After nearly two weeks in Egypt we have accomplished the main objectives of our stay and are finally ready to head back to good ole Amman, Jordan. As I write this, I'm sitting in a hotel in Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast pondering the events of the last two weeks, and how to condense such a story into something easily digestible. I could tell you all the things we saw and how numb my mind went after the third or fourth "really old thing with hieroglyphics on it", and I could tell you about going inside one of the great pyramids at Giza and actually lying down in the empty tomb in the middle of it, and I could tell you about the Nile River cruise... I could tell you about all those things but I wouldn't be giving you anything you couldn't get off any other blog or tourism website and it wouldn't be giving you the meaning for an FAO. So, suffice to say that, yes, I was amazed at all the old stuff, it was great fun, very tiring, and at this point I'm ready to say "ma salama" to Egypt and head back to Jordan. Two weeks of hard traveling is just that... hard.

So, what about the FAO perspective on things? Well... its going to be hard to sum this up in a short paragraph or two but I'll do my best. First of all, lets talk language. I would like to share a revelation with you: if anyone ever tells you they speak Arabic, call them a liar. "Arabic" is not A language... its about seven languages that all have a common root. Kind of like Latin was the root of all the Romantic languages we have today. Just think of a Spanish speaker talking to an Italian speaker, they can understand each other without knowing exactly what they are saying verbatim, but we consider them two distinct languages. This revelation became apparent to me as we tried to flex our mad Arabic skills through several situations (to include booking tickets, locating hotels, and three flat tire emergencies) to absolutely no avail. You see, Egyptian "Arabic" might as well just be called "Egyptian" and leave it at that. Not only do the words change, which is common for dialects, but the grammar changes significantly as well. To me -- new words + new grammar = new language! Even Tom, who has been here for the same amount of time I have been in Jordan, acknowledges that he's lost most of the time when speaking with anyone with less than a college education. So, the take home lesson here is that I am going to have to invest quite a lot of time learning the local dialect if I ever come to Egypt more permanently. I'm also going to have to learn to rely on public transportation a lot more, as traffic in Cairo and Alexandria is beyond insane.

The other notes I've taken all have to do with Egypt as a country and culture. I won't bore you with all the points I've come up with (half of which are just my opinion based on a very limited set of observations), but I want to say here that as we've moved about the country I've tried to keep an eye on what we call "atmospherics", i.e. ways of gauging the social, political, economic, and cultural attitudes around me. My focus, however, has been on how Egyptians view themselves and how they view westerners, particularly Americans. Getting information can be a bit tricky... you don't want to just lead off a conversation with "hi my name is Wayne, what do you think of America?". Typically you spend a little time talking about normal things and eventually you can find ways to ask for opinions without being so blunt. And then it is just a matter of paying attention to the person. You'd be surprised how much you can learn from these casual conversations.

By and large, Egyptians are a good and hospitable people who are struggling to find their footing again following nearly 30 years as an ongoing police state. Poverty in some areas is worse than in others, and some westerners will find tourism to be a little frustrating as the desperation of some of the local people can be overwhelming at times. For example, the local guy standing in the tomb who tells you "that's Horus, that's Nefertiti, that's Osiris" when you admire a painting a moment too long will hold out his hand or motion that he wants a little scratch for the service he just provided you. Even though you didn't ask for his help. This is a common theme: people will seek opportunities to obligate you to give them money. Other examples include the guy who "volunteered" to take a photo with me, the group of guys at the zoo who wouldn't allow us to change our own flat tire, and the guy at the gas station who insisted on helping us wipe tar off our car. And lets not forget the random locals sitting in just about every bathroom you need to use who do nothing but still expect a fee for using "their" toilet. Eventually, I lost track of all the "baksheesh" I shelled out along the way for doing the simplest of things. At this point I don't want to know.

I'm not going to end on a negative note, so I'll close by saying that this has been a wonderful first experience for regional travel. I've gotten much, much more out of it than what I've shared in this post, so maybe once I'm back home I'll break down a couple more things for those of you who are trying to learn more about FAO business or are just otherwise interested. For now, time to find something to eat a see just a bit more of Alexandria before we head back across the Sinai tomorrow. Of course, I'll leave you with some photos, and a video on YouTube as soon as I can get home and edit the 30 minutes or so of footage.

For the low low price of just 5 Egyptian pounds you too can have a momentary native friend for a photo in Karnak Temple.

Of course, the obligatory photo in front of the Pyramids of Giza (that's the one we went inside... very cool).

At a very shady "African Safari" zoo, minutes before flat tire #3. (why is the water green? probably because they never change it)

At over 40 meters, this obelisk would have been the single largest piece of stone ever handled by man had it not developed cracks. I'm sure that was a bad day for them. Little did they know that we would still be pointing at it and saying "epic fail" 3300 years later.

Standing in a room built by Alexander the Great in the Temple of Luxor. Just the idea that he could have once stood in the same room is enough to make your eyes glaze over.

Sunrise on Mt. Sinai.