Day 4: Luxor!

This morning our alarms went off at 4:30 a.m., but I feel like our bodies really don’t know what day/time it was so it wasn’t as painful as expected.

We got dressed and went down to breakfast. The boat, the M/S Jamila, is a little older and very "mid-range" as far as fanciness and extras go, but it was great for us. The kids loved the rooftop deck which had a small (freezing!) pool and lots of lounge chairs and larger tables and chairs to sit at. Underneath the top deck was a level with a large lounge with bar, a souveneir shop, and some guest rooms (there were 66 cabins total). Beneath that was our floor which was all guest rooms. Then the lobby level, with some small shops and the smaller, single rooms where the guides stay, and then the bottom level with the dining area was located. The meals were always buffet style and quite good! We had two rooms right across from each other - the kids' had 3 beds and a bathroom and ours had a king and bathroom. Both were much larger than I expected (our largest rooms of the trip, actually) and had a little desk area with a mirror that worked great as a vanity. Everything was very clean and we slept so well. It was great to have one place to return to each night as we sailed to different stops to see so many amazing things.

We had a private guide, Jusef, who was wonderful and stayed on the boat with us. He'd tell us when we should meet him in the morning for whatever that day's adventures would be. The kitchen would open up 1 hour before the first group was heading out (everyone on the boat had a guide or group), so we'd eat and go. Jusef was awesome about knowing exactly when to leave and where to go first to avoid crowds as much as possible and it was always worth the earlier wakeup calls.

Which is why we found our tired selves heading out into Luxor before dawn in a van with a driver and Jusef. Our first stop was Karnak Temple, one of the largest and the most important in all of Egypt.

Built in 1970 BC, it was continually expanded and edited by later pharaohs over nearly a century.

Including Ramses II, of course. He is quite literally everywhere.

Jusef pointed out many unique features and identifying marks left by various pharaohs who contributed to it.

There is an Avenue of 1,000 Sphinxes, which originally ran all the way to the Nile and the Luxor Temple, and just so much detail everywhere.

The size and scale of the buildings is hard to convey.

We left Karnak as the sun arose and the buses were arriving and continued on to the Luxor Temple, guarded by two enormous statues of Ramses II. You can see a little purple-clad Cora running on the ground beneath them.

Constructed around 1400 BC, it was added onto by Tutankhamun and Ramses II and others.

The ancient Egyptians loved a hallway of columns and the size, thickness, and sturdiness of those columns these thousands of years later is pretty amazing.

From Luxor Temple we headed to the West side of the Nile (the temples are on the East side of the Nile, symbolizing life, while the tombs are on the West, symbolizing sunset/death) to the Valley of the Kings!

The Valley of the Kings was by far the most crowded stop we experienced the whole trip. I can't imagine being there in summer when the temperatures are 50 degrees higher, because it felt hot and nearly claustrophobic in December. It's absolutely worth the stop, and I'm so glad we saw it, but I'm also glad every other temple and attraction was considerably cooler and calmer. I didn't take any surface-level pictures, but imagine a valley between two mountains crammed with people like Magic Kingdom on a major holiday.

We toured three tombs. The Egyptian government determines which can be toured at which times of year, so as to rotate out the crowds of people and potential wear and tear. Tour guides must give their information outside the tomb and cannot accompany their guests within - this is to keep people moving (thank goodness) and also to keep talking and respiration to a minimum to avoid harming the paint within.

Because the painted decor within is absolutely incredible. The colors! The vibrancy, the detail, the saturation -- these walls were painted 4,000 years ago and look better than walls in my house after a couple of years. They were amazing to see. Everything else in the tombs has been removed to museums, so it's really just the physical structures and surfaces you're seeing, but they're incredible.

Next up was the Burial Temple of Queen Hatshepsut. It's huge, built into a mountain in the Valley of Nobles, and was used for services after her death. The temple itself is impressive, and so is she, as she brought vast wealth, trade, peace, and artistry to the land. As our guide said, Egypt did best when ruled by a woman.

Though for all the impressive things he told us, I think the kids mostly remember that Queen Hatshepsut married her half-brother and then her step-son.

After a quick stop at the Colossi of Memnon (we were all pretty done), we were back on the boat for lunch. It set sail at 1 pm and we spent the rest of the day napping in the sun (me), working out (James & Landon), coloring (girls), and watching the beautiful countryside as we sailed by (all of us).

We enjoyed afternoon tea time where Landon pretended to like tea in order to eat all the biscuits. By the end of the trip he could drink a cup of tea with only two sugars (down from six) and barely make any face at all. He now frequently announces, "I drink tea." at random, though he has not actually had tea since leaving Egypt.

It was pretty surreal to realize it was Christmas Eve. I have zero regrets about taking this trip when we did, even if it meant missing our traditional Christmas Eve and morning, and the kids agreed, but they also felt strongly we weren't doing it again because Christmas requires cousins and home and far more sugar cookies. But being together with this crew is all I need (as long as we got to do the cookies and other traditions before we left!).

