Stuck

The pyramid visit is out (sorry Olivia you will have to wait for the photos). The concierge had to break the bad news to everyone who is staying  at the hotel that we must stay in the confines of the hotel until the streets are more settled. After last night's curfew the police are expecting some unrest in the Giza area, which is where we are. Later we are going up to the roof to see what we can see. Hopefully I will take a few photos to share.
I took these photos yesterday:

 Iti's liquid lunch by the pool.

The pyramids make a great backdrop.

Last night's wedding party. They were very happy to let the Kiwi take their photo.

Tony and I have our own spot in the lobby we call OUR OFFICE.

Turmoil? What turmoil?

Forgot to watch the news when we got up this morning so we were a little surprised to see 8 armed trucks, with 2 tanks on each one, rumble past our hotel this afternoon. Pretty daunting! Apparently they were on their way to disperse the sit in at Nahda Square which is about 11km from where we are. If you have "google earth" you can find our hotel (Le Meridien Pyramid, Giza) then look for the places they are mentioning on the news so you can see how far we are from the action. I have to say though that the media exaggerate the amount of unrest. Cairo is such a huge place it makes Auckland look like Tirau.
They have enforced a curfew which started at 7pm tonight and the streets are desolate. Usually the streets are humming with crazy drivers who don't know how to drive within lanes. I will take a photo tomorrow of the street outside our hotel which doesn't have any lanes painted on it but it would be about 6 lanes wide and the cars all go one way along it. I know I won't be driving here.
We have booked a hotel guide to take us to the pyramids tomorrow - should be fun. I'll take lots of photos for Room 25.

Day One photos

Auckland Airport farewell. Pre-tears.

 Dubai Airport (after 25 hours and I was shattered) with Iti our kiwi. I bought him at the Auckland Airport and he will feature in our blog.

 Iti on the plane to Cairo.

 Check out the cows. There were donkeys and horses on the roads too.

A view down the Nile.

 Our taxi driver took this. Do we look happy? I thought he was going to take off with our gear while we stood there.

 Lots of buildings are only half finished with people living in them. Rubbish is everywhere. This photo doesn't show much but Gladstone kids would be horrified!!!

 The pyramids on the way to the hotel

 

More photos tomorrow ...

The Adventure Begins

Leaving Auckland Airport was a bit tearful but we know we are going to see you all again shortly. Mum get Broadband and don't forget if we are skyping you we will e 10 hours behind so send a gmail to say when.
The start of the adventure ...
29 hours to get from Auckland to Cairo and boy it was tough. Can't complain about Singapore Air. I think we've both gained a couple of kilo from all the food we ate on the flights over. Singapore Airport was a nightmare. Because I was so tired I decided to take a nap for a couple of hours and when Tony came to wake me up 11.40 (half an hour before boarding) we realised my laptop was missing. For the next half an hour we ran (literally) around the 3 terminals trying to track down where we had left it and Singapore Airport is bigger than Dubai!! Anyway to cut a long story short it was found on a chair in the food hall, where we hadn't even been, and was handed into the information booth who we had checked with first. We rescued it and ran to our boarding gate which was a 10 minute walk away. Thank God for travelators! The really annoying thing was we got to the gate and there was a long cue still waiting to go through security gggrrrrr. We went through every emotion you could think of  during that 6 hour stopover.
We decided to get off the plane at Dubai and grab a coffee. It took 30 minutes to walk to the coffee shop via security ( boots, belts and laptops out of covers) and get back to the plane in time to reboard. Nice coffee though :-)
We arrived early at Cairo Airport so the man who was supposed to meet us got there after we went through the visa stuff and were waiting for our bags. THAT'S WHERE THE FUN BEGINS. He had a flat tyre so we had to wait in the airport for him to fix it and come back. In the meantime there were about 30 taxi offers ... pretty intimidating. He hadn't realised we were staying at the Meridien so he organised a cab to bring is out to the hotel. He told us everything was paid for. When we got in the taxi Tony repeatedly said to the driver about it being paid for - YEAH RIGHT. He persuaded us to stop a couple of times to take photos and wanted to drive us to the tourist venues after we dropped our bags off. We were pretty adamant that we wanted to get here and rest so said we would ring him about the tourist thing. Anyway as we are pulling up to the hotel he starts going on about a tip. We had to get the guy on the door to help get rid of him cos he was expecting a 40 pound tip from us. The guys at the hotel have been really helpful and we are looking forward to an early night. The "Egyptian way" may take a little more getting used to than I thought.
Right now we are sitting in the lobby having lunch and an Egyptian Stella - not bad. Wifi is free for 15 minutes so have to keep my updates short. Will add photos I have taken later. 35 degrees today woohoo for airconditioning. Gotta be better than the 12 degrees we left in Auckland eh?

Sitting at the airport waiting, waiting, waiting. Check in was super easy - no cues thank goodness.
We went through our bags about 5 times over the past two days to make sure we were 30kgs. Got to the airport and did one last weigh and I had to get rid of the extra 4 kg in my bag. Bugger! Tony's carry on now has a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt and a jersey added to it :-)
Thanks Russ for the last two days on the boat! Hopefully I turned off all the right switches when we left and the boat is not sitting at the bottom of the marina.
Looking forward to the long flight and lotsa movies...
Will blog once we hit Singapore.

One Week To Go

Countdown has begun.
Only 7 sleeps to go before Tony and I leave for Egypt.
We have ticked most of the "to do" boxes but there is still a lot to get done before we move out of the house on Saturday. It's amazing how much red tape has to be dealt with when you move overseas - wills, health insurance, birth certificates, marriage certificate (I need to prove I'm married when asked) as well as renting the house.
On top of all that I've finally decided to get organised and finish my degree while I'm away so time has been spent locating documentation. With only 16 students in my class I should have plenty of time to study - yeah right!
Am I excited?? Ask me in 5 days time :-)