Alexandria and the Mediterranean Sea!

Feeling so much better, but still very careful of what I eat.  So the day before yesterday we had Arabic lessons and our first test.  That went well since I missed the whole class before.... FAIL.  Then we visited the coptic church of St.Simon. To get to the church we drove through a garbage city.  It was so intriguing because the people that live there have found ways to reuse or recycle objects that they find in the dump and then they can sell then to feed their families.  It seemed to be a well thought out arrangement with certain objects being worked on in separate locations.  It seems to be the ONLY form of reusing or recycling to be found anwyhere in Cairo.  The church was built in a cavernous mountainside with many detailed carvings and could hold 20,000 people.

In the afternoon we visited the Resala Organization, a community service organization that offers many services and has over 100,000 volunteers.  We saw clothing donations, compuer classes, a pharmacy, schooling for the deaf, blind, and mentally challenged, food donation, appliance donation, and the orphanage.  LOVE.  Beautiful children who were so excited to talk to us and play and jump around.  It was amazing.  The people at Resala were all so nice to us even though it felt as if we were intruding on their lives. 

The next day: Al Azhar park and the Aga khan development Program.

WOW! The first green space we have seen anywhere near Cairo.  It is a gorgeous park established by this organization that is founded by the Ismaeli Shia Muslims.  The keep up this park with a visitor center, fountain, playground,etc.  But they are restoring and reconstructing these amazing mosques all over the historical area.  The woman that led our tour had so much knowledge about the architecture and restoration and my favorite they have a brach called the Islamic music initiative, where they train children in the community in tradtional music to play concerts around the community.  To see the mosques we walked through a relatively poor community, but everywhere we went there were epople outside that said hello!  Where are you from?!  They are all very friendly and happy to speak with us. 

During the evening the Nilometer!  Where they used to measure the Nile in the 9th century to determine how much to tax people because more water = more crops.  Then Lebanese restaurant.  Food here does not agree with me.  So i ate some sauted veggies.  First thing when I get home a big salad and a glass of TAP water.  No more bottles!

Today we visited Alexandria by the Mediterranean Sea.  We took the train and it was a very interesting experience because as soon as we walked into the station the tourism police surrounded us and didn't want us to go.  They are very worried that something will happen to us and that would be bad for them.  So everything takes a while.  Once they decided it was okay we were off.  Highlights because this is getting way too long:

A pureed Mango in a glass = best mango juice ever!
Bibliothek Alexandria = HUGE library and many museums extremely digitized and an amazing building. 
The hot ocean air
The filth even in this smaller city.
A great day away from Cairo:)

Can you tell that I used a real computer for this one instead of my I-pod.  SO much easier!