Alexandria--Part 1--The Apartment

We took a trip to the North Coast last weekend. It was just the weekend before Eid. Eid comes at the end of Ramadan (the month-long fast). They compare Eid to our Christmas. It's a major holiday. The day we left Alexandria was the first day of Eid. Eid lasts 3 days. It was a trip I don't think we will soon forget.

Samir, who was our driver until he made the owner of the company mad and now we get a different driver every few days, is from Alex (perhaps more on that story on another post). He arranged for us to get an apartment on the beach. We left after church on Friday and arrived to Alex Friday evening. Todd went up to the apartment first with Samir and approved the place. The kids and I then came up (it was on a 13th floor). We payed the money and started to get settled in.

At first glance, the apartment was great. At first smell, the apartment was horrible. We decided to make the best of it. The apartment had some great features.

I loved the ceilings!


I loved the wardrobes for the bedrooms.



I loved that we had space to spread out.


I loved that there was room for the boys to spread out their Risk game and play. Critter is not happy because he's losing.


The view of the Mediterranean was actually out a side window but still, it was a view.


But then as we were getting more settled, things weren't quite as beautiful.

The bathrooms were fancy . . .


but up close and personal they were like this.


We thought we could save a few bucks using the apartment because we wouldn't have to eat out all the time but I was expected to cook with these:




No thanks. I'm not hungry anymore.

We weren't sure of the size of the apartment so we'd brought 3 sleeping bags with us in case we needed them. The kids ended up laying them on top of the bed because none of them wanted to actually get in the sheets. I didn't want to either. However, we didn't have enough sleeping bags and I didn't trust sleeping on the floor either. We brought some beach towels with us also. So I spread out some beach towels on the bed and slept on those.

One thing I can't show in the picture are the smells. Each room of the apartment had its own unique smell. If you didn't like the smell you only had to walk a few feet and you were greeted with a whole new scent.

The next morning Todd woke up with quite a headache. He was convinced it was from the smells. So . . . we packed up our bags and Todd ponied up and we stayed the next 2 nights at the Sheraton.