Heading Home...

Our last day we had to check out of our hotel at noon, although our flight didn't leave until midnight. We took the shuttle into Na'ama Bay which reminds me very much of an Egyptian Gatlinburg. That was kind of fun. We walked through a hotel I'd like to remember for future reference - http://www1.hilton.com/en_US/hi/hotel/FAYHITW-Hilton-Sharm-El-Sheikh-Fayrouz-Resort/index.do;jsessionid=A32892755AEDA652C478C057F6606B03.etc21?ctyhocn=FAYHITW&brand_id=HI&brand_directory=/en/hi/&xch=1450348,ZBXTTAVBQQOOOCSGBIV2VCQKIYFC5UUC - it's also a Hilton but it looked much nicer and it is right on the boardwalk into Na'ama Bay's shopping area.

At the airport's metal detector, the guy with the wand also asked Shelby if she was married, how old she was, and why she wasn't married as he remarked that he too was unmarried. Can you imagine the TSA guys doing that at a U.S. airport?!?!? This was like her 4^th inquiry and at this point Shelby was pretty creeped out.

Now for the Learning Part of our Trip

We arrived at the domestic terminal in Cairo and it took an hour to get our luggage. AN HOUR?!?!? I was pretty panicked at this point as our flights had all been booked separate and I figured since we now couldn't possibly arrive 2 hours ahead for our flight, we were probably going to be out of luck - and this in the middle of the night. There are no signs from the domestic terminal telling you how to get to the international terminal, and there are more than one of those! Everyone I asked, as we rushed along, gave us a different answer AND wanted to sell us something. By the time we found someone to give us a ride to the right terminal I was practically yelling in his face JUST TELL ME HOW MUCH?!? That was what I was reduced to - I KNOW YOU WANT MONEY FROM ME - JUST TELL ME HOW MUCH!! It was a good 15 minute ride to the right terminal and at this point I was coming pretty close to losing it. The thought of being stuck in Egypt in the middle of the night and having to buy new airplane tickets because we missed our flight was not a comforting one.

There were two lines for security - one had a few people in it - the other had many people. I went to the one with few people and they refused - for no reason - to let us go through there. I swear it is one huge racket. This is all before we can get to the counter to check-in. The security guy then wanted to see our tickets - our E-Tickets - and I practically caused an international incident trying to explain to this moron that e-tickets, by definition - don't exist in a form that I can give him! As you can imagine, I was pretty worked up as I saw our time ticking away. When we finally made it through security, some guy had loaded all our luggage on a cart and taken it to the checkin counter which - I kid you not - was 10 feet away. Jeff asked me what I had that he could give the guy AS A TIP for ripping us off and I just turned away before I murdered someone. Found out later that Jeff ended up giving him $12 to make him go away because all he had was a 10 Euro bill. 10 Euro for carrying our luggage - our luggage that has wheels that we can easily pull ourselves - TEN FEET. Yes, I'm still angry even now. At this point I told Jeff that he needed to take over all conversations with Egyptians, including the desk agent, because I was going to get arrested if he didn't. We got our boarding passes and rushed down the hall in order to stand in yet another line for 30 whole minutes. I really thought we would never make it out of there but we literally ran from passport control onto the plane itself. Phew… As we sat down in our seats, and I tried not to cry tears of frustration, I told Jeff that there was NO #%^@b(# way that we are ever moving to Egypt. Egypt was top of my list before this experience.

SO - to recap - IF YOU GO TO SHARM - which I highly recommend - get a direct international flight to Sharm el Sheikh and save yourself all the hassle of trying to make a transfer in the hell that is Cairo Airport. And only stay at the Hyatt - yes, expensive, but oh so worth it!

Coming home was oh so sweet. What a sense of relief it is to walk back through your own front door. Happy Day.

the OTHER hotel

Hilton Shark's Bay http://www1.hilton.com/en_US/hi/hotel/SSHSBHI-Hilton-Sharks-Bay-Resort/index.do

The day they returned from Mt. Sinai was the day we left the Hyatt to go to the Hilton. What can I say. Night and Day. The reason we had to change hotels is that after we had begun our travel preparations, our return flight was cancelled and we had to stay in Egypt for a few more days. The Hyatt was booked, as were most of the other Sharm hotels, so there we were at the Hilton. I think if we had gone to the Hilton first, it would not have been such a disappointment. I would call the Hyatt 5 star and the Hilton 3 star so it was hard to come down in the world. They do have lovely pools and while the food is…well…bad, it is included in the price of the room, including all drinks.

