Will miss....won't miss....learnings....

Greetings from Amsterdam. We're almost home. We have collected our final thoughts from the trip and have categorized it into three areas

Will miss:

• Sherif, our Habitat for Humanity engineer.
• Christine, our Habitat for Humanity coordinator (from Michigan!)
• Some of our guides.
• The amazing temples that were 5000 + years old!
• Egyptian food was amazing!
• The synergy of our team.
• The people we met along the way from other countries.
• Stella Beer
• Playing Phase 10 cards (Stephanie won with her good luck charm Bob, Ronnie sand-bagged and made up his own rules!!)
• Every hotel we stayed at had an Egyptian wedding or engagement party going on and they asked us to be in their photos.

Won't miss:

• Negotiating for EVERYTHING---including a Diet Coke
• Tipping to for 3 sheets of toilet paper
• Constantly being told we would get the "Obama Price" in the markets
• The dust/smog/flies
• Smoking---everyone smokes in Egypt
• The Egyptian driving made LA look like drivers training!
• The call to prayer 5 times a day (the person singing the calling was not chosen for their singing skills...)
• 5 am wake up calls

Learnings:

• Muslim religion
• Volunteerism is a foreign concept in Egypt. Very fledgling idea.
• The country is 90% Islam and 10% Christian
• Buildings like the Pantheon and the Colusium are "babies" compared to the temples we saw.
• The presence of Jesus here is evident in the hierogliphic language.
• Perception of America is very favorable.
• Pigeons are a delicacy....we are thinking of franchising this concept.
• English is phoenically spelled on menus, which was a great source of laughter for us.
• The Egyptians read right to left.
• Never accept the initial price. Everything was negotiable.
• Crime is very low in Egypt because of the Muslim culture of helping the poor.
• Muslims can have up to 4 wives, but we heard from Egyptian women that they prefer the American way of marriage.
• Men are served first, so women must assert themselves to be recognized.
• Strong women are very threatening to Egyptian men.

We'll be adding photos when we return home.