Dinner in al-Azhar Park Thursday & Imperial Boat (again)

I think this post catches me up on last week's events. Sorry that my recent posts are out of chronological order, but that's how my mind works these days. Thursday night we went to dinner inside al-Azhar Park (named after the mosque we visited that morning). The Park was built on a former dump site thanks to several grants from Islamic charities, and is easily the most beautiful place I've been to in Cairo (when I say "beautiful," I mean in the American sense of crisp design and neatly manicured lawns and graceful waterfalls, etc. The pyramids were of course beautiful too, but in an entirely different sense.)

We arrived just in time to see the sun set over Cairo. We were high enough up to have great vistas on 2 sides, including one over the City of the Dead. We could also see the nearby Citadel. Watching sunset over the City of the Dead, and beyond that, over downtown Cairo, was gorgeous (I actually wanted to use the word "breathtaking" but I knew I'd get too much grief for using that word).

The Park


The Citadel


Dinner was fancy, but the food was just okay (it's getting very hard for me to get excited about any food in Egypt).

Cairo at night. When I turn off the flash on my digital camera at night, the shutter has to stay open longer to let enough light in to take the picture. Because I can't hold the camera perfectly still, I end up with pictures like this. The streaks I guess show how much, and in what pattern, my hands moved while I was pressing the button to take the picture.


A fun picture from Imperial Boat/ Club Purple later that night: