Started the tour Saturday

I checked out of my central Cairo hostel this morning. I'm not sorry to see the end of that place. Tiger print bedspreads, loud street noises and a bunch of huge bugs that crawled out the drain in the bathroom every night. There's a reason some of these places are cheap :) the new hotel is utter luxurious in comparison. I've not time to enjoy the huge gardens, gym, or pool, but I am enjoying the clean bathroom and double bed. It seems I've got a room to myself tonight. That or the other person isn't arriving until late and is going to wake me up in the middle of the night.

Anyway, while today is day 1, we don't actually do anything until tomorrow. I was lucky enough to get here in time to go on an afternoon tour of Cairo with four other people who are also on the tour. Apparently there'll be about 17 people all up, but I guess they hadn't arrived yet. The tour was good, but it was nearly entirely look at churches and mosques. I'm so over religious buildings after Italy! The other four people were Australian and were nice, but not overly friendly or anything. I think it'll be hard to beat, or even match, the social aspect of the contiki trip. The more I think about that trip, the more I realised I enjoyed it. I'd definitely consider doing another in the future.

So, religious sites in Cairo... really really old churches and mosques and stuff. Very beautiful, very dusty. From the van I also saw pyramids and the Nile! The pyramidal are first on the list for tomorrow, and I'm pretty excited to see them. I could have gone to a light show tonight where they shine multicolored lights on them, but it sounded pretty tacky. I'd rather see them normally, I think.

Only problem with this hotel is that they don't have free WiFi. I mean seriously, in this day and age, who makes you pay for WiFi with your room? I can pay $20 a night and get it free, or $180 and have to pay? Cheap buggers. But, I think I'll buy some time tomorrow morning, because tomorrow night we're in a sleeper train, and I want to hear from my mum and stuff.

That's all :)