Today I'll tell y'all about Egypt and New Year's Eve in Cyprus. Again, this was a lot of years ago so my memories are limited on details, but I'll hit the big things.
Again, remember I had to take what were already crappy and blurry photos (that I had taken with a disposable camera because this was in the age of dinosaurs (or 1995) when there were no digital cameras that I could afford or iPhones) out of my photo album, put them flat on my bed and then I took pictures of the photos on my phone and downloaded them. So they suck.
Oh! Before I forget, I meant to tell y'all a funny story about something that happened in Israel. We were on big tour buses from our ship to go to the different stops. When we left the Old City of Jerusalem, we were heading to a diamond manufacturer (sadly my ex didn't bring extra money or credit cards with him because we would have gotten an awesome deal on an engagement ring). On the way the tour guide told us they were stopping for a potty/snack break. The bus suddenly pulled off the road and went into a clearing behind some trees.
Where I saw the largest statue of Elvis Presley I've ever seen in my life. It must have been 75 feet tall.
They had an Elvis convenience store. An Elvis ice cream shop. An Elvis inn. It was Elvis Presley central. The people sitting around us on the bus who knew we were from the U.S. all started looking at my ex and I and chuckling because they saw the dumbfounded looks we had on our faces and then heard us cracking up. And then we each ate an ice cream cone as big as our heads.
Before I left Atlanta and went to Cyprus, my ex had planned the cruise to Israel and Egypt but the only thing he would tell me is that he had a big surprise planned. He refused to tell me what it was. Because it was Christmas, I packed sweaters and other clothes for cold weather.
So here I am standing in a desert in a sweatshirt which said "Snow Valley" in huge letters across my boobs while sweating my ass off and looking like an idiot:
You know when you see pictures of the Sphinx and all you can see behind it is pyramids and desert? Let me show you what I mean:
It makes you think the Sphinx is way out in the middle of nowhere, right? Let's look at that first picture again and see where it really is. It's right near downtown!! If you look a little to the left of my head you can see a round thing. That's the back of the Spinx's head. Look how close it is to a large city:
From our cruise we had gone to Israel the first day and then we went to Egypt the second day. The Israeli authorities had to stamp a slip of paper and put it in our passports because if they stamped directly into our passports and the Egyptian authorities saw we had been to Israel, they would not let us in their country.
We had to have police escorts for our buses in Egypt because bad guys will hijack tour buses and rob everyone on them.
Egypt was filthy dirty. We saw grown men walking down the street picking their noses like it was cool.
I'm glad to be able to say I've been there, but I never want to go back again. One day was plenty and I was ready to leave. I've talked to two other people who have visited Egypt and they also said they never care to go back there again.
Anyway, as we were approaching the pyramids, our tour guide told us if we wanted to ride a camel they would take us to a spot to ride them. But if anyone approached us as we were walking around, we were warned not to get on a camel because the handler would then charge you whatever he felt like charging you in order to let you back off. OMG. We decided we didn't want to ride a camel. Unfortunately, they only gave us about 30 minutes to walk around the pyramids before the buses left. THIRTY MINUTES! It's the pyramids and I traveled halfway across the globe to get there and you only give me 30 minutes? So we didn't get to go in them because we had no time.
We just walked around and took photos and then got back on the bus. My ex got really mad at me when a camel handler asked if we wanted to ride his camel and after I told him no, he offered to let us take photos with his camel. He then charged us $10. It was only $10 and he got all mad at me. He acted like we could take photos for cheaper with a camel near the pyramids here in the U.S. or something. This was a once in a lifetime chance for me and I thought $10 was a bargain.
If you think he was looking pissy with his hand on his hip in this picture, you are correct:
Anyway, I think it was a well spent 10 bucks.
You always hear how big the stones are. THEY ARE ENORMOUS. I am about 5'4" (AND A HALF thank you). In this photo, I am standing on top of a rock that came up almost to my waist and my head still barely reaches the top of the first row of stones. And I did it while sweating in my stupid sweatshirt:
Anyway, they gave us 30 minutes at the pyramids and then we went to the Egyptian Museum. Neither my ex nor I are big fans of museums. So naturally they gave us FOUR HOURS in there. We were not allowed to take any photos inside. They had a King Tut exhibit, but you had to pay somewhere around $50 or $60 per person extra to go in that section if I remember correctly. We were in our 20s and very poor and didn't have an extra $100 or more to go in there. So we walked through the museum rather quickly and then we went outside and sat next to a fountain and watched Egyptians pick their noses and scowl at us. When we grew tired of having hundreds of people give us mean and dirty looks, we went and sat back on the bus with the driver.
This is the museum:
Eventually that long 4 hours was up and we were taken back to the ship and then we returned to Cyprus the next day.
For New Year's Eve, we went to the apartment of his friends. Remember when I told y'all my ex was training someone to take over his job when he returned to the U.S. and that person was a friend of the cruise director? That friend is who we spent NYE with. We ate dinner with his family and eventually went to downtown Nicosia for fireworks and to ring in 1996.
There was possibly a lot of drinking going on. I mean, maybe y'all can't tell by these photos, but I'm telling you there was some alcohol consumed that night.
Whoa. Who wouldn't want to snatch up and marry a guy who can do all of this to impress a table full of people?
Bill Cosby called and wants his sweater back:
Yes, balloons, paper crowns and stickers on their grown-up heads. Lots of alcohol.
He could be sweet sometimes. And no, I wasn't drinking. Nope. Not one drop. What do you mean my eyes look heavy?
The day I was flying out to come back home was also my mom's birthday. My ex decided we should call my parents to pretend that we were making sure they knew my flight information and he wanted to act like he had done the proper thing and ask my dad for my hand in marriage. So we pretended that he was asking them permission and then proposing to me while we were on the phone with my parents. And I acted all surprised even though we had actually been engaged for almost two weeks at that point after our drunken night on top of Mount Olympus.
What we didn't know is that my older brother had proposed to his girlfriend the night before.
My parents, my brother and his by-then fiancee and some other family met for brunch for my mom's birthday and my mom and dad went on and on and gushed about ex and I getting engaged on the phone that morning so my brother and his fiancee said nothing about getting engaged the night before because they didn't want to steal our thunder.
It is now almost 18 years later. My ex and I have been divorced for 9 years. My brother and his wife are now separated. Oh how time changes things......
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