Luxor and Paris

We're in Paris right now. We went to Luxor for 3 days before we left Cairo. There we saw many obelisks like the one in the picture from the Temple of Karnak. We also visited the tombs of the pharaohs and sailed on the Nile. Today we saw the Eiffel Tower and took elevators all the way to the top, 1000 feet off the ground. We also saw the Arc De Triomphe and Notre Dame, Luxembourg Gardens and Place de la Concorde, where they had an obelisk "gift" from Luxor Temple given to Louis Phillipe by Mohammed Ali. I'm completely tired of my parents taking pictures of me, so I didn't include any pictures of myself! Bye for now and I'll write more later, Sami

CAIRO, THIRD WEEK

Hi peoples,
We went to Alexandria this weekend and I got sick, so I couldn't swim in the Mediterranean Sea. But we also went to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, a giant library based on the ancient library built by Alexander the Great. It has a bunch of great things to learn and you can go to the website at www.bibalex.org. I just had my last Arabic class that I've been taking with my mom's college students. I now know how to read and write the whole Arabic alphabet. It's very hot here. Some days it gets over 100 degrees. Yesterday we went to the Islamic Ceramics Museum. There was one clay bowl that was a very pretty ocean blue. I really , really liked it. I'm feeling better now, but don't have any new pictures to add today. Still, you can see pictures of Alexandria on the website. In Alexandria, we also saw the old ruins of a Roman theater. There were many columns and I stood on one.
Bye for now,
Samia

Week 2 in Cairo

It's my second week in Cairo and already we've done a lot! On Friday April 10th we went to the Pyramids and the Sphinx. I was going to ride a camel, but I decided to ride in a cart pulled by a horse instead. It's funny that I have no memory of the last time I saw the Pyramids when I was 4, but I think I'll remember them now.
The very next day we went to see a lot of old Egyptian churches and mosques. My favorite was the Mosque of Ibn Taloun built in the 800's (that's not a typo). It had a giant tower that I got to climb up. None of the designs on the walls were repeated at all. On Saturday April 18th we went to Al Azhar Park,a wonderfull green hill with delicious food at the restaurant.We met a group of very nice people who taught us a bunch of Egyptian songs. Miss ya! Sami