Final Post

and I promise not to make it as long as the others!

I am home sweet home now. Well, not quite I am in Dublin after arriving last night but will be making my way home to Belfast this afternoon. I can't wait to see everyone, hear all about Maeve and Dermot's honeymoon to California and eat lots of jambalaya!

I have lost my hat, my suncream, my lipbalm, broken my sunglasses and the zip on my handbag, almost lost my passport twice and now my very Egypt blackened feet are homeward bound. The time flew in. What will I miss?

- Not knowing what challenges we are going to face every day and the humour that came along with it.

- Hibiscus tea! Drank hot or cold and given as a welcome drink in most places (in Egypt it's called karkaday and I have brought a bag or two home)

- The friendly children. Some of them, true, were just trying to make you buy their friendship bracelet or sprig of mint but so many just wanted to welcome you to their country. On our trip to the Citadel, as we were leaving, a busload of school children were coming in obviously on some sort of day trip and very exciteable. All the little girls were obediently holding hands so they didn't seperate while the boys had their teachers run ragged trying to make them behave. When they saw us they were jumping and screaming and waving and getting me to take photographs off them. They are some of the best photographs I have just because they make us laugh everytime we see them.

- Black and white taxi rides ... Ok I won't really miss that but it did feel strange to not haggle the price of our taxi at Dublin airport yesterday, we felt like we were getting ripped off!

Thank you to everyone for reading and keeping in touch with me. I never thought so many people would - really the blog was for Danny and Ann who encouraged me to keep it and don't worry Danny, I know you've been reading even if you can't comment.

Eileen P (if you're reading!) I hope you have an equally lovely time in Egypt this summer too and please reiterate to Andrew and Sara how much we appreciated and enjoyed their company. Thank you so much for organising it for us.

If anyone is interested I could maybe post a few of my photos here as well - I took literally about 1000 pictures!

To sign out here is a picture of the Ancient Egyptian Goddess of the stars and sky, Nut. I bought a papyrus with this image painted on for myself not really knowing who the goddess was. Like mentioned in my previous post, we were taken to see a genuine papyrus artist who inspired me to buy. The colours in mine are so vivid - the blue of the sky and the gold of the stars - and I just instantly liked it. Maybe because the sky has been such a recurring theme of the trip! Leo also bought one of Nefertiti and Pharoah Akhenaten worshipping the sun god. Night and day!

lots and lots of love, Susan and Leo xox