Wednesday June 12
We had a very busy day on our second day in Alexandria. The first place we visited was the Royal Jewelry Museum. I did not take the camera with me but I recorded the beautiful jewelry in my mind. The craftworks of the craftsmen were amazing. But what delighted me most was the building of the Museum. You could see the paintings and the sculptures there, everything gave you an atmosphere that you were in a place with a royal blood.

We got to the Alexandria University and met the Dean of the Faculty of business management there. He was a very knowledgeable man. We also met a faculty member there. She spoke very good English and was very kind. We talked a bit more and we found out that she had been staying in London to teach for a few years. No wonder she could speak so well. We visited the center for blind and handicap there. We could see that the university paid lots of attention on providing better facilities and education for this group of people.

While the newly built Alexandria Library was besides the University, we would definitely take a walk there before we left. The library was a very special building and I believe that it would soon become one of the most famous landmarks in Alexandria. Egyptian government had high hope on it. It was expected to become the center for culture internationally in the coming future. The library was especially designed to provide an environment for comfortable reading and doing researches.

Then, we went to the Kaitbay Citadel. With the beautiful sea besides, the citadel was like castles in storybooks. The sun was very bright this day and it made the citadel even greater and brighter. We took a lot of pictures here as the scenery was really great.

Not far from the Citadel was a port. We took a rowing boat tour here around the coast of Alexandria. In a local way of speaking, it is called "Felucca". The sea wind was comfortable and the smell of the sea was lovely. We sang on the boat. While we sang some Chinese songs for entertainment, our Egyptian friends returned with some Egyptian songs. It was the time when we really felt the wonderful feeling of sharing and communicating with two different cultures.

We went to the hotel to have lunch. We took a break in the afternoon and started off to downtown in the evening. When we arrived, the sun was nearly gone. Downtown in Alexandria seemed to be more interesting than that in Cairo. While it did not have as much classical buildings like those in Cairo, it had more varieties of things and gave people a more modern impression. Probably it was because of the development of tourism industry was better in Alexandria. There were trams and the traffic was much more disciplined in Alexandria. We tried various Egyptian food here. My favourite was an Egyptian pizza called fettea. The cook would rotate the pasta for many times until it was bigger than you can imagine. Then he would fold it to a small rectangle, put the ingredients inside, and fold it up even more. The last procedure was to put it in the oven. It was sweet like all the other Egyptian food but the cheese gave out a very nice favour.

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