Cairo

I had set my alarm for 9:30 this morning because breakfast was served until 10:30 and I wanted to have breakfast.  Breakfast was ok, but nothing to write home about.  But they did have the tasty tang drink I had the night before so it was worth it.  After breakfast I decided to hang out by the pool, get a little sun and read my book - it was so nice being out in the sun after the below freezing weather I had left in New York.  While I was at the pool a girl came around from the spa selling spa treatments.  Being a sucker for a spa treatment I got a 30 minutes reflexology message for 110 LE, which actually was a pretty good deal. 

After my trip to the spa I sat by the pool reading and eventually ordered lunch.  While waiting for lunch Gary showed up and sat down to have lunch with me.  After lunch I went back to my room to rest and watched some TV.  I got to watch an old episode of Days of Our Lives, which highlighted how bad the acting on Soaps is (now that I am back home I continue to watch), and some other shows on TV.

At 7:00 I went to the lobby for our pre-tour meeting.  I met Sherif (our Tour Manager) and Jacqui in the lobby, and we went to a conference room where everyone else was.  A few minutes later Karen arrived and the meeting started.  There are 20 people on tour, 10 girls and 10 guys.

Sherif told us that the next day we would go to the pyramids and the museum - the highlights - incase people weren't feeling well by the end of the tour.  After 10 -15 years of doing tours, I guess he knows what he's talking about.  He also told us that this was not a holiday, this was a tour and we would have some early mornings.  Sherif showed us some pictures and talked about the optionals.  He then sent us to eat dinner together by the pool.

Just as we went to sit down my roommate, Tara, finally arrived from Austin.  I showed her to our room so she could freshen up before dinner.  Sherif commented that I looked very happy (and I was happy to finally have a roommate) and I had looked uncomfortable at the meeting, but I guess I looked a little unhappy at the meeting, probably because it was really cold.  At dinner my end of the table had Chi (NY), Jason (NY), Karen (NY), Gary (Singapore), Jason (Salt Lake City), Natasha (Aus), Anton (Aus), Kelley (NY) and Jacqui (Aus but living in UK).  As the night went on people started going back to their rooms for bed, and table started to shift, so I got to met Sharon (Ireland), Tim (New Zealand) and Craig (Canada).  Craig was telling me who other people were, but as he was calling Adam, Adam and Alex, I didn't entirely trust his memory at that point.  But in fairness, it is hard to learn 20 names in one night.  A couple people were smoking Sheesha, I didn't totally get the Sheesha thing (it's a water pipe with tobacco in it) so they explained that it was a social thing.  Apparently people like to go to the cafe, smoke sheesha and hang out.  I gave it a try, but wasn't really feeling it.  At 11:00 I went back to my room, already sensing that this would be a good group.