But the kicker? The unbelievable news that I was greeted with at reception once Jeff and Shelby were passed out asleep in our rooms? Apparently there was a MANDATORY $120 PER PERSON charge for the New Year's Eve Gala. My disbelief, which involved me staring incomprehensively at the desk clerk for 30 minutes, was complete. To this day, I don't know what we could have done to get out of it. We were checked in. They had my credit card. All the other hotels in Sharm were booked and taking a taxi door to door would have been excruciating and expensive. I am just sick about it to this day. We are not New Year's Eve Gala people and in fact, we went, had a quick dinner at the buffet, and were back in our rooms playing Euchre by 10:15 p.m. We barely stayed awake until midnight. I intend to complain, vociferously, to Hilton but I don't know what else to do. It's been suggested that I call my credit card company, which I'm also considering.

The rest of our vacation was rather subdued as I think we were all worn out, disappointed to leave the Hyatt, and resentful of the $480. Altogether our vacation was 12 days, counting travel days, so our exhaustion is understandable.

Climbing Mt. Sinai

The night after the Squash-Off, Jeff and Shelby left to climb Mt. Sinai. I can only relay what they told me afterwards. Exhausted from his games of squash, Jeff also got a vicious case of the hiccups. If anyone has never heard Jeff's hiccups, then you can't possibly know what real hiccups sound like. They sound as painful as they apparently are. He hiccupped for hours through the desert and arrived at the base of Mt. Sinai absolutely exhausted. In addition, he and Shelby were totally unprepared to climb SNOWY Mt. Sinai. They froze (and Jeff hiccupped) all the way up the mountain, which apparently came to 14 kilometers - half of that in the dark with flashlights. But in the end, they did get to watch the sun rise. Jeff said that God handed down an 11^th commandment to him while he was up there "Thou Shalt Not Climb Any More Mountains." He seems inclined to abide by that. Poor Shelby spilled her water bottle in her bag which not only saturated AND FROZE her Ipod but saturated AND FROZE her head scarf that she needed for St. Catherine's. Apparently when she took it out of her bag and shook it in the wind it froze in a solid sheet!

I think by the time they arrived at St. Catherine's (http://www.touregypt.net/Catherines.htm) to view the burning bush (apparently which was imported from the U.S. after a determination was made as to which type of bush it probably was?!?!?!??!) they had lost interest in that.

Highly Recommended

Ahh…Sharm El Sheikh. We woke up at 4 a.m. and the hotel allows you to visit the breakfast buffet, or what they have set up of it, whenever you need to. I definitely give them points for that as the buffet was basically ready for us. Our trip to the airport was pretty funny visually, I have a feeling. The taxi that picked us up was a tiny little sedan and the driver tied the majority of our luggage to the roof rack. I felt like we were in one of those Chevy Chase vacation movies with the bottom of the car scraping the road! When we arrived at the airport, it quickly became apparent that our driver had never been there before! First, we went around the round-about in the wrong direction and had to back up around the entire thing. Then he took us to a toll-booth looking station where he was informed that the flights to Sharm El Sheikh leave from their own terminal which is about 10 minutes away. Since we were on a 1-way entrance road, our driver then had to turn around and drive against traffic until we were back on the main road. Our confidence in him was increasing! But eventually we did get to the Sharm El Sheikh departure terminal and our wait and flight were uneventful. By 8:30 that morning we had arrived in sunny Sharm.

The Hyatt Regency has an airport shuttle, although you have to run around the parking lot and find it mixed in with all the other shuttles. All that was forgiven when we arrived in Paradise. From my first glimpse of the Red Sea from the lobby I was in love. http://sharmelsheikh.regency.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp It looks exactly like it looks in the pictures on their website. Just heaven. Our rooms were pretty far apart, but since the kids were located right by the ping pong / squash courts, they didn't seem to care. We had a beautiful ocean front room and ahh… just lovely.

While we were there we -

• Ate
• Snorkeled
• Ate
• Read
• Ate
• Napped
• Ate
• Played ping pong
• Ate
• Played lots and lots of Hearts & Euchre!
  
