Thursday, 6/17/10 - Cairo, the Great Pyramids, Sphinx and camels, camels, and more camels . . .

Well, luckily all of the kids did their homework and Mr. Pirirng held true to his word as we all had a very memorable day. We first visited the Egyptian Museum but were unable to take pictures (boo). However, here is a quick fact to fill you in on the size and content of this place. If you were to stand at each artifact for 1 minute, you would be in the museum for 20+ years.

From there we visited the Great Pyramids as you saw on a previous post of mine with the Terrible Towel. Here is a picture of the first Great Pyramid that we visited.. . . the Pyramid of Khufu:

From Egypt - Day 4 - Egyptian Pyramids, Great Pyramids, Camels and more . . .

We then proceeded to the Pyramid of Khafre. This pyramid is the pyramid that we actually were able to go into.

From Egypt - Day 4 - Egyptian Pyramids, Great Pyramids, Camels and more . . .

Now, I will let the kids fill you all in on how far into the pyramid we went as well as how tight and hot it was while on the voyage to the center to see Khafre's sarchofogus. We were not able to take pictures inside but imagine the first video I posted while on this trip . . . just a lot tighter and much, much hotter!!

From there we were about to go on the trip of a lifetime. Why drive from Khafre's Pyramid to the Sphinx? Shoot - let's take a few camels!!! Alrighty then . . . our wish was Magdy's (our AMAZING tour guide) command! Here is a picture of us on the camels with the Pyramids in the background:

From Egypt - Day 4 - Egyptian Pyramids, Great Pyramids, Camels and more . . .

Each one of us had our own camel - some more crazy than others. Here is a quick video that I was dangerously able to capture while holding on for my life:


Once we arrived at the Sphinx we were greeted with some local guides (the kids!). There were some beautiful children that we all fell quickly fond of that helped take our pictures of the Sphinx in some really funny poses. So we asked if we could get a picture with some of them. Here they are!

From Egypt - Day 4 - Egyptian Pyramids, Great Pyramids, Camels and more . . .

I hope you enjoyed the update. We leave tomorrow afternoon for Frankfurt and we will be on our journey home. This has been a trip of a lifetime. We are all hoping that your sons and daughters felt the same. All I can say is to be prepared for some ridiculous stories, videos and memories. They will be coming your way as soon as we land in Chicago . . . . I will do my best to make a quick post once we arrive at our hotel in Germany. Until then . . . . please continue to read the subsequent posts I made so that the days stayed in chronological order:)

Friday - 6/18/10 - Aswan - Unfinished Obelisk, Tender ride to a Nubian Village, soccer game with Nubian guys

Today we arrived in Aswan from Cairo via an overnight train and toured the likes of the High Dam as well as the Unfinished Obelisk. Here is a picture of the Obelisk:

From Egypt - Day 5 - Aswan - Unfinished Obelisk and the tender ride to the Nubian Village

We then headed back to the cruise ship and took a tender ride along the Nile River to a Nubian Village. Here is a picture of the scenery as we cruised the Nile to the village. Notice how perfect and FAKE the sand looks:

From Egypt - Day 5 - Aswan - Unfinished Obelisk and the tender ride to the Nubian Village

This was a VERY cool experience. Here is a friend that we picked up along the way. He even serenaded us in a few different languages!


Once we arrived at the village we proceeded to the house of crocodiles:

From Egypt - Day 5 - Aswan - Unfinished Obelisk and the tender ride to the Nubian Village

We all had the chance to hold one of these guys:))))) Don't worry - he didn't bite!

From Egypt - Day 5 - Aswan - Unfinished Obelisk and the tender ride to the Nubian Village

After shopping and visiting at the Nubian Village

From Egypt - Day 5 - Aswan - Unfinished Obelisk and the tender ride to the Nubian Village

we took a short detour to stop and check out some of that pristine sand as pictured previously. Well, as we got off the boat we proceeded to see a bunch of Nubian guys playing soccer. Well, they saw Americans and yelled right away "Come and play soccer with us. . . " Without hesitation a bunch of us ran over and had a bare-footed pick up soccer match with some awesome Nubian guys. Here is a picture of the group.

From Egypt - Day 5 - Aswan - Unfinished Obelisk and the tender ride to the Nubian Village

Here is a short video of our game..... It got delayed shortly as you can see by a large creature but we were able to resume the game very quickly:)


I do have to admit that we were defeated by a score of 4-3. This was one of the most memorable days in my opinion. (I am sure you could tell by the length of this post.) I hope you enjoyed.

