Cairo at last

After 20 hours of travel, Justin, Olivia and I arrived in Cairo. The kids loved the London to Cairo leg of the trip where they sat on the upper deck of a 747 in business class and thought they'd died and gone to heaven. "the seats go all the way down to a bed mom, that is so sick." Apparently all good things are to be referred to as "sick". I am also told that it is "way uncool" when I use the term "dude", so must refrain from that as well.

We were greeted at the airport by our guide Mohammed who whisked us through immigration to our awaiting van where Aiyman our driver blasted the AC and within no time we arrived at the Four Seasons Nile Plaza. After clearing the mildly disconcerting security screening at the hotel front door, we entered the oasis. Olivia said "Mom, I already pinched myself twice to make sure I wasn't dreaming." She is right, this place is absolutely lovely. Staff clearly outnumber guests and are uber-Four Seasons lovely. The lobby is adorned with an embarrasing dislplay of 3 foot high rose arrangements of every conceivable vibrant color a top a 10 foot long, 5 foot high table. The lobby has huge vaulted ceilings and strewn about the couches and tables in the raised interior lounge at the centre of the lobby were various exotic looking guests speaking many languages and enjoying a variety of cigarettes, "they can smoke in here, that's illegal" said the kids. Not in Cairo darlings, not in Cairo.

Our rooms have balconies overlooking the Nile River, which Justin was disappointed with at the Nile "looks more like a lake" and is narrow. Our guide assured him that it is the longest river in the world and travels through 9 countries, which somewhat satisfied him although under his breath I thought I heard him mutter "well maybe it's wide in Ethiopia."

It was 12:30am when we arrived, so we checked into our rooms and then went down to the 24 hour lebanese restaurant in the hotel called Zitouni for an excellent Lebanese meal. the kids thought the kebbeh and hummus were the best they'd ever had but the falafel was apparently not as good as those our friend Jay makes back home. The kids are adequately freaked out about the water which their grandmaman (my mom) warned them would invite dysintery if consumed. Since both the kids sometimes bite their nails, this poses a very grave threat indeed for what if they wash their hands with tap water and then bite a nail and get horribly sick and nearly die. So, they are washing their hands with bottled water and when they at last have a shower they have avowed to not allow even a trickle of water to be swallowed and to use copious amounts of Purel on their hands the moment they get out of the shower. Of course given the difficulty I seem to have getting them to shower on a normal day, this orange alert water threat may end up being less of a daily threat than they imagine.

It is now 9:15am in Cairo and I need to try and wake up the kids so that we can have a bite of breakfast and enjoy one of the 3 hotel pools before our guide comes to pick us up at noon for a half day of touring.