Finally, here it is, the travel post about my trip to Egypt. I will split this rather lengthy post in two parts consisting of daily logs, where I will describe what I did that day and share some experiences and photos. I took a really long time to write this post, so I hope you guys can support my efforts and make them worthwhile :). Photography wise, I used either my Huawei P8 Lite 2017 or my much better Nikon D5100 DSLR. But for now, please enjoy 9 whole days worth of power-blogging and photography:
Day 1- Travel day
After getting up on Sunday 24th, I drove straight to Heathrow Airport, Terminal 4, where I checked in, passed through a fairly smooth security and hung around in the Premium Plaza lounge for a bit. I found the service there OK and I really enjoyed the food. At 16:30, it was time to head to the boarding gates where I entered with little waiting time.
I was taking two flights as a transit because I could not find any direct flights with a reasonable price and most of them were booked. My first flight was from London to Rome, and then from Rome to Cairo. Both of these were with Alitalia, which I found to be a very pleasant air line. They provided complementary food and drink even though the flights were both less than 3 hours long. Furthermore, the seats were comfortable, there was pleasant service and I think it was definitely worth the fairly small price compared to other airlines these days. Both flights were really enjoyable and the transit in Rome airport went smoothly as well. Due to the flights both being in complete darkness, I was not able to take any good photos of the ground below.
During my short wait in Rome airport, I visited a few shops in the terminal and stayed in the Alitalia lounge for a while. I really enjoyed the Italian food on offer there and as it is my favourite cuisine by far! Around the airport, there were many interesting Italian souvenirs and even Segway policemen!
I arrived in Cairo international airport at roughly 2:30 am so I was dying for some sleep upon landing. Despite this, I still had an hour and a half taxi ride until finally I arrived in Tanta, a town in the centre of the river Nile delta. My family there had very kindly prepared a bed for me and after very briefly talking with them and exchanging hugs, I finally went to sleep at 6am Egyptian time. From now on all the timing will be in Egyptian time (UTC+2).
Day 2- Family day
Due my travels last night, I only woke up 14:00, and I spent the rest of my day with my grandma, uncle and two aunts. I had not seen them for over 5 years so I was very excited to talk with them and catch up on news. As most of today was just me spending time with my family, there’s not much to write about here. However, I have included some photos of the spectacular Egyptian food my aunt made.
Day 3- Same as Day 2
Today, I just spent more time with my family and ate some great food. I ate a classic Egyptian breakfast and a magnificent turkey for dinner. Below are some photos of the lovely food.
Day 4- Alexandria
After waking up I took a 3.5 hour drive to a resort on the outskirts of Alexandria. As I drove in the daylight through some villages, I saw some very saddening poverty amongst the people and it made me realise how fortunate I am. Once we arrived, all the family went to our three seaside rooms where we made ourselves comfortable. We were staying at the Iberotel Borg El Arab, which I really enjoyed. Unfortunately, it was quite cold and windy outside for Egyptian standards, so I was not able to go outside and enjoy the sea. I had not taken any quality photos with my DSLR yet as unfortunately my SD card was not working, but today I bought another one so expect much better photos from tomorrow. There was a pool table in the bar, so I enjoyed playing there with some of the staff. Below are some photos of the hotel and the sea, sorry about the camera quality.
Day 5- Mediterranean Sea
As I woke up today, I could feel the ocean breeze blowing through my window as if it was calling me to the sea. So after getting some breakfast from the lovely hotel restaurant. I put on my trunks and went to the sea. But instead of warm Mediterranean waters, I was greeted with a rather cold mass of H2O. ### Despite this, I paddled in the water a bit and ended up lying on a beach bed and staring into the sea, thinking about life. I also took a few pictures of the sea and some brown tumbleweeds which reminded me of Donald Trump’s hair.
I also practiced my fine arts by drawing a logo, however I can not remember where it’s from? (Maybe someone could remind me with an upvote?).
In the evening I went to get some food but unfortunately I missed the sunset due to this, so no sunset photos from today, sorry…
Following this, I had an enjoyable game of pool against one of the hotel staff and went to my room to catch up on the meme universe
So that’s it, part 1 is over, definitely go and check out part 2 where you can continue following my travels and I promise, some much better photography (I will comment the link). Please make my efforts in writing this post worthwhile by upvoting and resteeming, and if you want to see similar content in the future be sure to follow me. To prevent you guys from dying of boredom I have a question for you to think about before you head off to my next post: if z=7 then what does h= ?
@ahmedelakehal