Egypt Day 2

On our second day in Egypt we stayed in Alexandria. Brad's mom graduated high school there so we thought it would be fun to go see it. We weren't sure if we were going to make it. As soon as you leave the port you are hounded by cabbies. We said we wanted to go to Schutz American School and they were all arguing over how to get there and who would take us. Once we got in the cab the driving there is crazy. They try to make a 2 lane road into 5 and go the wrong way on roundabouts. They use their horn all the time (our cabs sounded like a dead animal). We laughed when we saw a Chili's and McDonald's and were relieved when we saw the school! Brad just explained that his mom went there and asked if we could take pictures. They got the marketing director to come give us a tour. We thought it was great that she took the time to show us around.

The school has changed a lot and the area around the school has really grown but Barb, hopefully you will recognize a few things! We enjoyed getting to see where you went to school! They just changed the logo a couple years back. They had a contest with the students then brought in a graphic designer.

We headed back to the boat for lunch and nap then in the afternoon ventured out again to try to find a beach.

This doesn't do justice how crazy the driving was. It scared me a little just because Chase was on my lap and not in a car seat.

The Statue of Mohammed Ali.

Montazah Palace Gardens

We dipped Chase's feet in the sea and he wasn't too impressed. It was just a little cold. He was sure a hit with the locals though. (Not quite sure how this picture got to be black and white)

Our cab driver was making me so mad. We settled on a price to go to the gardens and back for 2 hours. Well he kept adding things to the trip (when I kept asking to go back to the boat) then raised the price. He stopped at this little kids fair thing because he wanted Chase to do the rides. It thought it was disgusting and wanted to get out of there but we went along with it. Let me just tell you how good Chase got at putting hand sanitizer on. After every stop we would make him put some on and rub his hands together. He actually likes doing it now. If I get it out of his backpack he immediately puts his hands out to get some.

We finally made it back to the port area in time for a little shopping. I felt like we had personal shoppers everywhere we went. They hounded you - one guy followed us around for like 20 minutes. I hate shopping like that and bargaining. Brad doesn't mind though so we got some good deals.