The sun sets fairly early- around 5 pm- and dinner usually started at 7:30 or 8, so we spent most early evenings up on the deck coloring or reading and enjoying the fresh air before it got too cold.

We got ready for dinner and the boat put on quite a show and display for Christmas Eve! You can't tell because we're too tall, but there's a lovely decorate tree behind us!

The crew went all out on the dinner, with lots of holiday and New Year's touches and food sculptures.

After dinner was belly dancers and whirling dervishes. You know, your usual Christmas Eve stuff.

We were in bed by 9:30, wishing our family 8-9 hours behind us a very Merry Christmas Eve and excited about the next day's adventures to come!

Egypt Days 1-3: Travel, Cairo, and on to the River Nile

Hello and Happy New Year! We are BACK, our bodies are sort of on Central Time, and I am almost caught up on work emails. It's Saturday morning, we need to put away Christmas decorations, and some household object is letting out a loud beeping noise every 3 minutes that we can't find, so let's blog! It feels right.

Egypt was AMAZING. We loved it. This was the perfect time to go with the perfect age kids and I feel so lucky we got to see and do all that we did and that I have all these memories tucked up tight in my heart.

First, some background. I've kept a spreadsheet of trips we've done and trips we want to take since about 2010, and for these last few years before Landon goes to college, we've been prioritizing a couple of big ones. While of course we'll still see him after he graduates high school, he definitely wants to swim. And as former swimmers ourselves we know how little time we got at home during our college years. Christmas break is a critical time for training (championship meets generally happen in February) and we always had to report back well before New Year's. NCAA's is often over Spring Break and summer training is generally done with your team at your school. So if there's a trip we know we want all the kids to join, we're trying to do it before Fall 2026 (what/how/sob/etc). And since Landon is not a city guy (his opinion of NYC: "it's too much Mom."), there's a few specific adventures we wanted to do with him before he goes.

Like Egypt! It has long been on our list and research and stories from friends told me we'd need 10-14 days to do it properly. With summer temps hitting 120+ over there (no thank you; I already live somewhere way too hot), Christmas break was our only possible block of time. We hosted Christmas with my whole family last year, we'll do it again next year/Landon's senior year, and Cora admitted last year she knew that we were Santa, so 2024 was our year! I reached out to my dear friend Kaleigh at The Shameless Tourist last December to plan and one year later, we were off!

5 carry-on suitcases, 5 personal items, and 5 Lag Liv family members, ready for adventure.

We left on Saturday December 21st, which was a little tough since everyone had school and work through Friday the 20th, but we did our Christmas Eve on the 19th, Christmas Morning on the 20th, and were packed and ready by noon on the 21st when we left for the airport. Our first flight was Dallas to Frankfurt, Germany. About 10.5 hours, regular economy seats, no one slept, it was fine.

We had a 5 hour layover in Frankfurt (it was now Sunday December 22nd) during which everyone slept a few hours at some point. Then a 4.5 hour flight from Frankfurt to Cairo which was full and loud and in the oldest plane I'd seen in a long time, but we made it!

We were greeted by our Cairo guide, Mohammed, as soon as we got off the plane and he walked us through customs and the Visa process (I'd already applied online before we left) and then took us to our van and driver and rode with us to our hotel. The Conrad in Cairo was great! We had connecting rooms, the bathroom had a beautiful marble tub that made my tired traveling heart so happy, and the hotel had multiple restaurants that were all delicious and easy.

We ate dinner an the Egyptian one on the 3rd floor overlooking the Nile River and it was so good. We ended up eating there every night we were in Cairo and I still didn't get enough of their Grilled Haloumi Cheese, super fluffy Pitas, or perfectly crisp and seasoned Falafel (they make theirs with fava beans! All this time I thought I hated falafel, but turns out I just hate chickpeas, which I already knew but kept hoping would somehow become delicious in falafel form). After dinner we crashed hard because we had a 6:30 a.m. wakeup call to be up, pack, get breakfast, and then meet our Egytopologist guide Ayman in the hotel lobby at 7:30 a.m.

Day 3! This was supposed to be a lazy morning to recover from our flights before boarding yet another plan to Luxor to begin our Nile river cruise (we'll be coming back to Cairo to explore it post-cruise). But! The long-anticipated Grand Egyptiam Museum (GEM) is finally open (not all of it, but enough!) and Kaleigh asked if we wanted to get tickets and I said "of course!" and this was the only way to fit it in. I had some regrets when peeling my eyes open at 6:30 a.m., but I'm so glad we did.

The hotel breakfast gave Landon cartoon heart eyes and everyone was in shockingly good spirits as we met Ayman in our lobby with all of our luggage. Our driver (same one from the night before!) would be able to keep our luggage while we walked around the museum and then we'd all head to the airport for our short flight to Luxor.