Saturday, 6/19/10 - Abu Simbel and Feluka ride

WOW! Abu Simbel was one of the most amazing sites I have ever seen in the world - PERIOD. I am hoping all of the kids felt the same. We woke up and took a 30 minute flight from Aswan to Abu Simbel as were able to see the following:


Here is a view of the statues up close. Each statue measures 70+ feet high. We weren't able to take pictures inside but we were sure to take plenty outside:

From Egypt - Day 6 - Abu Simbel and the Feluka Ride

We also visited Ramses II wives temple right next to Abu Simbel temple (dedicated to Ramses II himself). Here is what her temple looked like:

From Egypt - Day 6 - Abu Simbel and the Feluka Ride

Here is a picture we took of the both of the temples together. Whew! What an unbelievable experience:

From Egypt - Day 6 - Abu Simbel and the Feluka Ride

Here is what our Feluka (sail boat) ride looked and sounded like. This is a gentleman from a Nubian Village that drove the boat, provided us some entertainment, and also allowed us to purchase some very nice Nubian gifts.

Sunday, 6/20/10 - Kom Ombo and Edfu

We cruised the Nile a good bit of today but made two big stops. One was a stop at the Temple of Kom Ombo. Here is a quick pic of the temple:

From Egypt - Day 7 - Kom Ombo and Edfu

as well as some of the most beautiful hieroglyphics:

From Egypt - Day 7 - Kom Ombo and Edfu

We then ventured to the Temple of Edfu as pictured below.

From Egypt - Day 7 - Kom Ombo and Edfu

I have also posted a picture of some of the most ridiculous hieroglyphics we have seen:

From Egypt - Day 7 - Kom Ombo and Edfu

Because we weren't that tired yet:)we capped off the night with an Egyptian Themed party as eveyone dressed in Egyptian attire.  This is a picture of a picture so the quality is poor but I thought everyone at home would enjoy the photo:

From Egypt - Day 8 - Valley of the Kings and Queens, Hatchepsut Temple, and more . . .

I will be sure to scan the original and post it as soon as we arrive home:)

Monday 6/21/10 - Valley of the Kings and Queens, Hatchepsut Temple, Karnak Temple and Luxor

This was a great day to end our tour of the city of Karak and to finish up our Nile River cruise.  We were able to visit the Valley of the Kings and Queens where we actually entered 3 tombs DEEP into the mountains of Karnak.  Some of us actually were able to go into King Tut's tomb as well.  We saw his sarcophogus and actually saw King Tut himself as a mummy.  We were not able to take pictures here - so sorry!  We then traveled to Hatchepsut's Temple - one of the only female pharoah's of Ancient Egypt:

From Egypt - Day 8 - Valley of the Kings and Queens, Hatchepsut Temple, and more . . .

We then went and briefly visited the Colloses of Memnon.  Each one of these statues weighed 1.4 million pounds each:

From Egypt - Day 8 - Valley of the Kings and Queens, Hatchepsut Temple, and more . . .

From there we went to the Temple of Karnak and saw an unbelieveable temple to say the least.  Here is a quick pic of the columns with the Temple of Karnak.  There were 134 total columns just like these and the top of each column can hold 100 people.  Quick math shows that 13,400 people could fit on the top of these columns alone - not to mention the rest of the temple!

From Egypt - Day 8 - Valley of the Kings and Queens, Hatchepsut Temple, and more . . .

Here is a short video clip to show how massive these columns actually were:


We then visited the Temple at Luxor - here is a quick view of this magnificent structure at night:

From Egypt - Day 8 - Valley of the Kings and Queens, Hatchepsut Temple, and more . . .

Greetings!! We are back to Cairo and have Internet access . . .

Good afternoon - or morning - depending on what part of the world you are in.  We are coming to Pittsburgh live and direct from Cairo.  We have just returned to Cairo after touring the Nile River and its beauty for the past 5 days.  I am here to catch everyone up on all of the craziness and utter beauty we have been able to capture throughout the course of our Nile River cruise.  I am going to briefly chronicle the past 5 days now with separate blog posts for each day.  Well - here goes!!  We wanted to let everyone know that Pittsburgh has been well represented in Egypt. . .

From Egypt - Day 4 - Egyptian Pyramids, Great Pyramids, Camels and more . . .

