Saturday, January 16, 2010

Ha, ha! We were both fast asleep by 6:30pm, and missed dinner, the show, the tour of Kom Ombo. After our gallabiya ordeal, we never got to wear them. But we woke up this morning feeling great! Today we cruised north along the Nile all day. It was a deliciously slow and peaceful day. I spent hours and hours simply gazing at the shoreline going by.

We were fortunate to have a cabin on the West side of the ship, because we enjoyed an unobstructed view of the river, rather than another ship a foot away. First thing this morning, we looked out to see the lighting of a bonfire on the shore. We found out later that agriculturalists along the Nile burn the leaves of their sugar cane and banana trees, once they have been removed from the plants. The bonfire actually served to give me some peace about the constant orange-brown air with a nasty taste. Perhaps it’s as simple as widespread burning, and not the toxic pollution I was imagining.

During the night we had cruised to Edfu to be in place for our first tour of the morning. The Ptolmeic Temple of Horus at Edfu is a huge complex and extremely well-preserved due to being buried in sand for many years. Like most of the temples we saw, this one was begun by one king and added to by others. Ramses II may have contributed to the original part. After work by several kings, it was not finished until around 60 AD.

The standard structure of ancient Egyptian temples is to have two massive “pylons” on either side of an entrance. Originally, the pylons were carved with hieroglyphics, covered in brightly painted illustration, and adorned with gigantic flags on poles that reached as high as the pylons. Today nearly all of the colour is missing from the pylons, and much of the carved hieroglyphics are missing because of erosion and vandalism. Successive kings who wished to add their part, would often fund a plaza, or another pylon entrance. This created several entrances, separated 

 by gorgeous plazas filled with incredible columns and statues, sometimes additional small temples. As we walked through these entrances toward the back, we reached the older portions of the temple. The small room (when I say small, I mean in comparison to the huge complex) at the very back, Hossam called it the Holy of Holies, was the most precious sacred site. This was the oldest part of the temple in every temple, and only the high priest and the king were allowed into it, or to see into it. Only priests and the king were allowed into the front plazas. Common people were never allowed into any part of the temple, but they did worship and celebrate right in front of the temple.

We stood in front of pylons with Hossam as he explained how we could tell what gods were being honored. The kings, queens, and gods are stylized on every temple. What differentiates between them are the additional symbols. Of course a cartouche with the figure’s name will be present, but if you can’t read hieroglyphics, you can pick out the symbols. The type of crown worn will identify the figure in nearly every case. The size of the figure will identify who is being honored more. A king may be larger than life, with his powerful queen standing only as tall as his knee.

The scenes on the walls are all very important – nothing was thrown up there for entertainment value. The scenes can tell stories of history – how the kings are related to gods, for example, or how a god was born. They will explain what happens in the afterlife, or what role a leader played during a time of war. What Hossam pointed out to us most often was how the hieroglyphics were a testament to the greatness of some king. Maybe that was a common theme, or maybe that’s what Hossam focused on, but these scenes were constantly surrounding us.

Ancient Egyptians believed that they could earn a better place in the after life, and so they spent a crazy amount of time having their great deeds and offerings and qualities explained all over the walls of the temples. They believed that the better job they did of explaining how great they were to their gods, the better chance they had of being important in the after life, rather than just another character. The goal was to be granted god status in the after life. The larger the figures representing the kings and gods, the more awesome they apparently were. The longer the lists of sacrifices, the more apparent it is that they served their gods well, and thus deserved favor. Lists of what they dedicated to their gods would cover an entire wall: 100 cattle, 240 pheasants, 5 piles of gold, 5 piles of silver, 80 bottles of fragrant oil, etc. Seriously! Big long lists on the walls, next to a picture of the king himself, holding some of the stuff he dedicated to the god. Sometimes the king would be pictured holding a scroll of papyrus in one hand. One can assume that the scroll contains a list of more good deeds of the king, or perhaps descriptions of the greatness of whatever god the king is trying to impress.

