Cairo and Eid al Adha

Starting next Thursday, Steve and I have another school break, this time for the second Eid celebration, Eid al Adha.  It's celebrated to "to commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael as an act of obedience to God" (according to Wikipedia).  For us, it means nine days of vacation, which most students use as a chance to travel.  We didn't get to travel for the last Eid because Steve didn't have his residence card, but this time we're going to Cairo!

At this point, we've got tickets booked; we're leaving early on the 11th and will be in Cairo until the 19th.  We're looking forward to some of the standard tourists stops such as the Giza pyramids, the Citadel, and the Museum of Modern Egyptian Art.  We're also interested in seeing sites such as the Cairo Zoo, Egyptian Textile Museum, Hanging Church, Philosophers' Circle, the Solar Barque Museum, and maybe even the super cheesy Sphinx sound and light show.

Giza Complex

Citadel

We're planning a day trip up to Alexandria to see the library, Qaitbay fortress, and perhaps the Montazah palace.

We also want to be able to take a guided tour of Dahshur, which is an area about 7 miles south of Cairo which is supposed to have a few great pyramids while being less crowded than Giza.

Perhaps one event I'm especially looking forward to is seeing Harry Potter in Cairo with my friend J who is also going to Egypt for Eid.  It's so fortunate that the break fell at this time, because I'm not sure that we'll get a screening of Harry Potter at our cinema.  We only show two movies at a time and only for one week.  Usually only one of the movies is an American movie, and with all of the movies being censored, I'm just not convinced it would make the cut.

Cairo seems to have a decent metro system, so that and taxis are going to be our primary modes of transportation (oh and our feet).  It'll be interesting to see how the metro compares to what I've read online; apparently it's supposed to be pretty clean and nice.

One place we most likely won't be going is the Birqash Camel Market.  Go here to see some interesting pictures and a pretty good description of the market.  It would be pretty cool to see, but honestly it looks pretty barbaric too.