Whoever told me that Egypt is not a humid country flat out lied. When I walked outside to eat breakfast on the deck, this is the first thing I thought to myself as beads of sweat dripped like rain on my eggs.
Alexandria is a hot, hot place. I believe it’s the third largest city in Egypt, and the overpopulated, trash-ridden streets certainly denote this fact. Emily, Michelle, Carrie, and I walked around in linen pants and baggy shirts and big hats, because we were told that Egypt is known for its catcalls and marriage proposals to young, touristy women.
It was an interesting day… we walked around the very large city in search of Alexandria’s very famous library. I want to say that it was the very first library to ever be built…but that might be a lie. It was a first of some kind, maybe it was the oldest? Regardless, we found it about an hour after leaving the port and I stood in awe. It was the shape of a half-circle and lifted off of the ground to face the sunset. It was beautiful. Every structure and inscription had meaning. We bought our tickets to go inside and joined a tour group to be taken around and shown about. The lady gave us so much information that I can’t really recall much of anything she said, but it was a gorgeous place, that’s for sure. I love libraries.
We then proceeded to walk around trying to find lunch, and the girls decided on Pizza Hut. Up to this point in my voyage, I had not eaten any American food, aside from ship food (which does not count as American food…) Carrie and I ordered a medium stuffed-crust pizza with mushrooms and sausage and it was really yummy – not Pizza Hut yummy, but yummy for what it was worth. I then scolded myself for giving in to Americanized restaurants, but all of the other food establishments around the area were in Arabic, and the menus were unreadable. I told myself we had no other choice.
We walked around some more before finding a taxi to take us to a famous pillar on the opposite side of Alex. The driver did not understand what we were saying and took us to some random stadium far away from the pillar and our ship. We hailed another taxi that semi-understood where we wanted to go, and he took us there, but not without proposing to Carrie on the way. It was humorous. She got all flustered and tried to laugh it off.
We had an archeologist that worked around the site take us around and down underneath the pillar to where the people used to hide important documents and mummified animals. He showed us the bull that pagans around the time used to bring sacrifices to and worship until the Christians came in and told them to stop worshipping idols. It was quite the history lesson. The pillar was erected as an icon of worship as well. People call it the mini-Pompeii.
We took another taxi to the ship around 5pm because Alexandria had drained us all. It was not the kind of place to just aimlessly walk around, like some of the other ports we have been to. The heat was annoying and draining as well, so we took an early night and just lounged around waiting for Cairo the next day.
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