Two weeks to go!

Tomorrow will make it two weeks till Egypt, although it is more like two weeks and two days since the time it will take to get there is almost an entire day in itself. Looking at the flight times, it appears that we have a little over an eight hour layover in London....bummer :) Seems to me that it is just enough time to take the tube into city center to check out Big Ben, Parliment (for those of you that are fans of National Lampoons- " Hey Kids, Big Ben...parliment...Hey Kids, Big Ben...parliment) and perhaps grab some fish and chips!

We received all of our travel documents late last week, which is the piece I needed for everything to sink in that we are actually going on this trip! This has been planned for so long and now it is just days away. The travel company provides you with this nice document case where everything is organized. They give you luggage tags so that you can easily be identified as part of the tour group- not that the bright white tennis shoes, fanny pack and camera bags give you away or anything....but the BEST part of our tour documents is the sticker they give you to wear upon arrival to the Cairo airport to identify you as part of the group. So not only are you going to stick out like a sore thumb, now you get to wear this huge annoying sticker that might as well say "kick me" on it!!! Brad is less than excited about the sticker...perhaps cause it is large and tacky, or perhaps because it is pink and purple...you be the judge.

Our Itinerary

Here is the day-by-day plan for the trip. As you can see it is pretty action packed!

October 6: En Route to Egypt; Mpls to Chicago, Chicago to London, London to Cairo
October 7: Arrive in Cairo late at night (which should be interesting…)
October 8: Tour Cairo on our own
October 9: Planned sightseeing with group
October 10: Fly to Luxor – tour Luxor- start cruise on Nile
October 11: Cruising, visit Edfu
October 12: Cruising, visit Kom Ombo
October 13: Cruising, visit Aswan
October 14: Fly to Abu Simbel in morning for tour, fly back to Aswan and then fly back to Cairo (Big day!)
October 15: Cairo sightseeing
October 16: Cairo on our own
October 17: Fly to Athens in morning, afternoon/evening on own
October 18: Athens sightseeing
October 19: Cruising: Mykonos
October 20: Cruising: Kusadasi (Turkey), Patmos (Greek Island)
October 21: Cruising: Rhodes
October 22: Cruising: Santorini
October 23: Athens
October 24: Athens on our own
October 25: Fly back home; Athens to London, London to Chicago, Chicago to Mpls
October 26: SLEEP

35 days and counting

Here we go! 35 days until we leave on our trip to Egypt and Greece. In a effort to document our travels in a more modern way, I have created this blog so that all of our friends and family can follow us on our trip- enjoy! I suspect that we will not be able to blog daily as Internet access on the Nile may be a little hit and miss, but from what I am reading on our travel company's web site we still may have access when we dock and especially in Cairo- same with Greece, good access in Athens at the hotel, and also when the ship is docked on the islands. So, I will try to write when possible, but no promises- I also make no promises on spelling or grammar :)

So what to say about 35 days out...well, I can tell you that Brad and I are very happy that our arms have healed from the numerous shots that we had to get to go on this trip. Couldn't tell you which was worse, the tetanus shot or the typhoid fever shot which coincidentally were in the same arm. I should have anticipated the pain when the travel nurse asked us which hand we use for writing! So with those shots out of the way and most of our major purchases for this trip out of the way, all there is to do now is sit and wait...tick...tick...tick...tick...