This morning starts our 3rd full day in Egypt and I am feeling A LOT of feelings. I’ll explain.
I should start out by saying that I was asked by my family, specifically my dad, to create an itinerary for this Egypt trip. It’s my 3rd trip to Egypt. First time was in 1994 and second time was in 2010. Both times everything was planned for me and I was staying a lot longer. So this trip came with some pressure… created by me of course. The goal is to squeeze some of the best sites and experiences in 7 days (when Sarah leaves), while also leaving in some time to relax, and accommodating foreign palettes and sensitive tummies. Call it mission impossible. I am learning a lot of things. Staying on schedule is not possible.
Though I feel that I’ve googled everything there is possible this trip… so much so that I packed every type of wipe, various medicines, toilet paper, hand sanitizer, snacks, battery packs, etc, it is impossible to know everything.
Some things that I’ve learned:
1. Traffic is unpredictable. Many people know that traffic has no rules out here. Dog eat dog. Eat or get eaten. Every man for himself. No one follows lanes or signs or anything. Everyone just pushes their way along trying to get in front while honking to announce their presence.
2. Bathrooms have 1-4 stalls at the most. If you plan to stay places for longer than an hour, a group of 9 people will be using the bathroom upon arrival and upon leaving because nobody knows where the next decent bathroom will be. If there’s only 1 stall, that means a lot more time is needed per stop.
3. When staying for a limited time, factoring in good dining experiences is very difficult. I love brunch. But Egyptians start their day super late and though a restaurant might say they open at 9 or 10, they really just open whenever they want and start serving certain items as they please. Good google reviews don’t translate to good restaurant.
4. The tourism police is everywhere. Everywhere we go, our bags are checked, sometimes 3 times in one place. They don’t like cameras with extended lenses, and taking photos of police is forbidden. If you are used to certain freedoms, prepare to give them up. Hotels want to know every detail about when you’re coming and going and drivers in tourism have to report exact itineraries to avoid fines.
5. Everyone stares all the time.

Now let’s get started with the day.
We headed to Alexandria this morning. For some reason I thought it may be less crowded and more liberal than Cairo but I may have made that up in my mind.

Our first stop was a restaurant called Bruxie’s Kafr Abdo. I had found this place online recently and it was alleged to have a lot of western breakfast options like pancakes, waffles, and crepes. Nope. After we sat down and tried ordering, we found out very gradually that they pretty much only had omelettes and burgers. And I think they had to call in a chef or someone’s mom to come cook. The food took quite some time to show up, making us get to our next stop 2 hours behind schedule.

First historic stop was the Catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa. The names translates to something like a building material junkyard. Which is what it was until one day in 1801, a donkey fell in, and they discovered burial tombs of Romans and Pharoahs. Not sure what it is dated back to but the architecture was very clearly Roman.
It was like a small underground city with places for burial, a crematory, and other various rooms on multiple levels around 15 meters underground. You could tell that every chamber and nook was carved into the stone which was very impressive.

Second stop for the day was Pompey’s Pillar also know as Serapeum of Alexandria. Also Roman. And also with underground chambers right under the pillar. The pillar was Set up in honour of the Roman emperor Diocletian between 298–302 AD.

Third historic stop was the Ancient Roman Theater, an archaeological site featuring the remains of an ancient Roman theater, baths & a villa with mosaics. There’s a lot of greenery growing around the theater including common purslane, wild tobacco, and other poisonous plants. I got some pics of Matt in front of the greenery that were really cute. Unfortunately this site was covered in quite a bit of trash. It’s kind of sad and a little embarrassing that some of these historic sites aren’t being taken care of properly. It really made me start thinking how a country where so much knowledge originated can end up this way. I digress.

We made it to our hotel, Sunrise Alex Avenue, in Alexandria around 5:30 pm and started getting changed for the pool and beach. We walked in the ocean for a couple minutes and made our way to the pool, where I would feel rage for the first time this trip. Oh but Jasmin, you’re so sweet, you don’t feel rage. The sweetness is a facade. I traded my towel card for a towel at the towel hut. Walked up 10 stairs adjacent to the towel hut, and walked to the pool area. The same fellow that gave me the towel 30 seconds earlier then told me the pool was closed. It was 6:15 pm at that point and the pool was supposed to stay open until 7 pm. I pointed to the sun and told him sassily in Arabic, “but the sun is still out.” He repeated its closed.

I walked to the beach making snarky comments here and there and being my brattiest self. I start venting to Matt, and my dad and mom via phone call and whoever will listen, alleging loudly that I wasn’t allowed in because of my weight or religion or anything else that might stick. Matt is a great listener but in this instance motioned for me to pipe down. He also pointed out that nobody else was at the pool. After my tantrum, we just laid on some beach chairs and enjoyed the breeze.

Once I relaxed a little we decided to get dinner at the hotel restaurant, Elia. Most of us ordered the Grilled Sea Treasure which had shrimp, calamari, and sea bass.

It was really good, especially the sea bass. Matt ordered Atlantic salmon. I love sitting down and eating dinner together with the family. It’s been a real treat especially because we only ever see them in Florida maybe once or twice each time we visit. The kids have grown up so much. Zack gave me some “really difficult” math problems to solve that he made himself. I think he’s working on PEMDAS at the moment; either that or he just really supports it. His problem was lengthy but in every place division was involved, the result was a whole number so you could tell he really thought it through. Zoey followed suit and gave Matt some ridiculous math problems that she didn’t even know the answers too. He humored her with his attempts and then she kept herself busy for a long time trying to check his work.



At dinner we realized that our room was about 3 times the size of theirs so we decided to take Nat with us in our room to bunk with Sarah. I even helped her out with some Algebra!