Sorry I Got Distracted

My New Friends
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

I had more to say in yesterday's post, but I got distracted by my new friends. They were at the table next to me at McDonalds and struck up a conversation. I thought that they had left when I hurriedly finished, but they had just gone off to buy me a gift of potato chips. Not my favorite food, but how sweet! So we walked to the water front and I bought ice cream for all and we sat until sunset. They then walked me to my hotel so that they could wave goodbye to me as I looked out my window. It's encounters like this that I love about traveling!

I forgot to mention yesterday that all of the design work you see on the photos of the outside of the Bibliotheca are written characters. The library boasts having characters from every written language known on it's outside. It was kinda cool looking around and recognizing Russian, Nepali, Thai, Hindi and some of the other languages I've become acquainted with.

Also worth noting is the Alexandria National Museum. It boasts collections from each of the cities periods (Roman, Coptic, Napoleonic, etc.). But most impressive is what they've been adding recently. You see, they've discovered part of the ancient city just off the coast to the east. It appears that this part of the city fell into the sea either during a tsunami that hit in the 300s AD or a major earthquake known to have struck in the 600s AD. Archeological dives have found statues, coins, columns, vases, etc. of the ancient city. There are a couple of rooms with relics brought up from the sea floor and along side each is a photo of the relic on the sea floor as it was found. It was fascinating. If you are certified, you can go out on a dive boat from the harbor outside my hotel and visit the city. I'm not certified, though. Bummer.

I made it through a taxi ride, the train, another taxi ride and am back in Cairo. Tomorrow morning I get a redo at Giza. The next day, I'll go back to the Egyptian Museum to see the rest. Sunday, I go to the post office to send things home and leave that night for Tanzania. I know I'll have internet access on Zanzibar, but while on safari, I probably won't. But that's OK -- there's been a drastic reduction in the number of comments in the past couple of weeks and I'm not getting any emails any more, so I'm the updates won't be missed too much. Yes, that's a not too subtle hint -- I'm homesick!