Day 2–Second Full Day in Cairo

Today was the soft grand opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum and we were the first people to walk through the doors! A big shout out and thank you to our library director Sherry Scheline for insisting the tour company book us for this event. There were 17 of us and perhaps a dozen more lucky people who got the opportunity to see the largest museum in the world and hear one of the best lectures on Egyptian history ever. The viewing was limited but what we saw was impressive. The old museum will continue as a museum with some items. Photos will be in the comments.

I should mention that since I live in Idaho now, I no longer have the luxury of driving a mere 45 minutes to an international airport and hopping on a plane to wherever I’m going. I now have to drive 2 hours to Boise and fly to an international airport, spend the night in a hotel, get to the international airport the next day, and then fly to wherever I’m going. It’s a big hassle but it does offer the opportunity to see something new in the city I am flying to. In this case we spent the night in Houston and had the opportunity to see the King Tut exhibit and the Egyptian Museum at the Museum of Natural History before we departed for Egypt. Both are well done and we enjoyed King Tut as much as the Ramses the Great exhibit last year before we flew to Israel.

On the way to the GEM, Cliff Scheline, Sherry’s father who is a pastor related the history and influence of Egypt as it appears in the Bible. Briefly, the word Egypt is mentioned 584 times. In Genesis, Chapter 10, Egypt is first mentioned as a person. It is mentioned as a geographic location in the Book of Revelation and most of the books in between. Cliff’s talk was very informative and made the point that Egypt is the land of the Bible. I will try to post his talk later.

Following our incredible visit to the GEM, we visited a papyrus shop where we could see how papyrus was made into sheets and then a cotton shop where we could buy clothes, linens, and towels and just about anything else. Both were great opportunities to contribute to the Egyptian economy.

We headed to Old Cairo to see the Church of St. Sergius and St. Bacchus where it is believed that the Holy Family dwelt in a cave here during their flight into Egypt to escape Herod’s massacre of the innocents.

Our last visit of the day was to the Saint Virgin Mary's Coptic Orthodox Church, also known as the Hanging Church which is one of the oldest churches in Egypt, dating to the third century. It belongs to the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. It is popularly called the Hanging Church because it was built on top of the Water Gate of the old Roman fortress of Babylon.