But anyway, we left Rome on Tuesday around noon-ish. We were flying on Alitalia, which is a real airline, unlike the budget airlines we usually travel on. We were hoping this meant we'd get a free beverage and maybe even a snack. Turns out, we got a whole meal! It was awesome. When we got to the airport in Cairo we were met by a representative from Pack2Egypt, our tour company. We rode back to the hotel in a big van and got out first taste of Cairo traffic. I think it can be best summed up in this way, using the words of Paul (the tour guy): "Sometimes there are lanes painted on the roads. These are for decoration." It was actually quite terrifying. But we eventually made it to the hotel (after getting in a small accident, we just rear-ended somebody, no big deal...), and settled in. The 11 of us Notre Dame students ended up coming on two different flights, because one group booked later, and I was in the group that arrived to Egypt first. So we waited for the other group to get to the hotel, and then all went out to get dinner at a nearby restaurant recommended by Paul. It was funny--even though part of the menu was in English, we still had no idea what a lot of the foods were. I ended up getting a sandwich, but some people were adventurous: Evan got pigeon soup, and a few of the other girls got something that was like hummus but a little different (we found out later that it was hummus+eggplant, called ba baganog, pronounced sort of like "ba baganoosh", and I'm not sure about either the spelling or the pronunciation, ha). We also got complimentary baskets of pita bread!
The next day, we woke up early to start our tour with our tour guide, named Mina. He was with us the whole week. We started by going to Memphis, the old capital of Egypt. There's not that much to see there, mostly just some statues, including a gigantic one of Rameses II.
It used to be standing, of course, but he broke at the knees...
We went to a place called Saqqara next. It has the first stone structure ever, designed by the first architect ever. Pretty cool.
The next location on our agenda was Giza, which has the 3 great pyramids and the sphinx. We stopped at a few places along the way, including a huge store where they make rugs and tapestries by hand out of cotton, silk, and/or wool. We got to see the process, and it's incredible--they're on huge looms and made of thousands of tiny knots.
They sit there all day every day and tie knots--incredible patience.
We also got lunch at a cute little Egyptian restaurant. The best part was the fresh baked pita bread (literally right out of the oven), which we ate with hummus and more ba baganog.
After that, we went to the pyramids! These are the ones you probably picture when you think "pyramids". I was surprised by how close they are to the city--I guess I always pictured them out in the middle of nowhere. I suppose they used to be, but then the city expanded...now they're kind of in between the dessert and the city, so there's still plenty of sand around. Enough to be able to go on a camel ride, which we did! It was fantastic.
A bit cheesy perhaps, but awesome nonetheless:-)
We also saw the sphinx, but the site was just about to close when we got there, so we didn't get to spend too much time marveling.
But we had time to snap a few pics!
That night (Wednesday), we took an over night train to Luxor. (Fun fact: Luxor is south of Cairo, but the area is called Upper Egypt, because it's upstream on the Nile, which flows from south to north. A bit mind-boggling for those of us who grew up right next to the south-flowing Mississippi...). We had sleeper cars on the train, which was a neat experience. Oh, and we got served TWO meals! Dinner right after we got on, around 8:30 pm, and breakfast at 4 am...because we got to Luxor around 5 am. We went to our hotel, but we couldn't get into our rooms, since check in wasn't til much later. We waited in the lobby for a bit and then started our tour just after 6 am.
We went to the Valley of the Kings first, where lots of Pharaohs are buried. The location was breathtaking. It's in the desert and in the mountains. The color of the sand/rocks (a light yellow...I guess "sand" colored, haha) was very dramatic against the bright blue cloudless sky. King Tut's tomb is there, but you have to pay a lot extra to go in, so we didn't. We went into the tombs of Rameses I, III, and IX. The treasures and the mummies are all gone, but you can still see the sequence of spaces and the pictures painted on the walls.
Queen Hatsheput's temple was next. She was the first female pharaoh. This structure is pretty memorable-looking, so one of the things I clearly remember learning about last year in History. At the time, though, I don't think I ever dreamed I would actually be there some day...this was also one of the most powerful places we went, I think. While we were there it was easy to imagine how much solemnity and magnificence the procession to entomb the queen must have had. The only thing I've seen that could maybe compare is the procession at JPII's funeral. And the Egyptians were so focused on death and the after-life that they must have made these processions pretty darn impressive, and that's probably an understatement. And really, it's impressive that they believed so strongly in resurrection. How did they know? Was there revelation involved, or did their beliefs just come from an impressive natural ability to discern some Truth? I'd like to learn more about how their religion developed, I guess, and how that timeline relates the Old Testament timeline...
Originally I think it was all painted, so it stood out from the mountain it's built into...but I kind of like the way it blends in.
We went to the Valley of the Queens next. Same idea as the Valley of the Kings, just less important people were buried there--like some queens and princes.
By this point, we felt like we had been sightseeing for a pretty long time, but it was only 11 am. That was all we had on the schedule for the day, though, so we headed back to the hotel, stopping on the way to see a couple more huge statues. At first we weren't sure what we would do with ourselves for the rest of the day, but we figured it out when we got back to the hotel--we realized it was more like a resort. It had a couple of outdoor swimming pools, lots of beach chairs, and overlooked the Nile. Needless to say, we had quite a nice and relaxing afternoon. And of course I went swimming, even though the water was actually freezing--I couldn't pass up the chance to swim outside in January. That afternoon and evening was the most relaxing I've done while traveling in awhile--it actually felt like a real vacation:-)
The view from the back of the hotel--that's the Nile! And those mountains that you can sort of see on the other side are the ones the Valleys of the Kings and Queens are in.
