I Have a New Appreciation for Toilet Paper

Since my last two posts were extraordinarily long, I promise this one will be short! (less words at least) Thus, it will be in bullet point/time table form.

• Wake up 5 a.m. (most of us woke up around this time.. jet lag possibly?)
• Breakfast 6:30 a.m. (again, yummm)
• 8:30 Leave for Egyptian Museum
• The ride there was very eye opening. I took lots of pictures of the slums, we saw pyramids more clearly in the skyline, and the city was different than I expected. 

Pyramid in the skyline, a view of the living areas outside of the city. We noticed a lot of unfinished buildings.

Tons of motorcycles parked outside the gates of Cairo University. A very beautiful campus!

A view of the city and the Nile!

 

This is just next door to the Egyptian Museum. This is the building of the headquarter of the former "National Democratic Party"' the ruler party during Mubarak's era, it was burnt down during the revolution of the 25th of January 2011.

• The Egyptian Museum is GIANT! Unfortunately, we couldn't bring in our cameras, but we did manage to get some group photos outside! 

• Our tour guide is very knowledgeable. His name is Ahmed, and he will be staying with us for a fair amount of the trip. I feel like I learned a massive amount of Egyptian facts and much more about its history.
• We saw King Tutankahmun's (Tut's) treasures including his headdress made out of 11kgs of solid gold, jewelry, his coffins, carriages, hunting artifacts, and much more.
• We also saw a ton of other Pharoah's statues, coffins, sphinxes, and other items from their tombs, as well as heard stories about Kings and Queens. We learned what certain symbols meant and the history of Egypt was very well portrayed and is much easier to imagine with the remains right in front of our faces.
• AND we saw real mummies!!! It was incredible! These mummies are over 5000 years old, and I think Lana would appreciate knowing that some of these mummies still had solid teeth! It's pretty amazing how these 5000 year old mummies have teeth and some 40 year olds do not. I guess they didn't have Mountain Dew back then. The mummies also still had some hair. We learned how the mummification process worked on our way to the museum, and it was just amazing that they knew how to do something like that so long ago.
• Following the museum we stopped for lunch. Holy cow! It is a traditional dish called Koushari (I believe) I had to google this one, but the description sounds right on!
• Koushari, a vegetarian dish, combines lentils, chick peas, macaroni, and rice in a tomato sauce subtly flavored with onions and garlic. It is always accompanied by pita bread.
   Read more: Food in Egypt 
  And yes, I ate nearly the whole thing! Major Egyptian food baby!
  

• After lunch we went to a cafe to sit while small groups, one at a time, were brought into a small shop to buy good quality, fair priced gifts.
• Then we went to the hotel for our lecture. It was over Egyptian's Roles in the Revolution. Our speaker discussed the revolution with us and told his story about the events he encountered. Our professor wanted us to hear from speakers who were very uninterested in politics until the revolution and now it is the only subject they talk about. It is amazing how one event, or a series of events, can change one's own perspective and passions.
• Dinner consisted of fried shrimp, calamari, and fish with rice and, of course, flat bread (pita). It's a good thing I loveeee pita. 

More pictures from the drive..

The left picture is the some of the very tight (slum-ish) apartments I thought the picture on the left was interesting because it depicts how different the area is. Farm land, palm trees, tall apartment buildings.

Oh, and the story to the title of this post: Inside the bathroom of the museum there was a lady handing us what we needed to use for toilet paper. It was simply one piece of tissue paper and not your average Kleenex brand. Also, when we were looking for a restroom in the cafe there was also a man handing out toilet paper. Again, we weren't given much. It is apparent that they try to keep the toilet paper usage to a minimum; I'm assuming because of a lack of money to purchase, but it could also reduce a lot of waste and tree usage! Now, when I use the restroom, I think about how little toilet paper I am actually able to use and be just fine.

Hope all is well back home!
Tess