Being a tourist - the Pyramids

Ok fellows ... long time, no .. posting!! I guess i've been busy with school, plus other uninteresting things called cultural shocks ...

So, i was on MSG/MSN/Skype with many of you and the first question was "Did u see the pyramids?" Well, let me tell you that i didnt get to see them until after 2 weeks.

Now that we had everything sorted (kind of) with our flat, me and Nichole decided to go and see the pyramids. The way to do it is not that easy - i usually think i'll get on a bus, get there, visit, take pics and 'halas' (finished). The way to do it is hire a car with driver included - pay him 100 LE ($20) to take us from Maadi to Giza. Ok, fair enough - a nice car with AC, nice driver ... we leave early in the morning (that's the way to do it) before all the tourists get there; aaaaaa, i forgot to mention - we don't feel like tourist anymore!! Once we got there, we get the "Welcome to Egypt" phrase from one man who wanted to give us a carriage ride aroun the pyramids; he was asking for 100 LE/person but we managed to get it for 50 LE/person.

The carriage driver was a nice guy and we had a lot of fun with him!! He knew exactly where to stop for us to take pics .... we gave him a good tip at the end.

We did not go inside the pyramids because we didnt want to, plus we had the driver waiting for us and we didnt want to make it too long - otherwise he might've asked for more.

One embarassing thing we did was leaving without paying the carriage guy - we completely forgot about it!!!!!!!!! We were on the motorway and Nichole turned to me and said: "guess what? we didnt pay the guy!!!!!!" I am like:"what????? what do we do now?" The net second the driver's phone rings - it was the carriage man asking to talk to us. So, i get him on the phone, apologized a million times, told him we are leaving the money with our driver and said ma'salema. He was a bit annoying on the phone, kept asking how much we tipped the carriage driver - which i didnt tell him anyway.

I got to 'drive' the horse and carriage, which was kind of fun - i forgot the horse's name ...

It was a short visit to the pyramids - we stayed there only 2 hours - but we will definitely go there again, with all the friends wanting to come and visit us.

The best part was at the Sphinx!! We had fun there, taking pictures, making videos .... That was hilarious!!!

Another funny thing is that you have to pay an entrance fee to the site (that is not hte funny part) - it usually costs 50 LE (10 $); if you are a student you pay 25 LE. So, both me and Nichole took out our student cards, gave it to the man, he went and got us tickets for 25 LE. Well, later on, you have to go through some things, just like at the airport, where they check your ticket again. So they asked for our Student ID. I took mine out - it was an international student card, but expired; Nichole's was valid, but not international, so we kind of bribed the people to let us in (we gave them 25 LE). Never do that!!!!

Now, for the end, enjoy watching "Live from the pyramids" by Nichole Book! (or me fooling around when i am not at school)