Well, I thought I was going to have a nice, quiet weekend in Tanta. *laugh*

Instead, I had a nice and really fun weekend running around the countryside and Cairo!

On Thursday, I went with my friend Fady to the hospital he works at in a village of 5,000 just outside Tanta. We met people there and I even went on rounds with him! *grin* After that, we went to a wedding of one of the nurses. She is Muslim, as is everyone in the village.

Very neat! She wears the higab to cover her head and hair (but leaves her face open) everyday, but for her wedding day, she took it off and also wore a very nice wedding dress with transluscent sleeves. Pretty racy!

It was a long night and then an early Friday morning b/c I got a call to come to Cairo and help a Monk with his English. He's trying to travel to England to serve a church there. I have some experience in helping people prepare for the test he needs to score well on, so I went to help. Quite an experience! We sat together for about 4 hours and I mostly let him practice speaking -- so I got to ask him questions about his life, things at the monestery, etc.

Saturday was a big day, too! My friend Matt and I decided to head for some monuments in the morning and had a great time. We thought the highlight of the day was going to be the Ibn Tulun Mosque and that was cool, but then we discovered the Amir Taz Palace. It's an amazing story of how it was rescued.

Matt is a great photographer and took tons of pics, but I haven't seen them yet. For now, take a peek at these pictures that I found on the Net. If you're really interested, you can look at these pre-restoration pics.

This is my new favorite place in Cairo! (possibly in all of Egypt) Why? Well, it seems that it's not on the tourist trail yet, so we were the only people there! Sure, I want other people to enjoy it -- just not when I'm there! *smirk* It's just such a beautiful place and very calm.