Arabian Days

I have always been a traveler.  Even when I was a kid, my parents took me everywhere.  However, when my dad told me he would be taking me to Egypt for my birthday, I nearly had a heart attack.  Everywhere I had traveled had always been some country I knew a lot about.  But Egypt was different. I was did not know what to expect.  I had heard about it in my history book but that was it.  I thought it was just some has been country.  Boy, was I in for a surprise.
We arrived at the airport late Friday after a long.  Due to my dad’s business meetings, the weekend was pretty uneventful until Sunday night when we went on a tour of the Nile.  It was right during sunset so all the fishermen were packing up their stuff for the day.  Our guide was very informative and also very funny.  He told us stories about all his encounters with obnoxious tourists.  After the tour, we met up with an Egyptian Eagle Scout.  He told us about the Boy Scouts of Egypt and even gave me parts of his old uniform.  Thus ended my weekend in Egypt and began the rest of my Arabian adventure.
Monday was my birthday, and since all of my dad’s meetings were over, we slept in until 11 AM.  We had lunch at the hotel restaurant and then we started the day’s activities.  To this day, I have no idea how my dad pulled this off, but somehow he arranged an appointment with the American Ambassador to Egypt.  After some intense security checks, we finally got to see the ambassador, Francis J. Ricciardone.  He was extremely friendly and answered a few questions my dad and I had.  After about an hour, the ambassador’s secretary came in and told the ambassador he was needed so he bade us adieu and left.  After we came out of the embassy, we learned that there were some castle ruins nearby so we spent the rest of the afternoon there and then we went back to the hotel for a well deserved rest.
Tuesday was my last day in Egypt so I decided to make it count.  My dad and I agreed that we would see all the major sights: the pyramids, the sphinx…the whole shebang.  First we set out for the pyramids.  It was infested with other tourists so we decided to take a ride on a cart that circled the outskirts of the site.  After that, we hit the Sphinx and I got to ride a camel.  That night we took our plane to home sweet home.
The whole experience was very enjoyable and I learned something I did not expect to learn.  My whole life, I had thought that Egypt was simply a country that had reached its prime back in the BCs and now it was just fading away.  However, this trip taught me how influential and powerful Egypt still is.  Politically, it is a huge player.  It is a part of the UN Human Rights Council, the Arab League, and hosts the second largest American embassy after the one in Baghdad.  As far as business goes, it has a booming stock market, a bustling tourist industry, and it plays a major part in the oil industry.  In conclusion, going on this trip to Egypt was one of the best things I have ever done, not only because it was so enjoyable, but because it opened my eyes to an entirely different world—one that I hope everyone would try to learn more about.