After an epic day yesterday where I went on a hot air balloon during the day and exploring tombs in the afternoon, I was ready for an easy day today.

I purposely stayed awake as late as I could last night.

You see, I had a plan.

I had an afternoon flight to London and I wouldn’t be arriving until 9pm.

After security and transport, I figured I wouldn’t be checking in at my new hostel until almost midnight.

Oh, and there’s a time change too, so it’d actually be 2am Egyptian time.

Yeah, so I really needed to wake up as late as possible today.

Despite waking up at 4am yesterday, I was able to actually stay up til 11:30 last night.

Which, for hostel life, is pretty late.

Of course, it wasn’t quite late enough cause I woke up at 8:00 this morning.

Oh well, guess it’s gonna be a long day today.   Maybe I’ll be able to take a nap on the flight later.

Maybe, lol.

A breakfast Superbowl

I headed downstairs to the restaurant where they serve the complimentary breakfast.

They had played the Superbowl while I was sleeping last night so I watched the highlights which munching on an omelet.

Wow, Chiefs didn’t show up at all!

Shocked!

After I was finished my omelet, the friendly guy working there actually offered me up another and who am I to turn down food.

He had also given me a free can of Fanta last night so I was kinda liking this guy.

Anyway, after breakfast, I just sat there for a couple hours writing up part 1 of the blog from yesterday.

I started writing part 2 as well but, man, that’s alot of writing and I needed a break.

Luxor Museum

At 11:00 I packed up all my stuff and left my backpack at the front desk.

One last thing to see here in Luxor.

The Luxor Museum.

Another driver through the InDrive app (their version of Uber) and I was walked up the visitor’s center at 11:30.

Now, I’ve established a few times in my blogs that I’m not really a museum guy.

I don’t want to read a bunch of stuff and, well, I’d literally die if I had to listen to someone tour me through it.

I’m just a visual guy.

If a museum has alot of great visuals, I’m all over it.

And, man, the Luxor Museum does not disappoint!

There were only about a dozen of us in the museum so it was nice and quiet with no crowds to battle past.

The place was actually fascinating.

So many amazing artifacts to see and, I won’t lie, I even read some of the plaques next to them.

Oh my God, I was reading stuff in the museum!   Someone check on Todd!

I can actually see why some people say you could easily spend 2 or 3 hours there I’m sure a guide would tell you stories about everything there.

Most of the artifacts weren’t behind glass either so I didn’t have to fight that damning glare when I took photos of them.

In all, I spent a half hour there but took 70 photos.

I’d say that’s a pretty good photo per minute ratio there.

Lunch at the hostel

At just before 1pm I was back at the hostel.

Instead of finding a place to go eat, I thought I’d finally give the hostel’s restaurant a try.

I had stopped in it the first night to ask for a menu but they didn’t have one so I went somewhere else.

Today, I decided to give the place a try mostly cause the guy had been so friendly and given me free stuff.

I asked again for a menu and instead he said he just had one thing – fish tagen.

Now I understood what was going on here.

There was no menu because he literally just cooked up a big dish of food on the stove and that was all that was available through the day.

Well, I was excited to finally try tagen which is a stew of meat, veggies, and rice.

I had tried in a handful of places and I was also told it wasn’t available.

The lunch was actually really good and filled me up quite a bit.

This was a good thing because, save for my last protein bar, I wouldn’t be eating again until after my flight later on tonight.

A fitting end to my time in Egypt

Now, because there was no menu, I had no idea what lunch would cost me.

There was a big part of me that thought he’d just say it was free considering the free stuff he had given me already.

At the very least, I thought it’d be pretty cheap since it was just cooked in their kitchen and it wasn’t like some restaurant.

And then he dropped the bomb.

It was 480EGP ($14).

To put that in perspective, meals at restaurants here are about 250EGP and even that is kind of expensive for Egypt.

Sigh.

This brought back vivid memories of when I got scammed in Cuba last year where I also ordered lunch trusting that the price would be reasonable.

The kicker was I only had 350EGP left in my wallet and I’d have to pop by a nearby ATM to get some more money out.

Yeah, visiting an ATM an hour before heading out of the country seems so counterintuitive.

I walked outside to go to the ATM and it wasn’t long before another friendly guy asked me what I was doing.

Figuring he wanted to offer me a taxi ride, I said I was just going to the ATM.

I mean, that should get rid of him, right?

Nope.

Instead he walked with me to show me where the ATM was which I already knew.

I took out some money while he waited behind me and then the inevitable happened.

He asked for a 50EGP ($1.40) tip for helping me find the ATM.

I mean, I was already paying a $3 bank fee to take out the equivalent of $15 and now this dude wanted another buck.

Yeah, that was a fitting end to my time in Egypt.

The overpriced lunch and then a man begging for a tip.

It literally sums up my time in Egypt to a tee.

I keep trying to put a positive spin on things while here cause, I mean, who the hell wants to read about negativity, right.

But man, Egypt has definitely been my least favorite country I’ve visited and Luxor my least favorite city.

I mean there’s so much history and culture here and I met some great people so it was definitely worth it to visit here.

The constant hounding for stuff from seemingly friendly people though is such an utter turnoff.

