Sketchy train station, Luxor, and a double dose of idiocy

The train station at Giza was interesting to say the least. I was trying to figure out where to grab my train from and some guy ended up telling me that it had left even though I was like and hour and a half early. I started freaking out at which point a canadian and american tour group noticed me. They had their guide read my ticket and as it turned out I was on their train (which definately hadn't left yet). I ended up chatting with the head of the canadian group who was a history teacher who was appalled that I was travelling egypt by myself and obsessed with american politics. So for the millionth time on this trip I got dragged into another political debate. Luckily they were on the sleeper car and I was in the regular car!! Met some students from yale and then passed out. Woke up in luxor!! It was pretty early so I decided to go to the bus station to get my ticket to dahab for that night first. As it turns out it was really early and nothing was even open yet. I pretty much had no idea what I was going to do for the day so I went to Mcdonalds (the only thing open at 6:30 in the morning) to grab some food and figure it out. I turns out almost everything was closed until 8, so I decided to walk to the furthest thing away and hope it was open when I got there. This ended up being the Karnak temple which looked like it was about a mile away. Luckily I had stored my big backpack in Cairo and had just brought my little one. I headed on my way and was immediately harassed with honks, hissing and 'Oh my gods'. I definately was regretting my decision to not wear a headscarf. At one point this man stopped to offer me a ride on his horse drawn buggy and ended up following me for a good 10 minutes. As I got closer to the temple the scenery got more and more distinct. At one point I was walking through a steet full of run down houses that looked as if they were made of clay. Outside there were donkeys and children in torn robes. Lying in the middle of all of this were ancient egyptian ruins. The remains of a row of sphinx statues and columns covered in hieroglyphics. It was weird how out of place they seemed against the poverty stricken background. I found the temple and it was unbelievable. There were columns and statues and hieroglyphics everywhere. I wandered around for a bit listening to some of the english tours and taking pictures. Spent about an hour there and then headed back to town. Grabbed a bus ticket to dahab and stopped into the tourists office to make sure it was actually q bus ticket and ask how to get to the valley of the kings. Turns out I had to hire a cab for the day that would cost 100 pounds (like 15 dollars). I grabbed a cab by the nile and ended up getting a really nice guy. He put on a music station that played some hiphop and turned it up after I started singing along. He also had a red fuzzy klennex holder and some fake fur on his dash. Reminded me of the lyrics from the fresh prince of belair song. Haha. He took me to the valley of the kings and the guy inside told me which tombs were the best to see. We had to take a tram up the hill and once the guys who ran them realized I was alone I got 'VIP' treatment. This guy Alli put me in the front sear if his tram and then drove me up the hill (with no one else in the tram). I ended up meeting 2 Russian guys who asked me if I gad an isic card (I don't) and tagging along with them. We hit up the first tomb and it was basically just a passageway with colored hieroglyphics on the walls and an opening where the sarcophagus had been. All of the valuable things had been taken out and brought to the museum. One of the russian guys took some pictures inside the tomb and was immediately detained. He ended up deleting the pictures of his phone but they still wouldn't get it back. We went on to another tomb and after some serious language barriers I found out that one owned a bar and one owned an IT business. The last tomb was a little different, the sarcophagus was still in the tomb and the hieroglyphics were brighter with more gold. The russians were travelling with 2 friends and they ended up inviting me to come back with them to where they were staying. It ended up being pretty far away so I couldn't go if I wanted to make my bus at 4. I got reunited with my driver and he took me to the next stop, a temple. On the way he stopped and got both of us a water. He tried to talk to me but his english was only a little better than my arabic. He dropped me off at the temple and I went to explore. Again I got vip treatment, but this time they asked me to give them baksheesh, which I didn't. Haha. I checked out the temple and had a woman take my picture a couple of times. An american couple ended up coming over and volunteering to take some more pictures (I think they felt bad because I was a fellow american travelling alone). After that my driver took me to see some huge statues of a pharoh and his wife. I grabbed some pictures and then asked him to take me back to luxor so I could check out the temple there. He stopped in a little shop and got us both some ground up sugercane drink (which was delicious). After that he dropped me off at the temple and I paid him. Within 30 seconds I realized that I had left my purse in the cab. Shit! I kind of starting flipping out when a guy asked me what was wrong and took me to the tourist police. They asked if I remembered the numbers on the cab. I remembered my guy telling me but couldn't remember the numbers, I thought It was 405. I am such a dumbass!! Honestly who forgets their purse oin a cab in egypt. He raidoed some people and after what seemed like an eternity they told me that they had found my purse. I was sooo relieved. They brought my driver with them and made me check to make sure nothing was missing, of course nothing was, my driver was the nicest guy!! They let us all leave and I thanked everyone profusely!! By then I didn't even want to go to the luxor temple, I just wanted to relax. I walked over to mcdonalds (my american safehaven) got a shake and read my book until I had to grab the bus to dahab.