But first, a note about Cairo. I did almost no research before this trip. I'm ashamed to say I didn't even realize that Cairo was such a huge city until we arrived to its bustling chaos. You guys, Cairo is an enormous city. NYC has approximately 8 million people. Cairo has 22 million. The traffic is INSANE. There are no lanes, there is no driving test, and there seem to be no real driving rules. People, bikes, tuk tuks, cars, dogs, trucks, and giant tour buses all just mesh together on 2-lane roads through this gigantic city and somehow it all just... works. Constant horn chatter between cars, spotless roads being swept continuously by civil workers, cars full of adults headed to work, everyone's windows down, shockingly few traffic incidents, and I never saw anyone looking mad at the constant cutting off and stop and go driving. It was fascinating and an experience all in itself. Everytime we'd drive somewhere the kids would ask how far away it was. The driver would give the distance and then say "but time? It's Cairo." and that was the answer.

On to the GEM! It is an architectural wonder. I generally don't take pictures inside museums- you're there to be there and if there's a particularly cool artifact there's pictures on the internet that are much better, so I keep my phone away and just soak it in. However, I took a handful here because the scale of the GEM is hard to comprehend and it is just beautifully done. Everything is well-lit, nicely described with plaques, and the employees are EXTREMELY vigilant about anyone potentially touching anything or breaking any rules. I loved it.

This statue of Ramses II is inside the entry area of the museum. It's inside! The statue is HUGE. It is also 3,200 years old. It used to just be in the middle of downtown and they moved it to the GEM only recently. Apparently they televised the transfer and millions watched its trek to its new resting place.

The museum has a ton of giant ancient statues and artifacts. The kids were so great about listening to the stories from our guide (who was awesome) and being engaged in all the history we were seeing. But we learned that Cora in particular loves a museum. The big kids like the guide, but as soon as he set us on our own they were pretty much ready to go, whereas Cora (and her dad) walks slowly from item to item, reading all its information, and pondering its history and existence. I think 11 years old is about the youngest I'd do this trip, and even then, I don't think Landon or Claire would have handled it nearly as well at that age as Cora did.

In another part of the museum our guide casually mentioned, oh if you look out the window you can see the pyramids. Egypt is amazing.

As we were wrapping up at the museum and getting ready to go to the airport for our 2 pm flight, we learned that Cora and my seats had been canceled by EgyptAir and rebooked (business class!) for an 8 pm flight. Our guide was apologetic, but there was nothing they could do. We were sad to have to split up, but as we told them, if this is the bigget wrinkle in our trip, that's pretty good.

Later it made me think how much the kids were looking to us as that news was conveyed and how glad I am that James and I are both equally good about rolling with whatever travel throws at us. I think it's one of my favorite things about him and it's why we've always been able to take big adventures with our kids since they were little. "Okay then, it is what it is," we both replied. The big kids looked a little concerned at having to go to the airport with only James- I'm not sure they had much faith in his ability to get them on a plane and off again to the right destination, but I wasn't worried.

We said goodbye as they headed to the airport and then Cora and I headed to a delicious fancy lunch the travel company had arranged for us!

After that we stopped at the Memorial to the Unknown Soldier. It was actually really fun to have a little day date with her.

Next up was the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization where all 22 mummies of the ancient pharoahs are now kept. I knew their mummification techniques were effective, but it was insane to see hair and teeth and cartilage of a body that is thousands of years old. Cora and I were simultaneously creeped out and fascinated and really enjoyed reading all about the pharaohs we were seeing. (No pictures of the mummies, but look at the colors on these sarcophaguses! These are so so SO old! Incredible.)

Meanwhile James and the kids got to Luxor without a hitch. A guide there picked them up and brought them to the Nile river boat that would be our home for the next 4 nights! The boys immediately worked out (they managed to bring stretch cords for the small pool in their little carry-ons) and Claire sat on the deck and texted me updates.

They ate dinner on the boat and let us know the food was good and our rooms were really nice.

As the night grew later, Cora and my flight was delayed (sigh) and James and the kids went into Luxor in search of additional food.

By 9 pm Cora and I were still at the airport and we were SO tired. I'd really been looking forward to an afternoon nap on the boat, but she was being such a trooper I kept my whining to myself (and my texts to James) and colored with her in her new coloring book. We finally got on our plane about 9:30 pm, landed in Luxor at 11 pm, were picked up by our guide and at the boat by 11:30 (Luxor is small and apparently has no traffic at 11:30 pm on a Monday!) and immediately saw James, Landon, and Claire waving to us from the rooftop deck! We had MISSED them!

We got on board and slept HARD for less than 5 hours before our next wakeup call at 4:30 am (sob) to see the Luxor temples before the cruise began!