Alexandria

Day 10 May 31 – Alexandria

Today I drove with Dr. Ishmail and son Mohamed to his home in Alexandria. Alexandria has about four million people and It stretches along the coast of the Mediterranean coast. Their home was on one of the middle stories of a building a few blocks back for the coast. We went up to meet Dr. Ishmail’s wife, four daughters, and only grandson. The grandson, Mohamed's son, is named Ishmail after his grandfather.
After a wonderful lunch and cookies, Dr. Ishmail’s son Mohamed took me to his place for some rest. After a nice nap we drove along the coastal road, the main drag in Alex, to a thousand year old castle from the Ottoman Empire. Because it was a Friday night the boardwalk was packed with people, children, and vendors. After a quick tour of the boardwalk we drove to the largest mall in Alex. The mall was just like the one in Cairo, huge and full of cool stuff. There was a famous perfume store which sells perfume that can cost thousands of dollars.
The next stop on the tour was the Library of Alexandria. I remembered that the library was famous but I couldn’t remember exactly for what. I expected to see a very old, massive library, but was surprised to see a concrete dome. They told me then that the library burned down, with most of its contents, during the Roman rule. Then I remembered it was famous in history as the most impressive library but it burned down with much of the documented history up to that point. It was famous because it was destroyed. So now the library looks like a dome with a slice taken out of it. It is on the coast, it is supposed to represent the sun rising off of the ocean horizon.
After a wonderful dinner and desert we headed home. Don’t get me wrong, I love Cairo, but Alexandria was great. It was much less hectic and I loved the ocean view.