March 28 – 30 SFO to Cairo

March 28 – 30 – SFO to Cairo
I took BART from Pleasanton to SFO arriving at 10:45 am for my 2:40pm flight to Frankfurt. I went to the Business Class Lounge and relaxed until boarding time. The flight was uneventful and 10 hours after leaving SFO we landed. I slept only 2 hours on this flight. I had a 5 1/2 hour wait until my flight to Cairo. I fell asleep a few times during the wait. The first thing I noticed when I got to the gate to get on the flight was the number of people in Arab dress – Men in long white dresses with wraps on their heads and women dressed head to toe with only their eyes visible. The flight was full. We arrived in Cairo at the same time as 4 or 5 other flights. The line for passport control was huge. Our contact from Vantage got us through quickly by taking us through the Diplomatic line. We got to our hotel, the Ritz Carlton on the Nile, at 8:30pm. They took us directly into dinner. The food was delicious but I felt like all I has done all day was eat. I tried everything but left most of it on the plate.
I fell asleep at 11pm and slept until 5am.
March 30 – Cairo, Egypt
Breakfast had the hotel was good. There were many choices but I was still full from yesterday.
At 9am, we had a trip briefing where we learned what to expect on this tour. The surprising thing was the the U.S. Government requires an armed guard on any tour bus that has Americans on it. We were told to not expect good internet while cruising down the Nile.
After lunch we went to the Egyptian Museum. We learned a lot about Kings of Egypt. Everything was over 3000 years old. Over 100,000 items have been moved to the new museum but there were still over 200,000 left for us to see. The colors inside one sarcophagus looked like it had just been painted recently.
I got back to the hotel at 4pm and found that the internet was down.
We had an excellent dinner at the restaurant on the top floor of the hotel.
Finally, the internet came back at 3:30am.
We are leaving at 7:30am to go to Giza to see the pyramids and the Sphinx. It should be a great day.