Did you hear the one about 2 gay Jews on the Nile?

Tomorrow afternoon we leave on a 12 day trip to Egypt, visiting some of the oldest excavations in the world. On most of our trips, we go to pretty safe places. All over the Caribbean, Europe, Israel, Peru, etc. on tours with at least some people we know and make friends with. Over the past few years my husband, Raphie has been transfixed on the Discovery or History Channel (I get them mixed up) with the show "Ancient Aliens. We did see images of spacemen, rockets and flying saucers carved into the planes of Peru, saw impossible engineering two stories below the Kotel (what is left of the 2nd Temple in Israel). So on our bucket list, before either one of us become feeble or political forces giin the Mideast blow up the relics we are going to Egypt to see the pyramids, the Sphinx, and cruise up the Nile (it runs north/south since it is below the Equator) on two separate cruises and three Egyptian domestic flights over a period of 12 days. Our first hurdle was applying for travel visas. I asked our tour operator if we should just not say we are married and travel as two 'friends' or 'cousins' since we both now have the same last name. We were told under no circumstances to lie on our visa applications so we put down married, spouses, both male. To our surprise the Egyptian Embassy in DC send our completed visas back glued forever in our passports. I don't know if that was a win or a set up. We'll know on Friday afternoon when we go through immigration in Cairo. I'll post pictures as I get them but for now this is all the prep we've done so far. Mostly we are both running around making lists, etc. Doing some laundry and buying more underwear and socks. This activity seems to be the most calming now.

(misa' il khayr) مساء الخ Good Night Nate and Raphie Klarfeld