Playing "Post" Catch-up

I realized that it's been a while since I've updated my blog and now that I have some time with the holidays I thought I'd try to catch up! So, the Shannon Hale book signing was in September 2009 (we had an unusually warm fall - hence the 3/4 sleeve cardigan).

In November I had the amazing opportunity to travel in Egypt! I went with Go Ahead Tours with many of the same friends I traveled with to Greece a year and a half ago. We pretty much covered most of Egypt in the 15 days that we traveled! It was incredible! I think my favorite sites were Karnak and Luxor Temples. I also enjoyed the "baseball shopping" with the "Nile Pirates" where they come up to our cruise ship while we're waiting for our turn to go through the river locks. They yell up to you on the top deck of the cruise ship and throw their merchandise up to you. If you want it, you throw money back to them in another bag with merchandise. Sometimes items end up in the pool or in the Nile or in a life boat - depending on your baseball arm! Egypt was probably one of my favorite trips because we had such fun traveling companions and met some new people who would be fun to travel with again in the future!

We were fortunate to have an Egyptologist as our tour director and he was very knowledgeable and had a fun sense of humor. He took very good care of us and I never felt like I was in danger or had any negative experiences on my trip. Tourism is the main economic source for the country so if you have the means to travel and have never been to Egypt before, I definitely recommend it! We flew 6 times to get from different cities within Egypt but we covered the Northern Mediterrean border (in Alexandria), near the Sudan border (in Abu Simbel), and the Sinai Pennisula (Sharm el Sheikh). I took over 1,000 pictures (remember, I'm Japanese and was armed with a new Nikon digital camera!). Another great stamp in my passport!