Taxi trends

It seems like there are a million taxis in Maadi alone. When they see me walking down the street, they all honk trying to get my attention and a fare. The taxis here run on natural gas and they just cruise around all day. I can get anywhere in Maadi for 5 LE (~$1). It is also the style for taxis to have a faux shag covering on the dashboard as seen below. Cool, eh?

June update

The posts have been a little slim this month. After our Palmera trip, H&N got really sick and were diagnosed with giardia. Then I had giardia, and Joe had an amoeba. Good times. I decided not to post too much about the giardia sickness details and stool samples. Have I mentioned that every place here delivers? Did you know that the local lab will come to your house to pick up a stool sample? And the pharmacy will deliver any medicines right to your door. You don't even need a prescription!

The next week our air shipment was delivered to the villa. We decided to stay in the temporary apartment for a few more nights until we got the basics settled in the villa. June 10 was our fist night in the villa, and we really like it! On June 17 the sea shipment was delivered. Yeah for having our king size bed again! We have been spending a lot of time getting unpacked and sorting through our stuff. It seems like our life has revolved around packing and unpacking for so long.

This week was also one of the hottest yet. Highs around 110 degF. The locals say this is higher than normal for the summer, and I sure hope they are right. Today it cooled down to the low 90's and it makes a huge difference.

This weekend we were supposed to go to Paradise Beach on the Sinai side of the Red Sea, but then I came down with giardia again. And it's worse this time. So we'll try again next weekend.

That's about it for now. Henry and Nathan have been cruising around the villa on their new bikes with training wheels. And we have mango trees that provide anywhere from 2 to 8 mangoes per day. Joe has switched from a raspberry obsession to a mango obsession and we are building a good stock of frozen mango slices for smoothies.

Palmera

A few weekends ago, we decided it was time to get out of Cairo again. So we booked a room at the Palmera hotel in Ain Soukhna. There was a terrible dust storm when we left on Thursday. It was like being in fog it was so thick. We hoped the coast would be clear, but the sand from the desert blew all the way to the Red Sea. On Thursday night we thought we'd have to head back and stay indoors all weekend. Thankfully, on Friday morning the dust had cleared out and the sky was blue. We had so much fun that we decided to stay another night. There were a mix of Egyptian nationals and foreigners at the hotel. Some people in string bikinis, and I saw one lady go swimming completed dressed with face veil and all.

Here is the view from the beach chairs to the sea:

These large palapas gave us plenty of shade:

A view down the coast. You can see some dust still blowing down this way:
We took a few walks out on this pier to look for crabs and fish:

H&N slept together on the floor on their Thermarest camping mattresses:

Here is Nathan relaxing with a sandwich:

Henry wrapped up in his towel:

Henry and me cuddling:

Nathan and Joe chowing down:

Dream Park

On Saturday, May 22, we woke up to a dusty, yellow Egypt day. Thinking that we could escape the dust by going to Al-Azhar Park again, we drove up there first thing in the morning. Unfortunately, the dust was just as bad there. So we asked our driver, Hesham, if he knew of a park that would be away from the dust. He said yes, and off we went. We drove for about 45 minutes past the pyramids and found ourselves at Dream Park. While a theme park was not what we had in mind, we thought we'd check it out anyway. It turned out to be a super fun day. We paid an entrance fee of less than $20 US for all of us, and once inside all the rides were free. Amazingly, the place never got crowded! Almost all the rides were empty, and as soon as H&N climbed on, the rides would start just for them.

We headed over to the kiddy ride section, stopping on the way to admire this bizarre dinosaur statue:

H&N on a front end loader:

Henry on the merry-go-round:

Nathan on the merry-go-round:

H&N swinging high:

Tea cup ride:

Villa

Here are some photos of our villa. We hope to move in by next week! Here is Joe standing near the driveway and car gate at the back of the house. This was widened so that we can fit our car inside the gate and near the house:

Here is the living area downstairs. The walls are all repainted and floors have been sanded and varnished:

This photo was taken near the front door looking out over the yard:

This one was taken from the corner of the yard near the small palm tree:

Aquarium

On Friday, May 21, we took a trip to the "aquarium". I use the word "aquarium" loosely. First we ate a snack and used the "bathroom", then we stopped in at this playground. It had lots of good, rusty playground equipment - Egypt style:
Before we could shake our self-appointed guide by giving him some baksheesh, he led us into this musty man made cave: Inside were the fish tanks:

Most of the tanks were only half full of water and had catfish inside. Some didn't even have any fish:
The bad news is that the aquarium sucked. The good news is that Henry and Nathan could climb around near the tanks like they always want to:
Several displays were dry with stuffed creatures covered in dust: Nate and Henry's favorite part was running around inside the caves. We pretended they were dinosaur caves.
Here is a display showing a variety of pickled fish like in a science lab:
This one was so dusty I could barely get a photo. Super dusty and snarling seals:
Here is a view of the cave structure from the top. H&N were sad to leave because they loved the dinosaur caves. Side note: Twice (at the zoo and aquarium) we have been asked by locals to get photos with them. First Joe had his photo taken with a guy on his cell phone. Then the lady wanted her photo taken with me. I asked for a photo on my camera so you can see that it's true. I guess our white Alaskan skin is photo worthy.