Egypt! The time had finally arrived to carefully pack wedding outfits and summer clothing into our twenty dollar Warehouse suitcases and board a plane to Cairo. I couldn't wait to see my cuzzies and I was very curious to see if Egypt superseded my expectations. which admittedly were a bit low.

We arrived after a long five hour flight with no onboard entertainment and a dry chicken breast dinner to a bustling Cairo airport. The heat hit us straight away even though it was nine o'clock at night! We stood in line for passport check, then realised by the number of English type people being turned away, that we were supposed to get a visa first from a poorly labelled counter. So we paid twenty american dollars, no questions asked for an entry visa. Weird.
When we'd collected our suitcases (few moments of panic as mine took FOREVER), we discovered we'd left the carefully chosen bottle of nice champagne on the plane. Stink. So we decided to try and track it down. This was unsuccessful and added an hour to our trip. Never mind. As we were heading towards the exit, we were greeted by an official 'greeter' and taken upstairs to a funny little office to book a car to our hotel in Cairo. It seemed like a scam, but wasn't and I'm glad we did it. Another guy in a nice suit led us outside and waved aside many cab drivers insisting on driving us. Then another guy got his car and picked us up. It was strange. Anyway, this was my first driving experience in Cairo and WOAH! I thought Turkey and Rome were mad. But they have nothing on Cairo.

It was a long and scarily exciting drive to The Shepheard hotel by the Nile. Drivers follow no lanes. They crowd into tiny gaps on the road in traffic. They toot their horns every two seconds to warn cars in front that they're coming past them on the inside or the outside or the backside! They flash their lights to say 'move out of the way' and the flashed cars usually do! It was madness! But so fun! I should mention the lack of seatbelts. They seemed to have been cut out completely. Dodgy.

Regardless, we arrived safely at the hotel then found Aunty Frances' room to say hello and tell her we'd arrived. I was very late so we went straight to bed.