Last Days in Cairo

After Kitty left, my family had a little less than a week left in Cairo. We spent our days visiting Coptic Cairo, Mosques, museums, and shops. I'm just going to show you the pictures of Coptic Cairo because my camera broke after that!

 

Coptic Cairo was really cool because all the churches were within one alley. I say alley because the walkways to each church were narrow and convoluted. To understand why the churches are set up in this way, I'll explain some of the history. The Copts are Egyptian Christians. They are very traditional and modest. Christianity, or monotheism, was not accepted in ancient Egypt, so the Copts had to hide their beliefs. So, the Copts stayed together, hidden in the city. Their churches were very decorated, but Christianity was hidden in their artwork so many of their pieces have traditional Egyptian symbols. Unfortunately, I couldn't take pictures of the really cool artwork of grape leaves with crosses hidden in them and such. Here are a few pictures of the modern artwork, which is more obvious.

 It's tradition for Coptic babies to get their wrists tattooed with the sign of God. Many Copts have stopped practicing this because the needles are rarely sterile and used many times. We saw a traditional family giving their child a tattoo on the street.

Ah and Egyptian coffee. One must wait for the grounds to settle to the bottom, so he or she can actually drink the coffee instead of chewing it.
This concludes my Egypt blogging. Now, back to fashion! Yay!