Coptic Cairo

Saturday May 03 (almost up to speed with my posts). Coptic Cairo:

Today has definitely given me a greater respect for religion. As some of you may know, I am not a very religious person by any means. I have never been opposed to it, just have not chose to participate for various reasons. Anyways, this morning we headed out after a very nice breakfast in the hotel to "Ancient" or Coptic Cairo. A very old part of the city and seemingly the focal point of civilization in the area many years ago. We first visited an old Roman fortress, the Supreme Council of Antiquities. We then visited a Christian Church, Jewish Synagogue, and Muslim Mosque all located within a few blocks of each other. I was interested to see this religious diversity in such a small area. We learned about how at one point taxes were enforced on those who wanted to practice Jewish or other non-Christian religions. This was interesting to me as well, as we very seldom witness mixing of church and state in America, but this is (or was) clearly very common in other parts of the world at those times.
Later that evening, we took a beautiful fallucca (sailboat) ride on the Nile River at sunset. I really enjoyed this, as the weather was perfect and despite the river being dirtier than the Charles (I know, hard to imagine), it was very relaxing and great to see downtown Cairo. We ended up walking all the way back to Zamalek, which took about an hour. It was cool to see different parts of the city and really get a taste for the lifestyle. We also had to make sure the girls didn't get harassed by the locals (which is very common to occur here), but our security guard took care of most of that. He is obviously a high ranking local official, as every police officer acknowledged him all the way back.
Last night, some of the guys and I went out to the Pub 28 in Zamalek. I had a great steak dinner and later, we stopped by the Versailles Palace (a local shisha (or hookah) bar) to meet up with other kids from the group.
Certainly a long day, but a great one. It's only been 3 days and it seems like we have been here for over a week!