At Horus’ temple I learned the meaning of what I had fondly come to think of as “the dancing king.” While just about everyone else on the walls posed standing erect with their left foot forward, signifying action, leadership, and strength, one of the classic poses was instead a king balanced on one foot with his other foot lifted behind him in almost an arabesque.  His arms were spread wide with one arm above his head. All that activity made me think he must be dancing. Hossam pointed out key elements of the design that I had missed: the arm held out in front of the king controlled a group of prisoners (carved small to show their insignificance), held up by their hair in the king’s fist. His raised arm held a stick for beating the prisoners. The scene shows that one aspect of his leadership is that he punishes people when they are bad. So…a little more violence than I was thinking.

The remainder of the day was arguably my favourite part of our journey, because there was no agenda, no shopping, and no guide telling us to be back at the bus in twenty minutes. Rather, we had hours upon hours of sun on the water. I stood

forever at the railing of the ship, watching the coastline pass. From the ship I got to see what I want most to see in another land: daily life. In the rural areas, there were people working in the fields, donkeys pulling loads on wooden carts, boys throwing stones, women balancing sacks of goods on their heads, and fishermen spreading nets.

When we passed towns I looked hungrily up the tourist-free streets at the markets and people as I imagine they function on any ordinary day. I’m amused at the busses, pickups and vans full, and spilling over with humans clinging to the vehicle with only fingertips and toes in their need for transportation. I saw truckloads of camels rumble past. Donkey-drawn carts are rather common in all the smaller cities and towns. Uniformed security personnel are everywhere: city police overlapped with regional and state police, overlapped with Egyptian military. They are all quiet, grim-faced, and holding automatic rifles at the ready. I never felt intimidated by the presence of security and guns. After a few examples of how they are quick to step in at a hint of trouble, they made me feel safe. I wonder if Americans playing this role could keep their mouths shut and hold still for so long while nothing bad was happening. I don’t think so;

and therefore, I don’t think we could pull this off in the United States.

The crops along the river were mainly sugar cane and bananas. Sometimes we saw large areas of a short plant growing in standing water, and we guessed it may be rice. Perhaps there were other crops we didn’t recognize. One curious thing is that we never spotted orange groves to explain the heaps of oranges for sale in many city streets. Another common commodity are carrots, but a carrot crop would be hard to spot from a ship. Carrots here are orange and red – red like beets. They are beautiful.

In towns everywhere we see obvious encroachment of apartments onto land that was previously crops. There is finite fertile land in Egypt – too bad there isn’t a law against building on crop land. In the short term, sure, I can see the appeal of developing or selling to a developer. But in the long run, it’s such a sickening waste of the dark soil to plant a row of brick cube towers.

The apartments everywhere look exactly the same to me. All the same construction. First, a concrete shell is erected. This will consist of supporting beams on the four corners of the building, and at strategic places throughout. There will also be a concrete staircase built into one wall. When the concrete sets, the building contains many open "windows." Workers then fill the windows in, one by one, with common red bricks. From the outside, one can see how workers struggled to get the topmost bricks into the window-hole.

They often resorted to cramming pieces of bricks at the top – likely remnants of re-sized bricks from elsewhere on the construction project. I don’t know anything about architecture, but the buildings seemed unsteady due to the sagging brick lines and the rubble at the top of each filled in brick section. But then… perhaps the concrete shell is the building's support, and the bricks are only for protection from the elements.

There does not appear to be a global economic meltdown affecting construction of apartments in Egypt. Apartment blocks are sprouting like some kind of concrete-and-brick weed. They tend to be six- to ten-stories high, have identical designs, and are placed side by side to maximize the use of the land for housing. At least half of the apartments we saw had concrete reinforcing rebar thrusting through the roof – as if awaiting the next floor’s construction. Hossam explained that some buildings are legitimately incomplete, but many are also intentionally left undone, because the taxes on a finished building are much higher than taxes on an unfinished building.