We continued our vacation like experience the next day by sleeping in more than usual. I did get up and go for a run, though. I went out on the main street for a little bit, but I then I realized I felt really uncomfortable--I got lots of stares, and some comments (mostly things like "Nice! Nice exercise!"). And I guess I did look totally out of place--I'm white, I'm a girl and I wasn't all covered up, and I was running. All three are kind of unusual. It's interesting how standards can be so drastically different from place to place. I think in general I dress pretty modestly, but not by Middle-Eastern standards I suppose. I sensed that pretty quickly, and even started to feel slightly indecent that Egyptian men could (gasp!) see my hair. So anyway, running just made it worse, and I quickly decided to go back to the hotel and do laps around the large outdoor swimming pool complex thing instead. That turned out to be much better.
Then, after a delicious complimentary breakfast at the hotel we started sightseeing again! We went to the Karnak temple and the Luxor temple. Both were huge pilgrimage sites for ancient Egyptians back in the day, but of course they're both in ruins now. That made me wonder if someday people would come to places like St. Peter's and walk around the ruins and talk about how Catholics from all over the world used to come there...and then I immediately thought "wait, Catholicism is never going to die out...so St. Peters will never be in ruins". Unless something drastic happens, I suppose, like the Popes pack off to Avignon again permanently or something. But it was a neat moment of remembering that the Church will go on forever, unlike religions that worship false gods.
At the entrance to the Luxor temple, there's an obelisk on one side, and an empty base on the other side. There used to be another obelisk there, too, but turns out that that's the one that's now in Paris! And I saw it when I was there! It was pretty crazy to make that connection. All the Egyptian obelisks in Rome must have come from specific spots in Egypt too...
To be honest, the obelisks look better in Egypt than anywhere else. Egyptian art and architecture always look a bit funny to me in museums and things, but they look just right in context in Egypt.
Our last activity in Luxor was taking a faluka ride (a kind of sailboat) on the Nile. It was very peaceful, and the sun was setting as we were out there, so it was beautiful.
This is a sweet picture, and also shows what a faluka looks like!
That night, we took another overnight train back to Cairo, and arrived just as ridiculously early. Luckily, we were able to get into a couple of rooms in the hotel, and so could take short naps before actually starting the day.
We saw the Egyptian museum first. The highlight of that was all of the treasures found in King Tut's tomb. We also went to a Coptic Christian Church. From what I gathered, the Coptic Christians are sort of like a branch of Catholicism--they have mostly all of the same beliefs, like Real Presence and everything, but they also have their own Pope. Sketch. I wikipedia-ed it last night to find out a little more, and it seems that the main difference in their beliefs from Roman Catholicism has to do with the hypostatic union--they have a little bit of a different understanding of Jesus' two natures. I didn't quite understand what specifically they believe about it, though. We also went to another church, with something called the Holy Crypt--apparently the Holy Family stayed there for a few days during the Flight to Egypt! So cool. Finally, we visited a mosque. It was very beautiful.
After that, we went to the bazaar, which is a giant market. It was actually quite stressful, because all the shop keepers try very hard to persuade you to buy things. In fact, I was afraid to look at anything too closely, because they take that as a sign that you're interested in purchasing and double their efforts. Not very conducive to shopping, if you ask me. The fear of being hassled was quite a deterent, in fact. But there were lots of cool bags and scarves and things, from what I saw out of the corners of my eye, ha.
For dinner that night we went back to the restaurant we had been to the first day, and realized how much we had learned that week, because this time we felt much more knowledgable about the menu.
The next day was Sunday. Our flight left at 5:20 pm and didn't get into Rome til about 8, meaning we had to find a mass to go to in Cairo. We finally ended up with the name and address of a Roman Catholic Church that was supposedly not too far away, a hand drawn map from one of the guys at the hotel reception desk, and word from a website last updated in 2004 that there was an 11 am English mass there. We handed the map to a taxi driver, and he was able to get to the right neighborhood easily, but didn't know where the church was. He also couldn't read English, so had to stop to ask somebody if they knew what street we were supposed to be going to. We passed a building that looked like a church and had a cross on it, which meant it at least wasn't a mosque, and so we got out there. It turned out to be a Coptic Church, though...but luckily there was a guy standing outside who spoke English and was able to direct us the right way. We sort of got lost on the way and had to ask for directions again, but we eventually made it to the right church at about 11:20. We walked in and immediately realized two things: one, mass was in French, not English, and two: it must have started late...because the first reading was just starting, so we didn't even miss that much. God is good. There were definitely times when I was afraid we were going to have to miss mass for the week, which possibly wouldn't have been a sin considering the circumstances. I'm not completely sure, because I decided not to fully discern that until we had exhausted every possibility trying to get there, and if it didn't work think about it more then. But luckily, it did. Lots of little things went right, leading me to believe that it definitely wasn't all luck:-) He wanted us at mass just as badly as I wanted to be there.
We had a few hours between mass and when we had to leave for the airport, so we walked around and went to a grocery store to spend our last Egyptian pounds. Then we went to the airport and flew back!
At that point break was almost officially over...we started classes the next day, which by now was yesterday. I'm pretty excited about my classes. My studio professor is new this semester, and she's a young woman who actually just graduated from the ND grad school architecture program a few years ago. She's incredibly friendly and approachable, and I think she knows a lot, too. We're doing another palazzo project for the first half of the semester, and then a villa project after that! It's been a little rough getting used to actually going to class again...but I'm sure it'll feel familiar soon enough. And it's good to be back in Rome!
This is so cool! Caroline, I went to a lot of those places when I went to Egypt! We'll have to show each other pictures the next time I see you - IN ROME!
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