Well, we have returned safely from Egypt, despite my brother's insistance that pregnant white women are in fact the target of terrorists in that country. I am happy to announce that we sensed no ill feelings toward us for any reason. Quite the contrary, I was the talk of every town, temple, and tomb that we visited because of my pregnant state. Apparently it's an honor in Egypt to be pregnant and, as a result, I was congratulated by just about every Egyptian passer-byer and Scott was offered camels as well as 2 wives and 3 children in exchange for me (however, these offers are only valid prior to the birth of the child, after which I apparently become worthless). In addition, every Egyptian person that we met appeared confident that I am carrying twins, which after a week of consistent statements began to cause a bit of anxiety in Scott.
Our trip was absolutely FABULOUS! Aside from my trip to Uganda, which simply cannot ever be beaten (though it was more of a life experience than just a vacation), this was by far the best trip I have ever taken. And for those of you who know me and know how much I love to travel, you realize that is saying a lot. We would not have traded this experience for anything and had a packed week of excursions and adventures in this amazingly historic and fascinating country.
Our entire experience was planned out and led by Longwood Travel, which made the trip virtually flawless (with one small error in regard to our transition between Aswan and Cairo, which will be explained in detail later.) We had six extremely full days of touring the country and, as a result, will be posting a series of posts over the next few days covering 1-2 days at a time. We hope to post pictures today or tomorrow after sorting through them, though adding captions might take an additional few days due to the fact that we took well over 300 photos during our vacation. Though we will include a few highlights from the photos with the posts on this site, our complete collection will be added to our family website.
Though we recognize that many people have never considered the possibility of a trip to Egypt, we recommend it to anybody and everybody. For those of you who enjoy backpacking or doing things at your own pace and upon your own exploration as we typically do, I must say that this is a place that you must do with tour guides in order to really know what exactly you're seeing, what things mean, the history behind everything, and how to not get completely ripped off by everybody. We met people of all ages, shapes, sizes, and nationalities while there (the main people we toured with were about 60 and we tried to meet up with a couple in their mid-70's from Campus CofC in Atlanta while we were in Cairo). Therefore, anybody can make this trip...it's never too late. It appears that Americans only seem to tour Cairo and Giza, however, and I completely recommend a cruise down the Nile or at least visits to other cities as there is so much history everywhere in the country. If you are only able to take one international trip in your life, however, we recommend that it be to Egypt to experience this intriguing country.
Stay tuned for the beginning of our series of posts about the actual events and sites of the journey. This week we also will be adding tidbits about our move this weekend as well as our next sonogram and the status of my placenta movement (which I know has you all sitting on the edge of your seat in anticipation). We also intend to have them double check the number of children in my womb to ensure that the hundreds of Egyptian prophecies are not true.