  

The snorkeling was truly incredible and felt unreal. The fish were so bright and colorful and we saw new fish every time we swam. The coral lived up to its name "The Gardens." The only drawback was that it was fairly chilly out of the water so getting in required some courage as you knew you were going to have to eventually get out and shiver down the pier. If it had been summertime, I could have snorkeled there for hours.

As could be expected, everything at the Hyatt was expensive, but just to give you an idea - a small bottle of sunscreen cost us $18. Note to self: Bring own sunscreen on trips!

Ate & Ate

No one alive has the willpower to be on a diet at this hotel. The food was absolutely delicious - everywhere. The breakfast buffets were big and beautiful and elegantly presented. The various breads and rolls were delicious and I think each of us ate a minimum of 4 at every single breakfast. There was a fruit bar, an omelette station, a made to order pancake station, all kinds of meats, and various other items that I didn't recognize. The only disappointment was the bacon which was made from beef, not pork - obviously.

Lunchtimes could have been more resistable if - believe it or not - they hadn't served some of the most delicious French fries I've ever had in my life. It's been a long time since I've even really liked French fries but these were perfect - hot, crunch on the outside, soft on the inside. Tandoori chicken and fries at Cascades Restaurant was my favorite treat.

We had a few options at dinner time and we almost explored them all. The Souk Restaurant is like an open market place. There is a stage where performances appear one after the other - dancers of various types, including belly. Then the tables are surrounded by various food "stalls." You're given a bag of coins that you can use to purchase food at the various international options and you're only charged for the coins that you use. It was fun and the food was pretty good.

Christmas Dinner was expensive (hah! Little did I know!) at $60 per person. The buffet was pretty elaborate, but I still preferred the breakfast buffet. Shelby was brave enough to try a Guinea Fowl, although I think Carl's the one who actually finished it. Another night we went to the Thai restaurant - the most expensive of the restaurants - and everyone seemed to enjoy their food very much.

Euchre & Hearts

I can't begin to count how many games we played of Euchre & Hearts. The only thing I know for sure is that I was the overall UNDISPUTED GAMES CHAMPION. We'll leave it at that.

Squash

The squash story is a story of a practical joke that backfired on us. Carl challenged Jeff to a game of squash but unbeknownst to Jeff, Carl scheduled two squash lessons for himself prior to the game. Shelby and I showed up to watch the game, thinking how much fun it would be to watch Jeff get beat by Carl "who had never played before." Alas, that was not to be. They played game after game after game and I'm not sure Carl was ever any closer to beating Jeff than he was the first game. Jeff was laid out on the floor, face bright red, yet still winning. This was to bite him in the rear, however, because…

Our Trip Began in Cairo

We had (well, I had) fretted and feared over whether or not we would be able to actually depart Sarajevo at all with the frequent fog-outs at the airport, but luckily we woke up Friday (12/22) morning to a sunny sky. We used a private driver to get to the airport (at 30KM one way) versus taxi because while the taxi ride to the airport might have been slightly cheaper (needing 2 taxis at approximately 12 KM each), the return would have been way more expensive (2 taxis at 25KM each). This worked out well and we gave the driver our return information and he was waiting inside for our return. Definitely recommend that.

Indira was here to watch the dogs and see us off. That could have worked wonderfully, but unfortunately while we were gone there were two nights of fireworks that apparently freaked them out and then Maya got sick with some type of intestinal thing. Both events caused Indira a great deal of stress and she says that she worried and cried for most of the time that we were gone. That's no good so we're now searching for someone new to be available periodically.

Our flight to Istanbul was uneventful (my favorite word when it comes to travel) and we arrived at a wonderful modern airport that is more like a mall than anything else. Reminds me the most of Washington Dulles airport by comparison. We had 6 hours to kill (our flight not leaving until 11 p.m.) and we spent the majority of that time ensconced in the comfy-chairs at Starbucks. We took turns browsing in the stores and getting our frappuccinos so that we couldn't lose those wonderful seats that had the added bonus of being close to the bathrooms.

