Estrella!

I think there is an A in her name somewhere, if I messed it up, sorry I'll edit it later.

Well, our good Friend arrives last night, or should I say this morning at 2am. She had a 9 hour lay over in Amsterdam, so had been traveling quit a long time to get to us. We are going to have some fun! little sad to say we will have to miss out on the Obama Pyramid rally, but hey we got lots to see with her these next two weeks!

Tomorrow morning we are going to the City of the Dead with a tour through my university. The city of the dead is just what is sounds like---it's people living in a cemetery. It's not a cemetery like in the U.S. A long time ago like 600AD people would bury their dead in a traditional spot then many times move for one reason or another far away over the many years. Since they had family burial traditions they built homes over the spot where the buried the dead so when they journey far across the desert they could have a place to stay why the morned and visited their dead. They usually would stay up to 2 weeks in these homes, so cemeteries are not these creepy ghost infested plots of land like in the U.S.--esp. the old ones here look like a small community of small stone homes. Fairly recently when Cairo had economic problems many people were homeless squatters. They started moving into these ancient stone homes b/c they are sturdy good places to live and were virtually unused. It resulted in a whole community of people living and developing this area into what is now called the city of the dead.

There are a bunch of really cool mosques and things to see in the city of the dead. It is also the poorest area of Cairo, so it an important experience.

I'm sure we will have lots of fun experiences and good posts these next few weeks. I'm itching to write my political views since I've turned more democrat and am supporting Obama, but that entry will have to wait.