Finally Here!

Hey, well I know I didn't write a blog as soon as I got here, but I have an excuse: my computer's internet wasn't working. But it got fixed and now I can finally write about my experiences so far. The first thing I wanna say is that I finally rode in a 747! I've always wanted to but have never had the luck of having one of those planes on any of my flights...not even really long ones. But I guess 747s fly into Egypt a lot. Anyways the trip over was good and there were no problems or anything...everything went smoothly. I got to Cairo after midnight on the 25th and was picked up by my hosts. We got to my new apartment at 3 in the morning and I promptly went to bed.

We got up at 7, so I didn't have long to sleep. The reason we got up so early was because we headed off to an Egyptian bath. Ana (the SM that was teaching the preschool this past year) took me with a couple of her friends. She has a Muslim friend from Cairo that knew about the bath and wanted to take her there. We took the metro and then walked for a long ways through the city to get there. We finally made it, and when we entered the bath area (which was only for females) we were struck by a huge wave of heat. It was super hot and humid in there. The place consisted of a small but deep hot tub type of thing, in a partitioned off section. In the main area there were 2 ladies who were scrubbing the girls' skin after they were done with the bath. It was quite an experience. I got all my dead skin scrubbed right off when I was done. I had gray rolls of dead skin all over me. After that there was a place where you could shower off all the skin. So that was the first of my adventures. When we got back home we quickly showered and then went off to buy things for the preschool year-end party that was on Sabbath night. Even though the preschool runs throughout the summer, Ana wanted to have a year-end party because she's leaving the kids on Wednesday and going back to the states. Friday finished off with vespers in the church, and then it was off to bed with me.

I'll write more about Sabbath and Sunday later when I have time. I miss everybody back home, but I'm having a good time so far. It's bound to be an adventurous year!