The shore of the Nile is beautiful, with forests of palm trees growing wild, acres of green green fields, and brown desert mountains soaring up behind it all. Any reasonably sized cluster of habitation would erect a mosque and minaret. This made for postcard images in almost every scene. The only down side was a significant one: the air remained thick with brown-yellow particles obscuring what could likely be astonishing long-distance panoramas.

We waited a long time at a bridge, until they opened it for us to pass through. Beyond the bridge were the Esna locks. I don’t recall having been through a lock before. This one is huge! We were the first ship of the day into it, and another cruise ship settled in behind us. They closed the lock and as the water level receded we sank quickly! Most of our time spent in Esna was waiting for them to get ready to accept us into the lock. Once we were in, the action happened and we were cruising north toward Cairo again in 15 minutes.

We were dropped on the shore south of Luxor where we boarded busses to Luxor Temple in the dark. Night visits offer a unique view of the temples bathed in lights, and also cut out the crowd of tourists. We were almost the only group there tonight. The city was quiet, the weather warm, and the entire visit was peaceful. We were allowed a generous amount of time to simply wander the grand and beautifully restored temple grounds.

At Luxor Temple I also got a better education about sphinxes. Yes, we had seen The Sphinx at Giza. Prior to my visit, I thought there was only one. In Luxor alone, we saw hundreds of sphinxes (the Greek word for a statue of a reclining animal with a human head). Luxor Temple contains the remains of an avenue of sphinxes with human heads. These apparently were rebuilt to replace the original avenue of sphinxes with ram heads built by Amenhotep III that stretched 3 kilometers - all the way to Karnak Temple, which we will be touring tomorrow.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Ug. No rest for the wicked, or even for the nice and pleasant. Wake up calls hit us all at 3:15am. We showered and showed up for breakfast at 4:00am, and were on the busses by 4:30am. We went back to the airport checked in, went through security, flew to Aswan – about 1½ hours south of Cairo, collected baggage and got on more busses. Tara and I are exhausted. I saw the Nile through the haze from the airplane. Exciting!

We went from the airport to see the High Dam at Aswan, which was built after the Old Dam (construction between 1898-1902 by British Engineers). The structure is apparently 17 times the size of the Great Pyramid. It is not that impressive to me, but perhaps that is because I live in the western United States. Compared to Grand Coulee or the Hoover Dam, this is not much to look at. The problem is: there is a very low slope of hand-placed bricks alternating with paths that running in parallel lanes down to water level. It belies the height, which must be more than it seems. There were the ubiquitous stray dogs sleeping all over the slope of the dam, for example.

As seems to be the case with every dam, people here were forced to move or die in the flood. Adding to the disruption of the High Dam in Aswan is that ancient ruins tracking the great history of the people of Egypt were also flooded. Emergency action with international help allowed some of the most valuable artifacts, temples, and tombs to be rescued. Sadly, a list of the most valuable was saved, and the rest were swallowed by the Nile, where they remain today.

After the dam we went to Philae temple of Isis. (Please see the image at the top) It is one temple that was rescued from flooding when the dam was built – taken from the low island it was on previously, and transferred to a nearby higher island. The best thing about going to see the temple, of course, is that it was by boat. We motored through the water of the Nile between the two dams. The air in Aswan is moister and clearer, and it was quite refreshing after the beige haze and smog of Cairo. I leaned over the side of the boat, but could not touch the water.

The boat ride was yet another opportunity to spend money. Some of my traveling companions love the regular shopping opportunities, but I am so tired of it. Can’t I ever be viewed as another human being, rather than a money-making opportunity? I really need to stop using group tours. Anyway, the boat operators were two men and two boys, sons, grandsons, nephews possibly. They had jewelry to sell, and we were a captive audience. They also had postcards and glossy magazines of Egyptian sights, as well as maps. I ignored them, and Tara longed for beads. Unfortunately she had spent all she had already on papyrus.

