Da Moose Does Da Pyramids With Friends

Paddi came to visit us again this winter from Canada and while she was here she decided to take the grooms at Maryanne's farm to the Pyramids at Giza. They had grown up only a few miles from the pyramids but had never actually visited them! Amazing! But Maryanne said that lots of people grow up near famous places and never visit them. Anyway, we all took a trip to the pyramids, Da Moose, Minnie Moose, and Al Camel, a friend that Paddi decided should come home with her to Canada. Oh yeah, and three grooms, Maryanne, Paddi and India, a vet who was visiting from England. Maryanne took me to the pyramids before but this was my first time to take friends.
No matter what anyone says, the pyramids at Giza are BIG! Almost too big for us to see them all. I also wanted my friends to see the Solar Boat. Maryanne said that is a boat for the pharoah to sail with the Sun. Most boats sail in the water. I wanted to see this. We all stood in line for our tickets. Because we were so small, they didn't cost anything. Then we went inside to see the boat. It looked a lot like a sort of Viking boat with a high front and back, but really big and it was sort of floating in the air. The stairs in the museum went all around it. Al, Minnie and I all thought it was pretty cool and probably a good thing that it wasn't meant to go in the water because it looked like there were some holes in it. Maryanne said that after such a long time, the wood would shrink and it wasn't made with holes in it.

After we saw the boat, we went out to a place in the desert where people can take pictures of all the pyramids at Giza together. Mostly people go out there to be silly in pictures of the pyramids. India and Paddi had to stand on the wall with Minnie and Al while Maryanne and I took their picture in front of the pyramids. Lots of people were pretending to touch the tops of pyramids or hold them in their fingers. It looks very odd when they are doing it but I guess it works in the picture.

Al and I decided to ask the Tourist Police if people got arrested for picking up pyramids in pictures, but Maryanne said that we were being very silly ourselves. After taking some of their own silly pictures, Paddi, India and the boys went for a ride on a camel. Al, Minnie and I wanted to go too, but Maryanne said that we were too small and she would take us down to where we would meet the others near the bottom of the hill.

There was a restaurant down there, a Pizza Hut, where Paddi had promised the boys to buy them lunch. The pizza looked okay to me, and Maryanne, Paddi and India liked it just fine, but the boys had never eaten in Pizza Hut and they thought it was sort of strange. After lunch, India and Paddi wanted to look at some really old pictures of the pyramids in the bookstore next door, but we were getting tired and this old lion goddess offered to let us sit in her lap. That was very nice of her. Maryanne said that it was very, very nice of her because she had been the goddess of war in the old days.

The pyramids are a pretty cool place to visit but the next time I go I want to ride a camel too. And it's amazing how silly people act when they are hanging around a huge pile of rocks.

Minnie Comes to Cairo

Hey! It's Da Moose here. I've been really busy lately but I want to introduce you to my friend Minnie Moose. She came here with my buddy Paddi from Canada when Paddi came to visit Maryanne this year. Minnie is a little odd since she's white, but she said that has to do with her birthday which is near Christmas. Everything here in Egypt gets dusty, so maybe she won't stay white long.

Since Minnie just came here, we decided that we should show her around the town a bit. The first thing that we did was to stop by the embassy to register her so that they knew that there was a new Canadian in town. Then we went to Zamalek because Maryanne needed to go shopping for some Christmas presents. We were going to go to Diwan to buy some books. Maryanne really likes books. When we got out of the car, we were near a shop filled with really old stuff. There was this chair outside the shop in the shape of an elephant and we got a chance to climb in and pretend to ride the elephant. Maryanne says that her children used to do the same thing many years ago.

Maryanne and Paddi said that they were hungry then so we went to Maison Thomas for some pizza. Minnie and I just watched. Moose don't eat pizza. We like vegetables and they didn't really have any for us. When they finished lunch we went across the road to Diwan to look at books. Minnie and I had never been to a bookstore before.

Bookstores are wonderful places. I've never seen so many books with pictures and stories. They were in English, Arabic and all sorts of other languages. We didn't know what to look at first. There were stories about people, stories about animals, wonderful stories.

Maryanne and Paddi wanted to look around so Minnie and I found a comfortable chair and looked at a book about Nemo. It was the story of a fish who got lost and then his family found him again. Minnie is too little to read so I read it to her. It was in French but since I'm a Canadian moose, I could do that. I bet you didn't know that.

Playtime With Ryan

Things have been pretty quiet around here lately. Maryanne hurt her knee and then her shoulder and the doctor told her to take a vacation. She's bad at vacations and gets kind of crabby. But TODAY was so much fun. Some friends of hers came to ride the horses and since she's not allowed on a horse, she asked if their little boy Ryan wanted to play with me while his mom, dad, and sister went riding. Ryan is four and we had a really good time.





His sister Alex let us get on the horse with her for a picture before they went riding. Alex held me really tight so I wouldn't fall off. Horses are tall. Then we went for a walk around the farm. We stopped by a little palm tree and Ryan asked Maryanne what the red things were on the yellow branch. She told us that they were dates and that they were almost ready to eat. Ryan asked to try one so Maryanne picked one and we tried it. Hmmm.





I don't think they were ready, or maybe little boys and moose are not too crazy about fresh dates. They had a funny taste. Sort of sweet. Hard and crunchy. But also kind of like a green banana.



Ryan didn't want to throw it away, and he wanted the seed inside to plant in his garden so he could have a tree. We thought maybe the dogs might like the date, but they were busy eating a carrot. Funny dogs here. I didn't know that dogs liked carrots.



Maryanne said that the horses like dates so she took it and fed it to a big brown horse called Gamila. Gamila ate it and asked us if we had any more while we were playing by her paddock. Ryan was showing me how to build mountains from the sand.



We built a few mountains but the dogs aren't smart about mountains and they kept stepping on them. We decided to check out the donkey cart. Maryanne says that this is used to carry all sorts of things for the farm and the donkeys pull it. But we had fun just climbing on it. Ryan is really smart and he found a big piece of corn in the wagon. We tried to eat a piece but it was really dry. Not so good. Maryanne said the donkeys would like to eat it.




So we took it over to where the donkeys live and the grey donkey, Margarita, came over and took it from my hand. She really liked it. But her baby Daisy also wanted some and kept trying to get some from her mom.



The donkeys are cute and not as big as horses so I really like them. We see them everywhere and they work so hard pulling their carts and letting people ride them. That's the good thing about being a moose. Nobody rides a moose.

Some Of My Moose Cousins

One of my cousins sent me this video of our family playing. I thought that you might like it.