the citadel and beyond

I was lucky enough that the folks that Wahied's touring for the time that I'm here didn't mind me tagging along.

Sunday we went to the citadel and the Egyptian museum. the citadel is a huge fortress built on one of the highest points of the city. Inside the citadel is the mosque of Muhammad Ali. It is made all of alabaster and the domes are covered in silver. Upon reflection I don't know why the domes weren;t tarnished. Muhammad Ali is actually interred at the mosque. It has a very western feel, employing the same configuration of domes as the basilica in Rome. there are three pulpits called members, of different sizes. The tall one is beside the back dome, the second tallest is at the back of the dome, and the smallest is intended to be by the door. The tall ones help amplify the sheik's voice, and the small one has some one repeating what the sheik says so that those outside can hear. Now of course everyone has speakers.

Next came the egyptian museum. There Wahied's friend, also named Wahied, took me into the royal mummy room while Wahied started Marc and Nico's tour (the folks who Wahied is taking around these weeks). I have to say, for people that have been dead for 4000 years, they look pretty good!. Ramses II in particular. His hair is still there, he might have been loosing his hair during life, but not in death. Their finger nails were well manicured, and their ear lobes intact. The finery from king Tut's tomb takes up an incredible amount of space. His tomb is the only one that was found in its full splendour. From the amount that was found in his tomb, a fairly insignificant pharoh, one can imagine all that was in Ramses II's tomb. It was fantastic to see all of the treasure up close and personal after having seen pictures of it in National Geographic. Some of the neaterst things were: the camping bed that folded using hinges that are nearly identical to the design that is used today. The precise base relief carving on the sarcofoci that we still can not imitate with all of our powerful modern tools and technology. Finally something that I saw when I was wandering around by myself for a bit. There was a period of time, during the reigns of the two pharoh's previous to King Tut when the art style was noteably different. The notes marked it as more naturalistic. The body shapes were more pearlike and their skulls were elongated, their lips fuller. On the whole it looked more like the art work that yo usee from the rest of the continent of Africa.

Sunday also happened to be my birthday so Lisy and Wahied took me out to dinner. Afterwards we sat in the garden of the Villa that the restaurant was in and hade ice cream cake and sheesha. The evenings here are quite comfortable. It has not been too hot at all, and there is always a lovely breeze.

That is all that I have written so far. I'm woefully behind, as I have visited old coptic cairo, and climbed mount sinai since then.

more on egypt

I would find it hard to believe that anyone really has fun at the pyramids. It's really hot in the desert, you need a car to get through from one place to the next. But then, you can't not see the pyramids...just don't do it on your own, that's my recommendation. Lisy spent a lot of the time convincing the guards that she was married to a curator at the Egyptian museum and was therefore entitled to go in for free. Eventually people were convinced. Perhaps the best part was the boat museaum. The found a full sized bost buried outside the great pyramid. It was dismantled with instructions as to how to put it back together. After seeing the Sphinx and climbing in the great pyramid (a little creepy, and a little empty) we returned for lunch and naps.

The drive through Cairo to get to Giza is almost eyeopening. Thre are unfinished buildins that are absolutely everywhere, they have been that way and will continue to be that way for years. They will crumble before they are finished. The apartment buildings only have windows on one side, the brick work is done by hand and is visibly shoddy. They legally only have to leave a meter between the buildings, so there are building on top of each other. Each building is like a series of brick shanties built on top of oneanother. Most buildings are unfinished, so they have to proper roof. You definitely understand that you are traveling through a third world city.

Cairo traffic is what you might expect; lots of high speed weaving bumper to bumper. Intersting to note are headlight habits. Few cars have headlights and when they do they are flashed to tell the person infront of you that you would like to pass them. Otherwise if people see you with your lights on they will signal for you to turn them off, even at unreasonable hours like two in the morning. The high ways aren't limited access, so there are street cleaners, men with brooms walking along dodging traffice while cleaning the roads. Also people catch vans, the local public transport along the highway Jumping over medians and hanging out under bridges. There are even some vendors hanging out under there.

writing from Egypt

I'm writing in a journal, the journal is at this point a day behind, and I'm copying it, so I'll get as far as I get today and start up the next time I have internet, which will probably be Thursday.

As soon as I exited the plane I could feel the burn of the pollution in my nose and lungs. I have never been anywhere so polluted. It took about an hour to get through customs, even though we were the only flight there. It was because there were no instructions telling people they needed to buy a visa. Lisy has told me, however I still had to wait in a line of confused people. They are super scared about the swine flu here, and you pass through a quarentine check point before getting your passport checked. They look at you through an infrared camera to make sure that you aren't glowing too orange.

The first day I slept until noon, found that the internet in the apartment did not work and took a small walk around the neighborhood. Lisy lives in a very beautiful and upscale part of Cairo. Here there are lots of trees and villas. Many diplomats and ex-pats live here. Lsiy says there is no other place quite like it in Cairo. I believe her. Looking out from her balcony are lots of trees, some of them Mango! Compared to the rest of the city it's a green paradise.