The temple itself is beautiful, and vies with my favourite stop so far. It’s hard to choose a fave of course, but the Philae temple boasts many many walls of hieroglyphics, and a fascinating combination of Egyptian and Roman work. For example, the columns in the long colonnade are covered in hieroglyphics and feature papyrus leaves or busts of Isis at the top instead of the more familiar Doric or Corinthian styles.

The temple is in pretty good shape, considering it bore years of flooding between the construction of the Old Dam and the High Dam, and then was deconstructed and rebuilt on another island. I was particularly impressed with how well the hieroglyphics remained in sharp detail to today, after thousands of years. This is a rare temple in its history of use because, while all the other Egyptian temples were

eventually closed when Christianity moved in, this one stayed active the longest because the Nubian leader was very tied to the local area, the local gods, and to the people of the area. Finally, the leader converted to Christianity along with most of the rest of Egypt, and he closed Philae. However, he reopened it soon after with a dedication ceremony, converting it into a church. At the entrances to doorways, there are small Maltese crosses carved over the top of the Egyptian work to indicate that it served a new function. One doorway carries a long Greek inscription by some dignitary, stating that it gives him great pleasure to dedicate the new church.

I could have taken a hundred photos there – the scenes and hieroglyphics on the walls and the columns were so captivating to me. The colour of the temple is beautiful in itself – a peach/coral colour. There were actual green things growing there on the island – and flowers blooming that were not buried in dust. The air tasted so much better, and the morning sun beat down hotter as the day progressed… I could have happily stayed there all day, poking around corners and climbing over things. But alas, after only a few free minutes, we had to clamber back into the little boats with jewelry for sale.

On the trip back from Philae, Tara negotiated a loan from a fellow passenger on the boat and bought a necklace of green stones. She was able to pay it back once we returned to our rooms. We could not recall what kind of stone she was wearing, so after some discussion, we named the stones Nubian Jade, after the Nubians of Upper Egypt.

Unfortunately, a good idea went wrong when I decided for fun to bring the gold U.S. $1 coins. I was expecting to find people begging for money in Egypt, and I thought the coins would be more interesting and fun to give out. However, the locals refuse them. Apparently, they have never seen the Sacagawea or James Polk. I showed them where it says U.S. $1, but no dice. They actually give them BACK to me, wagging their fingers and shaking their heads in a stern “no” as if implying that my behavior was distasteful.

I couldn’t even give the coins away as gifts. I wish I could understand their perception of our roles a bit better. Local panhandlers are completely comfortable asking me to cough up money for no good reason, but generously return anything they won’t be able to buy dinner with, even when they see it would make no difference to me if they kept it. Even when I ask them to please take it. Odd.

I wish they would take a gift. I hate the division of give and take here. I wish I could explain to them that in my country I am not rich, and that I understand poverty and don’t view myself so removed from their status. I wish they could be normal people around me and act like they have more respect for themselves. I wish they didn’t push at me yelling “Yes, please!” “Hey! Hey!” “One dolla!” Shoving beautiful things in my face, and very clever carvings, beads, and boxes. I may even want to buy some of them – I probably would – except that their manner disturbs me, and I know that a mere glance of interest at some of those sparkly things would set them at me in a piranha frenzy.

The men we meet (you hardly see women) have really been after Tara, perhaps out of genuine interest in a young, beautiful, fair-haired girl, but they turn it into marketing somehow. As soon as they spot us, they swoon and gush, “Oh my god!” They drop what they’re doing and follow us. “Hello pretty girl!” the countless dark boys say. “Beautiful daughter,” or “beautiful sisters,” to us both. “How many camels?” they keep asking. Tara and I have decided it is a joke to suggest they want to buy her, thus meaning it as a compliment to her beauty and to me, her mother. By complimenting us they might hope to make a sale. It doesn’t work in their favor though, only makes us more uncomfortable. “Smile sister,” they say to her when she becomes focused on getting through the press of salesmen, lowers her eyes, and presses her lips tight in determination.

