Laura and Aaron's visit

We've just had a lovely few days with Laura and Aaron visiting on their way from Sacramento to South Africa.

On their first night here we went for a felucca and whilst Aaron took the best picture of the sunset, I thought this was a nice photo of us on the boat.
On their second day they went for a pyramids day, but totally impressed us by coming home (after 7.30am pick up and 4pm drop-off) and wanting to head out to the Khan! We love taking people around Islamic Cairo and on our wander between Muhamed Ali Street and Bab Zuweyla we found a little herbs and spice shop. Aaron managed to buy a 100g bag of mixed spices for 5LE and I was pleased to spy this bookshelf - the owner was a herbal medicine specialist and these books were wonderful.
We made our way through Hussein Square and avoided the main rat run to head over to Gala which is a lovely street at night because it has been renovated to be cleaned up and had lights installed on the mosques. We find that it's really chilled there and so beautiful at night, just with the nice addition of lights. We wandered around for a while and noticed that some new mosques had opened to the public so we went over to see if we could look inside. It was a real "I saw you coming" moment, as the guy at the entrance quickly latched onto us and said he would show us the mosque, mausoleum and tower for 50LE each. We laughed and he immediately dropped this to 30LE and Aaron finally bargained him to 25LE each.
So off we went with the self-named "key holder" (I was just hoping he'd call himself the key master, but he never did). he took us just inside the mosque and then we came to a small locked door. His mate i.e. the other bloke on the door started having a go at him as he took us inside and all I could make out of the Key Man's reply was the arabic word for "fifty". So we get the impression this guy was not happy with us being let up the tower, and so our bloke brushed him off saying we were paying fifty....when in fact we were paying 100 for all four of us!
So a little bit of baksheesh never hurt anyone and we were allowed up the tower. The view over Cairo wasn't too impressive, but what was nice was to be able to see around Islamic Cairo and these well lit and beautifully lit streets and mosques. When we climbed the tower itself - the first good view being from the roof of the mosque - we were told not to step outside the tower...and we could see why as they platform was not safe at all!
On our way back down the Key Man kept telling us to be quiet, so no one would hear us and told us that we shouldn't tell anyone! He poked his head out of the door and once we had the all clear we scampered into the hall. The mosque was lovely and peaceful and the mausoleum was really stunningly decorated. A worthwhile bit of baksheesh and new experience.

After touring around the Khan we were well in the mood for food and went to our staple choice of the Khan El Khalili restaurant - a touristy, but good and reliable restaurant in the middle of the Khan. We've been here a good few times and know that the waiters are very polite for example handing the menu's to the ladies first. So this is what they did and Laura and I received our menu's opened to the main courses page. Aaron received his too. But when Scott received his - it was opened to the main courses page....in arabic! Scott was dead chuffed that they waiter had done this on purpose and so we took a photo to commemorate - Mr Ayman would be so proud!!