Cairo!

Hello from Cairo!

I've gotten a bit of a chance to catch up on email here: I have foregone the
opportunity to see the Cairo museum; we only had 2 hours of freetime in the city,
so I didn't want to pay full price for a museum that I couldn't possibly see in an
entire day, much less 2 hours.  Plus, I wasn't listening when they told us where it
was.

We visited the pyramids today!  They seemed bigger than I thought they would be. 
Each block is like 3 feet tall, and there are ...... many blocks.  Like 2.5
million.  The pyramids really are astonishing.  I like to imagine what they were
like originally, with smoothly covered surfaces reflecting the bright sun for
miles.  I was a bit sad to see stairs cut into the blocks.

We saw the Sphinx as well.  It was smaller than I thought it would be, but
otherwise looked just like all the pictures suggest.  I got a few pictures of
Francois between the sphinx and pyramids, and some that I hope to edit so the
sphinx has a rabbit head.

Yes, Francois is the name of the stuffed bunny given to me by a certain person
named Colleen..  (Thank you!!!).  He hung on my wall for two years before I came to
a critical decision:  should I throw/give him away when I get rid of all my stuff? 
Or should I take him around the world?  I voted for the latter, and in Al Aqaba,
Jordan, a woman named Ai suggested the name Francois.  The bunny didn't have a name
before that, but now he does, and is becoming a bit of a star on P B!   I'll
have a bunch of pictures of Francois in various countries around the world.

Al Aqaba, Jordan looks like a well loved old town.  The buildings are basically all
small and weather worn, but still lively and welcoming.  The Gulf of Aqaba is a
small little splash of water compared to the Red Sea: we can see across it from
Jordan to Egypt (and Israel next door).

From there we drove a few hours to Petra, by way of Wadi Rum.  Wadi Rum looks
somewhat like west Texas, but without the cactus.  There's just miles of red sand
and some rocky outcroppings painted in various shades of limestone layers.  I
climbed barefootedly up some rocks and got pics of Francois there.

(uh oh gotta be fast)

Petra was made famous by Indiana Jones And the Last Crusade movie.  It's the rock
facade in the last scene, (and it's called The Treasury because it's believed the
city's wealth was kept there.)  Have you been there?  Seen the movie?  Well, it's a
bit different now: it has recently been discovered that the well-know facade is the
*second* story (at least) and there is an excavation project working to reveal a
whole new room below the one that's there.  The first story has been covered and
forgotten by the centuries....   Wow!!!

Okay, gotta go!!!

      Love Love
       - Rob!