Our next stop was the unfinished obelisk, which took me ages to understand, even on site. Foremost, I did not know what an obelisk was, and kept asking, but no one could explain except Hossam, who said it’s like a pyramid. We got to a place in Aswan where for the price of a ticket we could see the unfinished obelisk. Hossam explained it from the bottom, and

pointed out one crisp, horizontal line of carved granite that we could easily see, and stated that there it was. I confess, I remained confounded. It was a giant bowl of granite shaped in hundreds of different places and different directions. I still couldn’t imagine what I was looking for. We were given another 20 minutes at the site to do what we wanted to do. I saw that a path went up onto the back of the hill of granite and down the other side. Other tourists were climbing up, and I thought Tara and I could both use the exercise since we were both nodding on the bus. I asked her to come along, partially to rescue her from an older woman who wanted to tell her stories about how she chewed her fingernails as a girl. We went up, up, up, for no other reason than to climb and kill time till the bus would go.

Some people had scaled a boulder, so I did as well. Aha! Finally I could see that the giant bowl was merely a quarry, and not part of what I was supposed to be looking for. At the very, very, tippie top, one can look down onto that straight line of carved granite and see exactly what an obelisk is. The Washington monument is an obelisk. Below me in the hillside, lying on its side, was a mostly carved rectangular tower with a top sharpened to a pyramid point. The story has it that a flaw was discovered in this piece of granite, and work was stopped. If it had been completed, it would apparently have been the largest obelisk in the world. Really? I don’t know. It seems like everything in Egypt is the biggest and best ever.

We were all running on fumes at this point. The luckiest of us had 5 hours of sleep (that would be Tara and I, who were so tired we skipped dinner last night), and some folks only had a couple of hours. We tried to cram down a breakfast at 4 o’clock in the morning, then weren’t allowed to stop till 1:00pm, when we FINALLY were taken

to our boat. The cruise ships are so tightly packed on the shores of the Nile in Aswan that we had to walk through two other boats to reach ours. It’s a good idea, actually, and we were able to see the interior of several cruise ships in addition to our own. (Most of them were much nicer, but I’m sure we had just as much fun!)

Tara and I took a very long break in our room after lunch. She worked on Math for nearly two hours, and I journaled. Then we went up on deck to enjoy the warm air and the sunset. I am surprised to see what a small strip of green exists along the banks of the river. I thought I would see wide swaths of life fed by the waters, but this only happens with extensive shore irrigation. At all times we had a good view of the dry desert sands. I do love to see mountains here. Again, I’m from the Western United States and I need elevation to feel my position on Earth – to get my bearing. I am more comfortable when I can spot land above the trees and buildings, and there are some impressive elevation changes south of Cairo. Very beautiful. We both noticed the large areas of oil spread across the water, and were sickened by it. I felt responsible for contributing to the river pollution.

There had been a scheduled “tea time” for all passengers. We skipped it. There is a tour tonight of Kom Ombo temple, when the ship stops. Though it breaks my heart, we will skip that one too. Tara doesn’t want to go, and I can’t push myself any farther. Dinner is at 8pm, and involves dressing up in our fancy Egyptian dresses that we bought at the market. AFTER dinner, at 9pm, we have a guest belly dancer with Egyptian music. But seriously? I just don’t have the stamina for this kind of itinerary. After being awake for 18 hours, including a flight, two tours, and moving onto a boat, they plan a fancy dinner with entertainment beginning at 9pm? Ugh.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Woke to the calls to prayer this morning. It began around 5 am and continued off and on till almost 6 am. The buffet breakfast was fair, and the Oasis provided tolerable coffee. The downside to being a coffee snob such as myself is that traveling presents a coffee challenge. I resign myself to suffering inadequate coffee or no coffee in any populated area other than my home. It was appropriate that I began the journey reading Mahmoud Darwish’s Memory For Forgetfulness – Beirut, August 1982. Darwish dedicates much of the first 22 pages to his love affair with coffee. His aching desire for the first cup of coffee so powerful it rises above the reality of a morning destroyed by Israeli bombing from the sea off Beirut. His deep, soulful connection to life with coffee endures simultaneously with the terror of death by explosion. I can’t know what it’s like, though I can understand that kind of relationship with coffee.