The drive home from the airport was unremarkable except for passing through the city of the dead. The city of the dead is technically a huge graveyeard of tombs. the tombs are like small homes (perhaps for the afterlife? more so living reletives can visit) Many of the tombs are guarded by a member of the family or a hired guard who lives in the tomb itself. These are generally people without any other options. The city of the dead is a dangerous place that has little to no electricity, no water, the police don't go in, and it spans an astonishing 20% of the city. Needless to say, no one will notice an extra dead body in a tomb.

The weekend started nice and slowly. We went to Cardouf, the Egyptiann Walmart for the weekely grocery and thing shop.. CArdouf is built in the middle of the deasert and is surrounded by new developments that will aparently be quite expensive. Building materials are so valuble here that they hire villagers to live in the unfinished buildings and guard the materials.

We also walked through the neighborhood and got sandwiches and mango juice from street vendors. 36 hours later my tummy was a little yucky, but nothing that has stopped me from treking about the city. falafel here by the way is way yummier than any falafel I've ever had. IT has fennel seed in it which is delicious!

Saturday Lisy and I went to the pyramids in the morning. In typical Embly fashion I forgot my camera, but Lisy saved the day with her camera phone. I've since stashed my camera in my purse so that I can't forget it.

ok I have no more time, but I will continue later!

Things Fall Apart

The center can not hold?

All technology in my house is slowly deciding that it no longer wishes to reside you. First the modem died and there was no more internet. Two days ago the remote to the converter box on the TV went MIA. No sign. Searched the couch, under it etc. can't find it. As a result I get to enjoy only the fine programs on Fox. The no TV choices would be a problem if there was internet...but we already covered that.

And now! last night the phone stopped getting a dial tone. sigh. Yes I unplugged and replugged. Last time this happened the squirrels had eaten through the phone line outside the house. But it took a ton of cojolling to get the AT&T guys out to my house. Plus once they came he covered my wires with anti-squirrel devices. (sheet metal wrapping)

So here I am, packing, trying to make sure that everything is set up with my loans for school, trying to get things done with the Doctor and I can't get anything done at home because I have only my cell phone. Just 14 more days. Then I'll be home where there is shiny shiny internet and phones. Then I'll be in Cairo, where I won't care if I don't have access to the internet at all times. But until then, I feel like everything is just breaking around me.

Defenestration

I'm currently reading a book called The Defenestration of Bob T. Hash III by David Deans.
It's a bizarre little book about a land where a parrot turns into his owner when his owner strangely disappears. They live in a book that teaches English, and mangled other languages apparently. The author has taught English as a foreign language in various countries and he's clearly straining against the ridiculous exercises that most texts make the student do, and how sometimes there are no answers that make any sense in the exercise.
The language is very clever, and inserted within the plot are faux exercises that are in the book that they live in. I think that sometimes the book suffers for all the clever language, and funny interludes, especially since that means that frequently nothing is happening at all.


In completely disperate news, I went to the dentist today and had my teeth cleaned. They looked very clean, I got good marks for taking care of my mouth. However in stead of polishing my teeth in the normal way, they blasted baking soda at them at high pressure. They said it's more effective and quicker. It also is really uncomfortable. Baking soda flying all over the place hitting you at high pressure in the uvula and whatnot. Generally unplesant, not recommended by embly.

meal of a dozen

I like meals with themes. Not ones that I necessarily plan, but a common thread that I find in the food that I eat. It amuses me when the food that I eat is all related to each other in some way.
For instance; when I was working at an overnight summer camp, we had a cookout every session. The food that we ate was, hot dogs, cheese sticks, and twix. Everything was long and cylindrical. That pleased me to no end, we might have had carrots as well, but I have to admit that I don't quite remember. The meal was also one of the more tasty ones that we got to eat.

Last night was another example. Just about everything that we ate came in 12. We made jerk wings on the grill. We had a recipe, but we didn't have some of the more important ingredients, like all spice, scallions, and who knows what else. So Alex and I decided to (pardon) wing it.

We had such success. Honestly I think that Alex have some sort of magic that lets our food turn out so well, because we just mess around.

But back to the point. we had 12 wings, 12 beers, 12 cupcakes....that might be it for the 12. I'm positive that there were more than 12 asparagus.

Taste of Hell

Oh the taste of Chicago. I guess it's ok to go to once, but really, after that it's just a giant nuisance. Traffic is hell, down town is full of tourists, filling the streets with a sort of "vibrance" that I could really do with out. Vibrance here really means other people sweating on me.

That said, I'm going to really miss Chicago and all of its shenanigans.

Now that summer is really here (today maybe a bit of a regression into spring) it means that we can chill at the beach again. I can't think of many cities where you can walk from work to the beach in a few short blocks. Sure Boston will be on a harbor and whatnot, but I'm pretty sure there are no beaches that I can get to from the T (that's entirely unverified, I'm just guessing)