The Citadel

Today was the first day of our weekend. We have Fridays and Saturdays off, Class on Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays with Tuesdays as a Service Project Day. We have quite a bit of homework this weekend from Arabic as well as reading for Culture and Change in the ME and Peoples and Cultures of the ME.

So, with our first off day since we have been there, a group of us (consisting mostly of my flatmates) decided to go to the Citadel. For those of you unfamiliar with this astounding work of history, it is a huge stronghold/castle built by Sal'adin in the 10th Century in the Crusades. It has been improved over several centuries to include the Muhammad Ali mosque, his palace and numerous underground dwellings for soldiers. Egypt was ruled from the Citadel for several centuries. It was breathtaking to see in person and I have posted pictures that do not do it justice.

Tomorrow we go to see the Pyramids, so there will be another post just as excited as this one tomorrow!