Hossam cautioned us with many admonishments of what not to eat, and I find myself wavering between hesitantly unsure and devil-may-care. We can’t drink the water. We can’t eat any fresh vegetables or fresh fruit because the water is so bad. We can’t eat dairy products. Is this list designed to protect frail, elderly, disabled people? Is it to protect Gate 1 from angry sick people? Is Egypt truly that poisonous? Finally I decided that though I would acquiesce to bottled water, the rest of the food rules were too restrictive, and I would just eat whatever they served. How bad could it be – honestly?

Our day, our week, in Egypt began with a pow! at the pyramids of Giza. Very very cool. I wasn’t expecting more than big, crumbling pyramids in the desert, and that’s what it was. Some people expressed disappointment because they weren’t big enough (seriously I think some people can never be happy), but I think crumbling pyramids in the desert are AWESOME. The most interesting thing about the pyramids to me is how we are able to spot them from many places in the city. I recall this from Athens as well, when I could spot the Parthenon somehow only mildly conspicuous above the city. Here, between rows of apartments, are pyramids – THE pyramids; one of the seven wonders of the ancient world – soaring up and ignored in the background.

Our first stop was at King Cheops’ (or Kufu) Great Pyramid itself, built around 2500 BC. There are dozens of pyramids in Egypt. Today we saw the pyramids of Giza. We climbed up the side a little bit, where a path was clearly worn from millions before us. Then we moved on. We bought two extra tickets for things that were not part of our tour: camel rides and an opportunity to go inside a pyramid. Our pyramid tour went down, down, down a long narrow tunnel and then up, up, up a long narrow tunnel, and came out into a small room with a vaulted ceiling. It was a plain, dark, rectangular room with an empty sarcophagus at one end.

We discarded our misconception that pyramids were built by slaves. None of the pyramids were built by slaves or foreigners, but mainly by unemployed farmers, who needed a livelihood during the seasonal Nile flooding.

Of course we rode the camels! We handed our pounds over to Hossam, who negotiated a good price. Soon we were coached onto the large beasts. You climb on the same as a horse, then lean way back as he gets onto his hind legs first, and lean forward as he stands all the way up.

The men handling the camels are a motley crew: sun-darkened skin and shining eyes; many dressed in gallabiyas and turbans to ward off the sun. Many dressed in jeans and sweaters and hats. They were multicolored, multilingual; impressive in their ability to bounce from French to German to Japanese to English…as they attempted to determine from what country their customers hailed. They helped us onto the towering camels with ease and humor, then tied the camels one to another and led us out into the desert. Tara was up on her camel well before I was, and she seemed to have a fun time watching the rest of us climb.

We were treated to about a 10-15 minute ride that brought us a little bit closer to the pyramids. My gentle guide took my photo for me many times, then pleaded “I take care of you, you take care of me” through our trip back. As was often the case throughout the rest of my trip, I had left my money elsewhere, and was not prepared to hand out baksheesh, or tips.

As long as we’re on this topic, I will say a bit about how completely unprepared I was for managing money in Egypt. No one in Egypt will make change for you. They’ll change a 100 pound note (Egyptian pound = EGP) into 50s. If you find a particularly generous soul in the practice of handing out their own favors and not obsessed with milking you for yours, you can get 20s for your 100. But the only way to get smaller than a 20 pound note is by determined strategy. “Who cares?” you might ask. Ah, well, therein lies the rub. An American tourist needs small bits of money for multitudinous reasons in Egypt.