And this lunch was just the perfect example of what I’ve experienced for almost two weeks here.

Okay, rant over.

It’s time to get to London!

Airport security

At 2:00 Emily walked up to my hostel and we were soon in a car on our way to airport.

The 15 minute drive only cost 80EGP ($2.30) which is vastly cheaper than the probable 700EGP ($20) a taxi would have quoted.

Immediately after entering the airport you’re greeted with an xray machine.

I poured out the rest of the water in my bottle, took out my electronics and liquids, and went through.

Next I was guided to a little table where another guy wearing a “Bomb Squad” shirt swabbed my stuff to test for explosives.

Wow, that one’s new.

Oh, and by the way, I didn’t actually have to dump out my water.   They let you just sip from it to prove it’s not gasoline or something.

Next it was passport control.

I filled out a little form, gave it to the officer, and he gave me an exit stamp in my passport.

Easy peasy.

That was it!   I walked up another level to where the gates were.

I looked to my right and, well, it turns out there’s yet another xray machine to go through and the seats for the gates are literally right behind it.

I decided to just camp out at the cafe outside of it to try to pop together part 2 of yesterday’s blog.

Finally at just after 4:00, I walked up to the security line as my flight was leaving in just over an hour.

The security line was a little more thorough with us taking off our shoes and then going through a body scanner.

Finally, I was done and heading to the gate.

Haha!   You thought I was done?

Are you crazy?

Nope, as I walked into the seating area I was randomly selected for more security.

This time I had to walk over to a little table and put my two bags on it.

He opened up both and then another “Bomb Squad” guy came by and swabbed everywhere.

Hot damn.   Do I look like a terrorist?!?

I just kind of laughed as it was all going on.

Just another story to tell, right?

I mean, I’m literally telling the story right now!

Finally, at 4:30 I was sitting down at the gate.

Soon they called us up for boarding and, because I have to make sure there’s a spot to put my bag in the overhead, I went to lineup early.

Yup, I’m now one of those guys.

I used to laugh at people like me while I just waited in the seating area until everyone else had boarded.

Ah, the good ‘ol days when I used to checkin my bag.

Hello London!

At 5:30 our flight had climbed into the air.

It was a cheap EasyJet flight which meant there’d be limited food on board.

I munched on my last protein bar to sustain myself and spent the first part of the flight catching up the blog including writing this one right here.

Eventually I gave in and ordered a couple of overpriced bags of chips and a Coke.

For the rest of the flight I just watched videos.

Before you knew it, the 5 hour flight was done and we were touching down in London.

With a two hour time change, it was just after 9pm when we landed.

Gone was the 21C temperature from earlier in the day replaced with a blistering cold 3C.

I mean, at least it wasn’t the -7C in Vancouver, right?

But still, it was chilly and for only the fourth time this trip, my winter jacket came out of hibernation along with my gloves and toque.

Going thru security was ridiculously easy as all I had to do was scan my passport on a machine.

No one asked me anything.   I just walked through the exit and I was officially in London.

From Gatwick Airport, it’s a 35 minute train ride into the city.

i caught the train at just after 10pm and after a short tube ride and a short walk, I had arrived at my hostel.

The checkin process was pretty quick and i went up to my room.

The room was pitch dark as the other 2 were sleeping.

Sadly only the top bunks were available.

I fumbled around in the dark setting stuff up and found out I actually had to prepare the bed with sheets and such.

In the dark.   On an upper bunk.   While trying to be quiet.

Let’s just say it was an adventure in its’ own right.

It was now 11:30 and, despite being up for 17 hours, I was starving.

And I had a plan…

Duck and Waffles

As I was planning this trip, I knew I’d be arriving late on this night.

I also knew that with a gluten allergy that food would be hard to come by around midnight.

After a bit of searching for options, I finally came across this restaurant called Duck and Waffle.

It’s open 24 hours a day on the 40th floor of a tower overlooking the city and is within walking distance from where I’d be staying.

Oh, and they have gluten free waffles!

Duck and waffles at midnight it was then!

I headed into the brisk, cold night.

The restaurant was a 15 minute walk and, stupid me, left my umbrella packed in my backpack back at the hostel.

I mean I literally only packed the umbrella just for when I would be arriving in London.

Luckily it was only a very light drizzle.

At midnight I had arrived at what looked like just like another tall office building.

I went up to a side door with a roped off area and a security guard let me pass onto the glass elevator.

Forty floors up was the restaurant and, man, it looked fancy.

Given the time of night, it understandably was pretty empty with only a few tables sat in a mostly empty dining area.

The host sat me at a little table right on the window’s edge with a stunning view of the city lights down below.

Soon, there was a plate of duck and waffles in front of me topped with a fried egg.

I poured the maple syrup on top and dove into my first bite.

Oh.
My.
God.

It literally melted in my mouth.

With a drink and tip, I paid £40 which is about $80 so, yeah, it was a pricy meal but I deserved it, dammit.

And that was the start of my journey home.

I ended up crawling into bed at the ridiculously late hour of 1am which, given the time zone difference, was actually 3am Egyptian time.

Tomorrow I have a full day planned for London and, well, let’s just say it’s gonna be epic…