In Egypt!

Well, we are here, in Cairo. It has taken me a little while to post this, both because we were so tired when we arrived and because the pages were automatically translating into Arabic, and it took me a while to figure out how to log in.

Things went pretty well. We were a bit late getting out of our house, but things went so smoothly dropping the kids off with Kristen that it was not a problem. Everyone seemed excited and happy to be there. I am not sure Jacob understood he would not see us for a while, but he was content there. I assume that Grandma and Grandpa got Kaleb and Tashara to Keith and Kristin's okay, because I got an email from Kaleb that was sent not too long after he could have gotten there.

Thanks everyone for helping us out with all this!

The flight went very smoothly (it is so much more fun to travel with someone than alone). We got into Paris just fine and had a long layover, so we thought we would go out and do something. It took us about an hour to get to the train station (CDG airport in Paris is one of the worst airports in the world). It also took us a while to figure out exactly which train to get on and get tickets. But finally we were off. It was fun to see the countryside by train, as it took us almost an hour to get downtown.

It was very cold there. Our coats were packed in our luggage, which was not available to us. Fortunately I had thought to have Julianne put sweatshirts in the carry on. There was a miserable, biting wind everywhere we went, and it snowed on us a bit.

We walked from the train station to Notre Dame. We toured inside it. What a huge and beautiful building. We really enjoyed it. Though the highlight may have been the two beggars who were fighting each other when we came out.

We thought we would eat some real french food in a real French cafe. It was some of the worst food I have ever had. We wanted crepes, and were hungry, so we ordered a ham crepe. It was a whole wheat crepe with no sauce at all, and a bunch of ham stuffed inside. It tasted like a slab of flour on a slab of meat, and was so dry it was hard to get down. We had turkey in a mushroom sauce, since the French are famous for their sauces. The sauce was good, but the turkey was overcooked and tough. The French Fries were good. We skipped the desert crepe we were planning on ordering since it didn't look much different than our ham crepe. Instead, as we hurried back to the train, we got some little pastry treats from a pastry shop. They were pretty much tasteless. We could not believe how much they looked like they would have flavor, and how much they did not. It was surprisingly like play dough without the salt taste.

I know we only have limited experience, but from my point of view, French food made in America is much, much, much, much better than French food in France. Ah well. I forgot to put the camera in the carryons, so we have no photos of France.

We made it through that crazy airport in record time, had a good flight to Egypt, negotiated the visa and passport lines, and found our regular excavation driver waiting for us. The traffic was pretty good (it was 11 pm), but Julianne still almost broke my hand about 10 times as she squoze so hard when cars were close. I am not letting her get close to touching me when we get in real traffic.

So, here we are in our hotel. We have had a good night's sleep, and Julianne may never wake up, I can't believe she can sleep so well when her body thinks it is a different time. She will have not jet lag problem as far as I can tell. Soon we will post photos, etc., of our time here.

God bless!