Not wanting to do things by halves, the Egypt trip actually started with an all-nighter on Friday night to go to Aaron's work do, a river cruise on the Thames, before catching a crack of dawn flight to Cairo. The flight wasn't too bad, a brief stop in Vienna to get a few more stamps in the passport on the way and arrived in Cairo late afternoon to meet Aaron's parents at the hotel and tour starting point.

First impressions of Cairo as we drove in the mini-van weren't too bad, however as we got closer to the city centre, it was obvious that the city is in need of repair, with falling down and half-finished apartment buildings every where. The first evening, we (Aaron's parents and us) headed to a tourist bazaar, but managed to get a bit lost on the way and end up in a local market. When we made our way out and to the tourist bazaar, we wished we'd stayed in the local bit. The level of hassle was far and beyond that of anything I'd seen in Bali or Thailand, with people constantly in your face to the point that it was exhausting.

Day 2 in Cairo, we headed out to wander the street and head up the Cairo Tower (which was expensive and obviously out to get the tourist dollar) which gave views over the sprawling city of Cairo even out past the buildings, and green belt which tracks each side of the Nile to the Giza Pyramids in the distance.

Warren (Aaron's dad, for those that don't know) also managed to make friends with a number of locals that told us about a big football game on that night, the 2 top teams in Egypt, so we figured we may as well, and grabbed a taxi out to the game. Getting tickets was far easier than we imagined, but the thing we didn't bargain on was the riot police surrounding the stadium, the area, the field, the seats, etc etc. I would say there was 1 riot policeman for about every 4-5 fans. The other thing I didn't really consider til we got there was that there wouldn't be any females there, Doreen (Aaron's mum) and I were of a very select few. We were all sitting in the Ahly (home team) section, and it was a good game, with the second half being much better than the first, but I'm definitely glad that the home team won as I would hate to think what leaving the stadium would've been like otherwise.