Coming to you from the Nile

This will be a quick post as our cruise ship is leaving at 8pm. The past few days have been absolutely amazing . . . to say the least. It seems like we have been moving at warp speed the past few days but have seen and done some of the most amazing things one could want to do in a lifetime. Here are a few pictures of the events from the past few days. We have visited the giant pyramids at Giza - and actually went inside Khafre's Pyramid at one point. We visited the Egyptian museum and saw thousands of Egyptian articfacts spanning thousands of years. We took a quick flight (30 min.) today to Abu Simbel and spent a long time taking pictures of one of the most breathtaking places in all of the world. We then took a quick flight back to Aswan and will be departing for Luxor this evening. Everyone is having a great time and basking in the HOT Egyptian sun (about 108 degrees the past few days) with much water and air conditioning. Sorry this post is so short but our boat leaves the dock in 22 minutes and we probably need to be on it;) I will be sure to provide all of the details as soon as we return to Cairo in a few days.

From Cairo, Egypt - Day 1

From Cairo, Egypt - Day 1

Headed to the Great Pyramids

Posting from an iPod in the lobby waiting for Mr. Pirring as he is still doing his hair. Anyways, we will most likely NOT have internet access for the next 5 days. We are going to the Egyptian Museum, the Great Pyramids, ride a camel and then to the overnight train and then to the cruise ship. Whew! A lot going on in the next 24 hours. I will be sure to chronicle the next 5 days as soon as we return to Cairo. We will give the camels a high five for you. Until next time .....

Cairo, Egypt - Day 1 - continued

From Cairo, Egypt - Day 1

Good evening,

We had an amazing day today as we toured Cairo for the first day.  We got to sleep, as you saw in my previous post this morning, around 6:30am and we were up at 8:30am.  We began our tour as we approached the Citadel and toured Mohammed Ali's mosque.  Wow!  What a beautiful place to begin our tour as it is filled with such rich religious culture. 

From Cairo, Egypt - Day 1

We proceeded to arrive at Memphis where we saw an amazing statue of Ramses II

From Cairo, Egypt - Day 1

and a really cool Sphinx statue. 

From Cairo, Egypt - Day 1

We then ventured to a really neat place to eat lunch that served us some very authentic Egyptian food.  We ate food such as bubaganoosh, tahina, and some falafell.  It was absolutely delicious!  Our bellies were full as we traveled to our next stop which was at the Step Pyramid where we saw some unbelievable hieroglyphics.  Unfortunately we were not able to take pictures while in this pyramid but we were able to sneak a quick video of a little adventure we took.  We went into a the Pyramid of Titi where you could not enter unless you scrouched down for an extended period of time in some very hot tunnels.  Check out some brief footage I was able to sneak while coming out of this temple. 

Here is a nice picture we took while at the Step Pyramid. 

From Cairo, Egypt - Day 1

We were pretty beat as we left these pyramids as it was about 98 degrees all day long.  We stopped by a Carpet School and saw some beautiful carpets.  We were there for about 30 minutes and then headed back to the hotel.  We ate a delicious dinner and now are headed to bed.  We have an unreal day ahead of us tomorrow as we are going to the Egyptian Museum and then onto the big dogs .. . . the pyramids at Giza, the Sphinx, and as long as all of those homework assignments are handed in we will be riding a camel near the Pyramid of Cheops tomorrow.  Stay tuned . .  . . and good night.

PS .  Thank you for all of the comments.  They are greatly appreciated and have been passed on.

We are here - safe and sound - Day 1 Cairo

Good morning or evening in your case.  We just arrived in Egypt at our hotel.  It is 6:28am and we need to be awake at 8:30am for a tour that starts at 9:30am.  Needless to say, we have not slept much at all in the past 36 hours.  We are headed to Sakkara, Memphis and the Citadel in few hours.  I am off to catch a few zzz's.  We will be back this evening with pics, vids, and more details.  All is well. . . . .

Quick update

Just a quick update for all of you following us.  We are safe and sound in Frankfurt, Germany.  We arrived here around 9am German time.  We have spent the entire day on a tour of Frankfurt.  We just finished an amazing, authentic German meal and are now camped out in the Frankfurt airport waiting for our flight to depart to Cairo.  All is well . . . . the troops are exhausted . . . and ready to be there in a bed.  Will make a post as soon as we arrive.  Take care.

It's HERE!

I hope you are all packed!  At this point tomorrow we all better be sleeping on that long flight to Cairo.  That reminds me . . . I need to go and pack - haven't started yet.  See you all at the airport tomorrow.  Don't be late:)

Hotels are in!

King Hotel - Cairo, Egypt

Mercure Hotel Wings - Frankfurt, Germany