Cairo wasn't particularly photogenic, so I don't have many pictures of our sightseeing there. We hired a guide for a half-day and went to some of the sites in Old Cairo. It was all fascinating, particular having visited Christian sites in Israel. It really put all the pieces together as far as the history of Christianity goes. For example, we saw an underground area in a church that is supposedly where Mary, Joseph and Jesus hid. Also, we saw a synagogue near which it is believed that Moses was found among the rushes.
We also visited the Egyptian Museum -- which holds so many pricless, ancient treasures, but it was truly appalling to see the conditions under which they are kept. The museum was in very poor condition and many (rather, MOST) items were not even labeled. But, it was amazing to see King Tut's treasures, etc. after having been to the places where they were found! It really gave us a complete picture of the history of ancient Egypt.
But, in the end, Cairo was not a very pleasant place for us. It is severely overcrowded. The streets are very scary (there are no traffic patterns to speak of) and everything is so dirty. It actually made us happy to return to Israel!
Speaking of which, the flight from Cairo to Tel Aviv was a complete nightmare. It was full of Israelis and was completely chaotic from the beginning. We had to push our way through the additional security line at our gate and a fight nearly broke out between an Arab man and Israeli woman there due to the pushing. Then, on the plane, there was an old man who seemed to be completely senile. He kept getting out of his seat, trying to get off the plane, etc. This cycle kept repeating. Then, an Israeli couple came on and kept trying to sit in business class even though they didn't have tickets for business class. They didn't seem to understand that if you bought an economy ticket, you sit in economy. It was so self-righteous. And it further delayed our takeoff.
Then, before the plane took off, two Jewish Israeli men started arguing two rows behind us. It was extremely loud and disruptive, and though I don't know what they were saying, it was very offensive. Many people: women, men, young ladies, etc. eventually started shouting at the men to stop (after several minutes of shusssh!-ing from various sectors of the plane didn't work). Nothing was shutting them up and I think it must have turned nasty as the woman behind me starting saying: "Enough! That's not nice!!"
I was fixated on trying to calm Sweetie who was worried a riot was going to break out any second. Then, as we are literally accelerating on the runway to take off, a woman gets up out of the last row and starts walking toward one of the arguing men, trying to calm him. Everyone started screaming, "Sit down!" The chief flight attendant got on his PA and said, "SIT DOWN! SIT DOWN NOW!" It was complete insanity.
The men continued arguing, but that wasn't all that was happening. I noticed once we reached the necessary altitude that the flight attendants were congregating about 6 rows back. And I saw one of them carrying a glass panel with a plastic frame around it that looked suspiciously like a window. Then, I saw one flight attendant, with a very concerned look on her face, gesturing for the woman seated at the window to move away from it. Sweetie looked back and thankfully didn't see the replacement window and thought something completely benign was going on. I didn't bother to tell him that one of the windows had cracked (or popped out or something) and they were presently replacing it and that we were probably all about to be sucked out of the plane and plummeting to our deaths in the Egyptian desert.
Well, as you might have guessed, we survived. But I have never been on such a frightening plane ride in my life!
No comments:
Post a Comment