Alexandria

Tuesday we woke up extremely early to start our 3½ hour drive to Alexandria, the Greek city in Egypt on the Mediterranean. It was really pretty, and nothing like Cairo. The city was founded by Alexander the Great, and was Egypt’s capitol for almost a thousand years, until AD 641 when the Muslims took over and founded Fustat, later Cairo. Once there, we saw the Catacombs or Kom el Shoqafa, multi-level labyrinth tombs. These were really cool, and just like the pyramids hard to imagine how they was built and carved with minimal tools. Again, sadly, pictures weren’t allowed. Then we went to Pompey’s Pillar, a Roman column originally part of a colonnade made for Diocletian, in memory of the rebellion of Domitius Domitianus. It is one of the best-known ancient monuments still standing.
Alexandria is much different than Cairo, as you can see the Greek influence in the statues and buildings. It’s also much cleaner. I thought it was pretty and nice, but Muhammed said as an Egyptian man, he does not like Alexandria.
We went to the Alexandria Library, which is not an average library at all. It’s huge, and has the largest open space to read in the world. It’s also a museum. The library was only built seven years ago, and the architecture is really neat. There was a contest, and a group of architects from Norway won. From an aerial view the main building is shaped like the sun, and it has writing in many languages on the sides to represent blending cultures. There’s a planetarium on the west side, representing the Earth orbiting the sun. It has one of the largest Internet databases in the world, and you can read ancient books online. Each page of the actual books are photographed, so you can flip through them and read.
We also went to Montazah Park, a cute garden park on the beach. It was very pretty, but strange to see women swimming in clothing and hijabs. We would have been VERY out of place in bikinis, so we just walked around and went to the Presidential House to take pictures. Then it was back in the van for the long ride to the hotel and our final farewell to our guide. He is a very funny man. He’s kind, and jokes with us and quizzes us. But then there were moments we wondered if he was lying about prices and keeping some for himself. According to himself, he’s a good Muslim, and he told us many times of good things he’s done, how he refuses pretty women who try to get him to sleep in tents when he does tours in other areas, how he helps people, how he doesn’t drink and reads the Qur’an daily. And mostly he just really, really wants one of us to convert. We enjoyed our time with him though. And now, we’re going to try to sleep through the very, very loud wedding happening at our hotel, and prepare for our flight to Greece in the morning!