00 - Departure
At the beginning of the year, my friend and colleague in the Geneva office reached out to me with some wonderful news: he was engaged to be wed in August. Even better news, we were invited to their wedding! Why am I talking about this in a blog about Egypt? Well, said friend is an Egyptian and the ceremony was to take place in Alexandria (Egypt, not any US state). We were, of course, excited at the idea of visiting a country with such esteemed archaeological significance (in addition to nuptial news, of course). So we made a plan: blocking out the window around August 6th for travel to & around Egypt. It would have been the first time either Iram or I would have visited the African continent, and we were able to piece together a decent-looking itinerary based on a few recommendations our friend had made (Cairo, Giza, Alexandria, Luxor, Hurgada, Sharm El-Sheikh). Since neither of us spoke Arabic, it seemed prudent to use a tour ag...