Egypt stuff

December 6th
Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, had a very shiny nose.....
Today we saw...the Pyramids. At first we were fine, but after we saw the sphinx we couldn't find our way to the pyramids entrance.
We finally got to the pyramids and inside it was very small, crammed passageway that went down and then up.
I don't see the point of having this, or at least Papa doesn't. He had to walk bent over and he didn't like having to do that any longer than he had to.

December 7th
We awoke to the hearty breakfast of a dry bun, cold egg and luke warm tea!!! There's a hint for all you Luxor goers: do not got to the Shady Hotel
After that, we went on a wonderful felucca ride. It was very peaceful except for the part where the kids on Banana Island asked for baksheesh (money). One of the guys that asked for money gave us sugar cane. Sugar cane would give you a big sugar rush (aka. lots of hyper activity). We watched the sun go down. After that we switched our bags to the Happyland Hotel and called it a day.
The next day we woke up and had an 'unhearty' breakfast of lemon juice, some fruit cocktail thing, bread, pita bread, jam and pancakes! That's another hint for you Luxor goers - Happyland Hotel!

Valley of the Kings, and temples
The Valley of the Kings was pretty cool. Of course, we didn't go to Tutankhamun's tomb because it was way too expensive, but we did go to Ramses III and II's tombs. In Ramses III's tomb...well, I drew a plan of it in my journal.
We also went to Tutmosis I's tomb. His tomb is the deepest discovered tomb in the Valley of the Kings. The hieroglyphics on the walls were really cool.
The first temple we went to was very touristy and most of the statues were ruined because it was Hatshepsut's temple and Hatshepsut didn't let Tutmosis III be pharaoh. Finally he became pharaoh and he smashed all here statues.
Next, we went to Habu Temple. Ramses III had built it, and sometimes pharaohs carved their name over another pharaoh's name so it would be theirs, so Ramses carved his name so deep, I could stick a full page into it. Nobody's going to take that temple over.
The next day we went to Luxor and Karnak temples. Luxor temple seemed more tourisy than Karnak but Karnak was a lot bigger. At Karnak, I copied part of an obelisk. Papa wouldn't let me copy it all down so we took a picture.

December 11th
Jingle bells....
Today we went to the Islamic quarter of Cairo. We went to some mosques. The guys there asked for money. They wanted 50 pounds. Mama said we'd give him 20 but he said no. We didn't know why he didn't want it.
After that we went to a souq. I bought a scarab beetle that's really cool. While we were there, we saw the.....New Zealander's!!
We made plans to go for supper with them. They showed us a really neat place in a mall across from the hotel. There was a KFC! But we went to a pizza joint. It was good. After that they took us to an amazing juice stand. They had lots of flavours. I had strawberry/banana, it was awesome! It's like a smoothie without the ice cream or yogurt.
When we went to the hotel, Jonas, Isaac and I played a game that Jonas made up. It was fun, but finally they had to go to Paris.

Matthew