevalent in the city. People would honk as men crossed the road to warm them they were coming but if it was a women they better just be out of the way or they will get hit. Its sad to know that places still don't go about equality in the way we do.

It was defiantly a great experience and I would go back to learn more for sure. We woke up the next day and went back to the airport and started our travels back to Thess.