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Today I had so many lifelong dreams come true! I woke up in freaking EGYPT, saw the pyramids, the Sphinx, went inside a pyramid, rode a camel and gazed out over the River Nile. Amazing. We woke up to a great breakfast on mom's beautiful outdoor patio. Their flat is just amazing... it has all of the American convenieces we are used to, but also had some loved Egyptian flair. The outdoor space mom and dad have is so beautiful... and apparently a rarity among most living arrangements here! The weather was beautiful as well. A slight breeze... sunny, but not unbearably hot.

Our driver, Zaki, picked us up this morning around 9. We drove to Giza, and I got just absolutely giddy when the tips of the pyramids began poking through the high rise apartments. Walking up to the ancient wonders was incredibly surreal. We took hundreds of pictures, but even still, they do not do justice to the grandeur of the Great Pyramids. Standing in front of them, completely dwarfed by their size is just a dream I never really thought would come true! While we were there, we actually got to go inside of one of the pyramids! Its a crazy steep hike down into the pyramid with no stairs... and no ventilation! When we had decended several meters, we came to a room at the bottom-- this had been the burial room. there was nothing much left inside, and really no writings on the wall. It was different than I had expected, but I learned that the really great Pharonic tombs were located in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor. (We will go there later on our Nile Cruise!) We weren't allowed to take our camera down in the pyramids. :-( While at the pyramids, we went to a museum dedicated to a huge solar boat that was found in one of the burial tombs at the pyramids. All the pieces of the boat were there, and they completely excavated it and reassembled it. It was HUGE!!! One of the oars was at least 15 feet tall! This boat was probably buried along with the pharoah as a means of navigating into the afterlife. After that, we went and rode a camel!!! It was so much fun!! Then we went and saw the Great Sphinx. This thin was huge!! Unfortuantely, you can't get really close to it anymore. But it was still really cool!! What an incredible day!!