Yesterday in Amsterdam, today in Egypt

I'm getting lots of questions from Mr. Long's class. Check the blog comments to see the things they asked me. Some of them are pretty good, many will be answered as I go along, so if I don't address it specifically, keep reading. Some are going to take more thought, so I'll have to get to them later.

-Do you get money for getting into the record book? Kayla & Haley M.
NOPE, Just fame and glory!! (I hope:-))

Yesterday I spent the day in Amsterdam, flying overnight from Detroit and landing around 10:00 a.m. (For those of you back home, it was 4:00 a.m. at the time.) With most of the day to layover in Amsterdam, I left the airport and took the train to Central Station in downtown Amsterdam. My first order of business was to see Anne Frank's house, a place where she and her family were hidden for quite a while from the Nazis. Knowing that part of history is one thing. Being somewhere that it happened, hearing the thoughts and feelings of the people who were there, is sobering. As I walked throught the hidden rooms where for months she was unable to go outside, I felt sad that things like that had to happen in our world. I learned more about her, including the fact that her family was betrayed and they were found and arrested and died in concentration camps. Anne Frank died, only a young girl, but she had a great story to tell and an effect on those of us today. When I get home, I'm going to finally read her diary, something I should have done many years ago.

My next stop was a bus tour of Amsterdam. Having slept on an airplane, I figured this would be a good opportunity to get an overview of the city, as well as catch a couple Zs here and there as I needed. Good call, because I seem to have missed a few minutes of the trip here and there. I DID, however, wake up in time to stop at a big windmill which is now a MICROBREWERY! We stopped for a photo opportunity, and I went in and bought a beer.

Back to the train/airport for the flight to Cairo at 9:00. We landed in Cairo around 2:30 a.m. and went throught customs, then I caught the plane to Luxor at 5:00. At 6:30 we landed in Luxor. Now the fun starts. As I left the terminal building, trying to figure out how to get to the hotel, I was accosted by about 20 taxi drivers, all wanting to take me there, but none of them would tell me how much. They wanted me to tell them how much. I started walking to his car with one of them, then another came up and the two of the started into a heated argument over who was going to do it. I finally just turned and walked away, and as they followed me, more joined in the fray and it was like a committee meeting before they got done with it. They finally all agreed and picked one among themselves. I found out when I got to the hotel that I paid about twice what I should have, but it was about a half-hour and I paid 15 euros (about $1 7) so I'm not totally unsatisfied.

At 10:30, we had the first event of the weekend, the Luxor Breakfast Run. It was really just a warmup run, but with the turnout of the downtown citizens, you'd have thought it was the Olympics or something. Probably only 25 runners or so, but also horses and carts, roller skaters, and lots of little kids joining in to run with us. We started at the Luxor Temple, (a ruins in downtown Luxor) and only ran about 2.5K (1.5 miles). I got interviewed by the local TV people too. Pretty neat.

Back at the Movenpick Hotel, I met an old friend, Scot McIvor, who I ran the Inca Trail with three years ago. We'll be running the marathon tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, I'll keep an eye out for scorpions, cursed mummys, and quicksand. I'll see if I can post a picture now and then, but downloading them from camera to other people's computers is sometimes tricky.

-Are you having fun? Jacob
Everything I do is fun, Jacob. It's one of my rules.