We arrived in Cairo at a little after 1 o'clock in the morning - tired but excited. We got outside with our luggage to be greeted by chaos instead of a taxi queue. I have no idea what we should have paid, but we ended up paying 60 egyptian pounds ($11) for a ride to our Hilton (Ramses on the Nile) which was about ½ hour away. I will say that our driver was very interesting and made a wonderful introduction for us to the city. The Ramses Hilton was adequate http://www1.hilton.com/en_US/hi/hotel/CAIRHTW-Ramses-Hilton/index.do (more on the Hilton chain of hotels later) but I was immediately put off by the front desk clerk raising the price on me. We had made an internet booking through Hilton's own website at $140 per night for two nights. He informed me (this is now about 2:15 a.m., mind you) that the second night would be $150 per night instead. I showed him my reservation confirmation and he just smiled. What is there to do at 2 o'clock in the morning but grin and bear it and be glad it wasn't worse. It could be worse, much worse, as I was to find out during my next Hilton experience. At that point I was thankfully naïve. The breakfast buffet was very nice and it actually allows you to come before it's open if you have an early flight which served us well the 2^nd day. I did get a thrill to walk out on my balcony overlooking the Nile and be able to squeal "Jeff, we're in Egypt!"

The Ramses Hilton is located immediately across the street from the Egyptian museum. Carl and Jeff decided to check that out first thing the next morning while Shelby and I rested up for our afternoon sightseeing trip. Word to the wise - when you arrange an individual sightseeing trip, make sure that you've clarified with your guide what your expectations are beforehand. Our tour was arranged through Queen Tours Egypt www.queentours-eg.com. The price was $40 per person for a private tour to see the Citadel of Saladin, the Mohamed Ali Mosque, the Pyramids and the Sphinx. Our guide, Mr. Hasan, was very personable and friendly, but not particularly patient for our style of sightseeing. I enjoy walking around and looking at something and allowing the beauty and history of it to kind of sink in by osmosis while Jeff enjoys walking around and looking for interesting camera angles to reflect that beauty. Mr. Hasan is more from the "this is the Mosque, take your picture from here, let's move on" school of sightseeing. To be fair, I hadn't clarified our style ahead of time but any attempts to do so on the fly were not enthusiastically greeted.

We went first to the Citadel of Saladin http://www.ask-aladdin.com/saladin.htm where the Mosque of Mohamed Ali is located. http://ask-aladdin.com/mohamedali.html We didn’t have the opportunity to find out how much of the Citadel could be explored as we walked straight to the Mosque. The Mosque is incredibly gorgeous and ornate and our guide explained to us that it is not a typical mosque in Egypt but rather one that tourists would visit and that it is of Turkish design. From here there is also a wonderful view of the city of Cairo.

Then we went to a shakedown - I mean, a papyrus store. Even though I knew that our guide had brought us here as a form of entrapment, I was actually very interested in how papyrus is created. It's very ingenious. http://www.lib.umich.edu/pap/k12/manufacture.html

All of us except Jeff purchased a picture painted on papyrus, with Carl actually choosing two.

Then we headed for the pyramids. I had been told that they're right in the city, so I expected to see them surrounded by buildings or something but they're actually placed more on the edge of Giza with desert extending past them. I don't know that I had any real expectations in mind and our guide moved us along so quickly that it was hard for me to really breathe and take them in. I did get to climb up to have my picture taken with Carl/Shelby, so that was nice. There weren't nearly as many vendors and camel drivers as I expected, either. Jeff and I wanted to walk around and probably could have spent hours there but our guide hurried us into the car so he could take us to an overlook. Along the way Jeff yelled STOP because he had perfect light/perfect view/perfect shot, but he was ignored L The overlook was nice, but Jeff's disappointment at missing the shot he wanted was pretty strong. By this point I was starting to resent our guide but it's always hard in a foreign country to know how hard to push things - at least it is for us.

After we left the overlook we went to get a shot of the Sphinx. I hadn't realized that it's right there at the pyramids, and in fact is kind of like the gateway to the pyramids. Jeff wanted a profile shot of the Sphinx and while he set that up, against our guide's "better shot from the front" objections, I attempted to placate our guide by rushing along with him and Carl. While I was gone Shelby got the first of what was to be many marriage proposals. She was asked if she was Jeff's wife and when she said no, his daughter, Jeff was offered 200 camels for her. It's hard to know how much of that was just being funny for the obvious tourists, but since this became a constant theme of our whole visit to Egypt, I started to wonder.

After the Sphinx, we decided to go back to our hotel and just have a quick meal in Sherlock Holmes' Pub, which ended up being a fair meal. Early to bed as we had to awake at 4 a.m. the next day for our flight to Sharm El Sheikh.