Traveling Adventures Hi! Welcome to my travel journal. I created this so friends and family can keep track of me on my adventures. I'll update this when I can.

we got up this morning and had breakfast out on our balcony overlooking talaat harb st and lots of traffic. we also heard the morning call to prayer which was amazing. after breakfast we headed for the islamic quarter of cairo. its about a 30 min walk in hectic person/horse/motorbike/car/truck/bus traffic and as marshall says "hesitating means certain death" when crossing the street. we walked through the streets and then to a mosque. the mosque was built in 1095 and was gorgeous. we were able to climb to the tops of the minerets (with even darker and narrower stairs than the castle towers in wales!) for amazing views of cairo. we saw people living on the roofs of the buildings with their clothes out to dry and their goats wandering around right on the roof top. we could also see several other mosques and the citadel. after the mosque we grabbed some fig-filled bread from a street cart and headed for a market. there were absolutely no other tourists in this area and as a result every one was so amazing and hospitable. one man even led us through some alleys to his applique gallery where we all bought a few things. his work was beautiful and his family has been making them for 5 generations! after this we continued through the market looking at goats, rabbit, chickens, scarves, spices, street food. oh the smell! so many spices! and the colors! the little girls absolutely loved mon, shannon and I so we stopped to talk to some of them too. we also stopped at a cafe to eat koshari which is a combination of macaroni, spegheti, lentils, fried onions and garbonzo beans with a tomato sauce and lemon juice. very filling and delicious and only 5 egypt pounds (less than 1 dollar!). We wandered back to the more touristy area but didnt like it because the vendors are really aggresive (they yell and follow you yelling if you dont go in their shops). so we stopped for mint tea and hookah. we headed back to hostel for pomegranate and chocolate and just stopped for pomegranate juice (my second favorite juice ever right after passion fruit juice from kenya). after i'm done here at the internet cafe, we are headed down to the west bank of the nile (yes dinner is after 10pm here). so far so good! my tummy feel fine so far and i had so much fun today. also, i wondered if i would suffer a bit from culture shock, but i feel right at home. and i didnt even wear a head scarf today. hope everything is well back home! tomorrow we head to the white desert!