Christmas and a Tourist Excursion to Cairo

While I'm at it, I suppose I may as well report on my Christmas and my very touristy day the day following.

Obviously, as Egypt is a Muslim country, there was no observance of Christmas on a national scale. But those of us who normally would celebrate the birth of the Savior or simply relish in the tradition of Santa Claus were not left entirely without some merriment. We did have class the morning of Christmas day, but the afternoon was ours, and Erik, Channan, and I, who all live on the compound at Agami, decided to have ourselves a Merry Little Christmas.

Following class we congregated in Channan's and my apartment and made ourselves a feast of pasta alfredo and lots of steamed fresh vegetables. We enjoyed a lazy afternoon watching Mary Poppins, the only decent show broadcast in English that day. Our evening was eventful and packed with games of darts and bowling (cheap little plastic games we picked up a week ago at Carrefour). And most importantly, I got to speak with my family on the phone. So all in all, it was a pretty great day.

On Friday, a bus picked up Channan, Erik, Mustafa, Judy, and myself at 7:00 am to take us down to Giza and Cairo. There we went to the Pyramids, a dream of mine since reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. It was difficult to get great pictures as they were so colossal. But, I did my best. We had a tour guide with us throughout the day, which really made the trip remarkable. His name was Mohamed and he was quite knowledgeable and provided us with informative details I would have deeply regretted not knowing.

While in Giza, we saw not only the pyramids, but of course the Sphinx as well. These places were quite crowded and it was a bit difficult to maneuver through the crowds at times, but we managed. We had our lunch at a restaurant that provided us a view of the Sphinx and the Pyramids and then we went to a Papyrus Museum and learned how the papyrus manuscripts were made. We also attended a little show at this perfume parlor and I still smell like Lotus Flowers and the Secret of the Desert. (I smell quite good, in case you were wondering.)

After this we went to the best museum in Cairo where we were able to view quite a few things that had been excavated from King Tutankhamun's burial site. We saw chariots and weapons and furniture and even his underwear. We saw a lot of gold, including giant boxes, gilded inside and out in gold and placed withing one another. In the innermost box was the actually mummy sarcophagi (again, there were several mummy boxes placed within each other). The innermost mummy casing was solid gold and I wonder how heavy that thing was. No one could tell me at the museum.

Anywhooo, the museum was beautiful and allowed us to view several pieces from several different dynasties and kingdoms. My favorite piece was a sculpture of "The Sitting Scribe," which I'm convinced would have been my ideal job. This guy was charged with preserving the Pharoah's innermost secrets by recording them in an archaic language only the sitting scribes could understand. And literally, they sat and recorded secrets. Okay, I suppose I'd get bored and my butt bones would surely be sore, so mayhaps this is not my ideal job. But being charged with the preservations of a language so few people know, and also getting to know the king's personal secrets sounds pretty cool.

Finally, we went to the Old Market, a place to buy tons of souveniers and Egyptian goods that requires haggling skills. (Name this movie quote and I'll highlight you in my next blog entry--"You gotta haggle.") Anyway, I'm learning the haggling art, but my Arabic still has a looooong way to go, so I took Mustafa with me and he helped me get a guitar for $25 American. It was pretty fun. Once I am more competent myself, I will go back and do a little gift shopping.