Days 3 and 4 - Cairo

 Ramy picked us up at the airport, which made things a lot easier. (He is the local manager for the operator). Worthy of note, as we arrive towards immigration and customs, Caterina says she is going to throw up. We find a plastic bag in our backpacks and, as we stand in line at immigration, making our way towards the agent, Caterina is throwing up, standing up, into a plastic bag we are holding. Just hurling! She stopped just as we approached. It was great. Just a moment of pure poetry.

We got to skip the exit x-ray, which delighted Fernando. Ramy basically waved at someone and got us through. (Which is one of the 100 reasons that I would always use some sort of organized/coordinated service in Egypt). He said Ramy "has aura," "is a W," and "the Goat." So, I guess, good.

I will skip over all the curled noses at the food, but needless to say, if these were travel buddies rather than my kids, I'd be telling them I'll see them at the airport on the way out, and they can just take care of themselves. Sigh. We tried - we really tried - to raise cosmopolitan kids. The Ramses Hilton is a great hotel. 

The breakfast buffet is wonderful - enormous, varied, and anything anyone could want. We meet with Nilah at 8:30 am every morning to go tour the various sites/sights. 

The Ramses Hilton

Day 1 in Cairo was GEM (the Great Egyptian Museum). It took 25 years to build and over 1 billion dollars. Beautiful - built with the egyptology in mind. Beautiful artifacts. I think Nilah did it a disservice - she didn't read us properly and was guiding us at a 4th-grade level...We tried to engage, but to no avail. She did note we had excellent English! (She thinks we're from Italy). I told her we are from Colorado - that made nothing click. I dropped it. 

We then went to the Citadel, saw the Mosque, and walked into it (shoes off, of course). Again - the guiding was okay. I would get more from Googling it and reading at the place. That evening we (the family) went out (every day Nilah is done with us by about 2 pm). We walked around Cairo, made it to Tahihr Square, and tried to peek at the US Embassy. You can gauge a lot about how a country really feels about another by looking at its embassy. Not surprisingly, the embassy is blocked off for about 2-3 blocks in each direction, with no access. Unrelated, I also got harassed walking around, despite being with my kids and husband. It gets tiresome. And reminds me of high school, which I have no desire to revisit. We were also trying to find a place to eat - it was Ale's 43rd birthday. It was a bit of a disaster. We just dashed around dodging cars and people. The streets we took happened to have nothing - just small stores, big stores, fancy stores, and some KFC/Pizza Hut combos. But I was not interested in eating US food. So we came back to the hotel and ate there. It was nice but too expensive (for what we ate). The kids did eat...shocking. Salmon, pasta, risotto. No complaints. And we got dessert from the stand in the reception area, which were a big hit.

View from the Citadel

Day 2 we went to the pyramids, the kids rode camels, we checked out the Sphinx, and walked around the bazaar. Jet lag is hitting Lorenzo hard - we told him Day 3 is the peak. We also promised him melatonin at night to help him get to sleep before noon.

For that part Nilah dropped us off and came back in 1 hour. 

We did, in fact, negotiate and were able to buy the Egyptian dresses (the name now escapes me) for a few dollars each. So we spent about $38 and ended up with 4 of those gowns, a shirt, and a t-shirt. Nilah picked up some "Egyptian pizzas" for us (which is laminated dough with cheese - really good). Did you guess it? Yes. The kids didn't really want it. [Head in hands in exasperation emoji]. We did go to a Papyrus store. We got a nice little demonstration regarding how papyrus is turned into paper, which was cool. Honestly? Probably the highlight of the day. 

Ale noted how nicely priced the papyrus was. I told him "I think it's in USD." "What? No!" he exclaims. It was, in fact, in USD. So not nicely priced at all.

We were back at the hotel for the afternoon. We sat by the pool for a bit with the 2 youngest (R and L were in their room, chilling, resting). 

Eventually C and F got into it one too many times so I called it and we went upstairs. Cate took a bath in our room. F took a bath in his. Then they came to our room. 

I left to workout 40 minutes (holy. shit. I worked out!). When I came back, Ale was still playing video games on the big screen, and the 2 little ones were passed out on our bed. Ale and I left them under L's supervision and went to find food. We walked around for nearly 1 hour. We found a stand where we got some kebabs (bowls and wraps). Very, very good. We found some antibiotics for $1.50 a box. (I load up when we're here so we have it when we travel on the boat and elsewhere). It's without prescription and it's really cheap. We came back to the hotel. The two smallest ones were unwakable so we just took them to their own beds and called it a night. L and R went to bed. So did we.

Did I mention there are cats and dogs around town? Everywhere? And that they are friendly, docile, adorable. And Caterina pets every. single. one.

Managing F’s diabetes is mostly okay, but it has to be managed. We’re doing long, long walks, and I’m pretty sure he’s in the middle of a growth spurt—which, in a kid with diabetes, is kind of violent and requires a ridiculous amount of work. It’s not just eating. It’s constant. It’s exhausting.

He’s also getting lows because we’re walking so much, and then he refuses to eat the food we packed for him during the day (pain au chocolat and bread). So I ignore him--but it’s grating, and I can only ignore so much. Then, after a low, he becomes ravenous, which just piles on top of the growth spurt. It’s a whole thing.