Our Family: Last Day

First stop was the Statue of Ramses- one of two likely rulers during the Exodus. The statue was immense!! Each fingernail was bigger than my fist! It's so strange to see all these ancient treasures out in the middle of nowhere- still exposed to the elements. You can actually touch almost all the statues and slabs of marble with ancient writting....crazy!

Here's a much smaller sphinx statue...still impressive. You can't take pictures in the Egyptian Museum, but they must have had 100 statues like this just scattered around- not to mention all the jewelry, thrones, and rooms and rooms of mummies....

The step pyramid- my favorite one, I think, because of the history. Right next door you could still walk through the room where they embalmed the king and see part of the ceiling with cracks to let in light to the alabaster floor. Beautiful!!

One of three churches we saw today- this one is called the hanging church. It's a Coptic church and we got to hear the kids practicing their lessons- they have church on Fridays (to balance the Muslims, I think) and Sunday. We also saw a synagogue and the church over the site believed to have been the home of the Holy Family while they lived in Egypt. You couldn't take pictures in those, though. The Coptics LOVE the Virgin Mary- there were lines of people to kiss her picture. I don't get it, but they were very emotional over Mary's picture....

I must have 100 pictures of the city because I just couldn't believe how dirty it was. We actively looked for a trash can and couldn't find one- people just drop their trash as they walk and it all ends up piled in the river. No wonder you can't drink the water!! Cars, people, animals and trash were everywhere!