Egypt

A vida tem sido muito boa para a gente... Estamos morando ha uma semana na Jordania e vamos estar aqui pelos proximos tres meses e depois vamos fazer alguns tours em Israel, Jerusalem, Austria e Portugal. Estavamos no Egito por quase duas semanas, passeando por toda parte e Troy aproveitando para pratica o Arabe dele. Nessa atualizacao de hoje vou falar sobre nossa experiencia no Egito e tentar colocar em dias nossas historias, desde que temos tantas que a cada dia vao se acumulando...Mas enfim...

Chegamos Em Cairo, Egito na noite do dia 24 de Abril. Depois de uma viajem muito longa mas nao tao cansativa...Pegamos voo de Salt Lake City, UT para Chicago, IL e de la para Washington DC e enfim saindo dos EUA indo para Vienna, Austria. Quando saimos de SLC, UT era quase 7 da manha e quando chegamos em Vienna eram 5 da tarde mas com a mudanca de horario era manha de novo, entao quando chegamos em Cairo eram 9 da noite mas no horario de la era 1 da tarde entao fomos passear e conhecer as redondezas do Hotel onde estavamos hospedados para podermos aproveitar as proximas duas semanas que passariamos la. Mas ja estavamos tao cansados porque de acordo com o nosso sistema cronologico era noite mas onde estavamos era dia, entao era dificil ir dormir... Quando fomos dormir estavamos com dor de cabeca e confusos por causa da mudanca de horario. Mas vamos falar sobre Egito.

Antes de ir para o Egito, eu imaginava um deserto com um monte de piramides construidas na epoca dos Faraos e pessoas andando de camelo por todo canto...Mas eu me enganei... Quando chegamos em Cairo e pegamos um onibus do Aeroporto para o Hotel onde ficariamos vi o quao louco aquele Pais era. Louco em um sentido de desorganizado e descuidado... Numa pista de duas linhas tinham cinco carros, os carros pensam que sao motos porque eles nao ficam na linha deles e nao obedecem nenhuma lei de transito. Eles dirigem buzinando...Buzinam tanto tanto tanto que nao tem um segundo que voce nao escute buzina onde quer que voce esteja...Vi lixo por todo canto...Eles tem um canal de irrigacao que atravessa uma grande parte de Cairo e nosso onibus tava passando do lado desse canal, estavamos passando por ele por uns 20 minutos e durante todo o percurso vimos muito lixo na lateral do canal...E olha gente que eles irrigam todos os tipos de legumes e frutas com aquela agua e se duvidar eles ate bebem...Foi triste ver que em um canto em que a agua eh tao preciosa eles nao tem cuidado com o pouco que eles tem...Alias...Pouco nao, eles tem muito mas muita agua com muito lixo.

Tirando o fator loucura de transito e poluicao por toda parte, foi muito interessante ver o quao forte a cultura e a religiao islâmica sao em Cairo... Desde que 90% da populacao sao muçulmanos sunitas vimos muitas mulheres cobrindo a cabeca com veu e usando vestido longo com mangas compridas e muitas delas usando tudo preto e cobrindo todas as partes do corpo com excecao das maos... Mas enfim, a nossa primeira impressao do Oriente Medio nao foi nada boa. Mas esta mudando para melhor com o passar dos dias... Bem, essa postagem sera uma introducao de muitas postagens em que tentaremos descrever nossas exeperiencias aqui na Jordania e nos lugares que ja passamos... Espero que eu nao esteja escrevendo muito, mas eh que eu quero expressar cada sentimento que tivemos aqui...haha Podem se sentir livre para comentar e se acharem que eu preciso colocar mais fotos ou escrever mais ou menos me deixem saber.

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Life has been pretty good to us….We have been living here in Jordan for a week now and we will be here for the next three months.
We were in Egypt for almost two weeks…We were going all over the place there and we had a lot of fun discovering the coolest places there. This will be my first time posting our blog in English and it is going to be a trial for the next ones since I came for this trip to help Troy out but at the same time I don’t have enough stuff to do to keep me busy while Troy is gone at school and busy with the homework he has to get done every day. So with all this free time on my hands I will try to be productive and let you all know what is going on up here and try to tell you our experiences in the Middle East. Today is going to be an introduction to a series of posts that will pretty much tell you everything that is going on here.

Let’s get started…We got in Cairo, Egypt on April 24th after a couple of long flights but it wasn’t as tiring as we thought it would be. We got a flight from SLC to Chicago and from there to Washington DC and from there to Vienna, Austria… When we left SLC it was early in the morning and we were flying for all day long…So when we got in Vienna it was supposed to be night time and it was still noon because of the time change…By the time we got in Cairo it was almost 2 pm but in our time it was 11 pm…So we were really tired but it was still day there and we did not want to go to bed when we still had day light so we took a walk to orient ourselves in a city so we could go out for the next two weeks that we were going to be there. But we were just so tired because of the time change that by the time we to bed we had a headache and we had a hard time trying to fall asleep.

Before I went to Egypt I always thought it would be literally like a desert with a lot of camels and pyramids all over the place, but I was wrong… When we arrived in Cairo we had to take a bus to go to the Hotel we were going to stay in for the next two weeks and when we went outside of the airport we saw how crazy and dirty Egypt was. When I said crazy I didn’t mean the people were crazy…But we saw a bunch of cars honking and honking without a reason…I think they think that the cars will stop working if they don’t honk…I can’t express the first impression we had when we saw the craziness of that city. We saw trash all over the place and people yelling at each other… They had no traffic rules whatsoever! Well…And if they do they do not obey them… In a two lane road there were five cars side by side in the two lanes. They also never obey the stop lights.
Cairo could be a pretty place if it was a little bit cleaner. We were passing by an irrigation canal and the water was so polluted because of the garbage they throw in it. We took a picture of the canal so you guys could see what I am talking about…

Besides the crazy traffic and the trash all over the place, it was pretty interesting to see the Islamic people from so close and the mix of historical and modern culture wherever we went.

Well, this posting will be an introduction of a lot more where we will try to express our feelings and thoughts about the Middle East in general and our experiences here… Feel free to leave comments and to ask questions…


A primeira foto que tiramso de nossa viagem, no aerporto de Vienna esperando o nosso voo para Cairo. The first picture we took in our trip, in Vienna's airport waiting for our fight to Cairo.





O canal de que estavamos falando...Muito lixo!!
The canal I was talking about earlier...You can't really see the quantity of trash in this picture.