Cairo, The Pyramids and Ta'hir Square : We were worried that we may need to divert from Cairo if some of the post-election protests continued but after meeting someone from the US Embassy in Amman we felt good about moving forward. The Marriott in Cairo is located in a historic palace right on the Nile that offered a dramatic atmosphere that even induced kathy and i to try the Xxxxxx. The next day we went out to the Pyramids which are only 20 minutes outside the city and appear on the horizon as you pass through the city of Giza's high rise apartments from a distance they do not appear very large but when you walk up to them you you appreciate their size with over 100,000 stone blocks weighing 1-2 tons each. We were able to go inside and climb inside to the burial chamber which was the sole purpose of this massive structure. That afternoon we ventured to the Egyptian Museum located at Ta'hir Square where we saw not only the vast collection of artifacts including the King Tut's burial mask (22 kg of solid gold!) but also the burned out government office building next door that remains a remnant of last year's Arab Spring