Day 14: Later

I'm human again, and can once again use sentences involving subjects, verbs and actual clauses. I had a nap, and the antibiotics have kicked in.

Once we got our luggage at the Cairo airport, we were bused back to the Marriott, where we will stay one more night in luxurious comfort before flying back to the states tomorrow. On the way, we paused here:

This is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, built in the 70s by Anwar Sadat, and he himself was buried there in 1981.

When we arrived at the Marriott, we found that our rooms were not going to be ready for awhile. Well, that's reasonable - we were there at around 11 AM, and it wasn't even checkout time, never mind giving the cleaning staff a crack at the rooms. So we settled down at a table in the Garden Promenade Cafe

along with some of our traveling companions for a wait. While we were waiting, we decided we were hungry, so we asked for the menu. After reading it, Dad ordered a club sandwich. I ordered the California Steak Cheese. The waiter said, "We are only serving breakfast". I said, "But Dad just ordered a club sandwich." He said, "We are serving breakfast and the club sandwich."
I surrendered to the inevitable. The club sandwich was quite tasty.
By this point our room was ready, and we were more than ready for our room. Getting there was a bit challenging, though - we were housed on the second floor in the "Garden Court", and there was no clear way to get there from here, so to speak. After wandering forty years or so, we arrived in our sanctuary.

Our balcony overlooked the lovely inner courtyard:


and the white tent to the right is where the Egyptian Nights restaurant is.

I waited for the porters to bring our bags, while Dad went over to the Lost and Found to reclaim the three souvenir T-shirts he'd bought a week ago and accidentally left in our original room. He was delighted they'd kept track of them! (The service here has really been first class all the way.) Once our suitcases arrived, I piled my wonderful smooshy pillows into a ramp and crawled into bed. I must get some smooshy pillows for home! Three blissful hours later, I was much improved.

I felt well enough to go to the farewell cocktail party, where they told us our schedule for tomorrow. It turns out we can sleep in until FIVE AM! They're getting soft with us, I tell you. We said goodbye to Ihab and the other program directors (even though they'll be taking us to the airport tomorrow) and thanked them for all they did for us.