People mill about simply waiting for an opportunity to do something for you and demand baksheesh for their service. Someone will point to the way to what you are seeking, then hold out a hand. Stand at the doorway of the bathroom, and request payment before you pee. Hold out a steadying hand as you step off the curb, and ask for a tip. Open a door; pull out a sheet of paper towel on your behalf; lead you to a good place to take a photo; offer to pose with you for a photo; answer a question; it’s all a reason to hand over baksheesh. If you don’t, you get a pitiful look that will guilt you into tipping the next time. This look says to you something like, “My family will starve today because of your selfishness, but how could you understand, rich American?” I could have managed it more gracefully if I had a steady supply of change to help feed the hands. But I frequently received a bitter scowl – even wagging fingers as though the mere request was a faux pas! – and a good scolding: “No change! No change!”

The bus dropped us next at the Sphinx. Yes, the Great Sphinx, I could hardly believe it, and Tara was very excited. We snapped some awesome photos but could not go close enough to touch.

Back on the busses to reach a papyrus workshop and tour. I hadn’t even considered purchasing papyrus, but apparently it’s one of the key souvenirs from Egypt. We saw a demonstration of how it’s made, and then wandered the showroom of course, and ended up purchasing an image of Bastet, the cat goddess, and an historical Egyptian calendar.

After eating barbecued chicken at a local restaurant, we went to the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities where we were forced to zoom from display to display, shouldering our way through hoards of people. The museum collection is huge and every piece is remarkable, so our guided tried to get us to the really big sights rather quickly. He turned us loose to look for whatever we wished, so Tara and I quit the place. We found a bathroom – paid a dollar (5½ Egyptian pounds) since we didn’t have anything smaller – and then moseyed outside to catch a few last rays of sunshine and to get away from the people. Before long, members of our group began to cluster around us. When our bus arrived we were tired and most of us wanted to go home.

We went instead to the market, arriving around 5:15pm, and given an hour to shop. Tara and I had an agenda of sorts, so that made it a little easier to stay awake. We both wanted gallabiyas (traditional robes) to wear for dinner tomorrow night. Tara wanted to get several gifts for her friends in Egypt, so she bought a handful of scarabs and a sparkly keychain. 

It was a very crowded market with shops crammed in and around and on top of each other, and we were given a safety speech before released from the bus. Hossam gives us so many words of caution that I am never sure when to feel safe. Is he pandering to the majority of the American public’s need to feel frightened of everything? At home I ignore the official safety warnings from food to purchases to companies to travel, etc. etc. In my opinion (here’s my conspiracy theory), all that caution to excess is a system by which our government and our religions hold us hostage. A bunch of mouton (French for sheep, but in slang it means a bunch of people doing whatever everyone else is doing. The English equivalent to “lemmings”) unable to be independently resourceful. I think CEOs and Senators and Popes prefer us this way because we’re easier to control.

So with this opinion firmly carved into my mind, I can’t decide whether to take Hossam seriously. It doesn’t really make sense that Egypt has danger lurking every 5 steps…it can’t possibly be that dangerous, or there wouldn’t be swarms of mouton out here. Hossam seems extremely comfortable at every stop and with everyone he comes across. Tara and I were thrown for a loop due to our inept bargaining savvy, and to the superior salesmanship of our Egyptian vendor… but in the end we had our gallabiyas.

Wednesday, January 13th

Well, we made it to Wednesday somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean I assume. Or perhaps even over the Mediterranean. We sort of made a global beeline from JFK to CAI; passed by the rock of Gibraltar and over Cicely, looped around the Nile Delta and landed on the East side of the river.

I drugged myself with a sleeping pill to try and actually sleep on the plane. I have a very hard time sleeping on moving vehicles of any kind. And any noise or light can keep me awake. I did manage to fall asleep, although I’m certain there was no point at which I stopped hearing babies crying. I felt SO fortunate that Tara and I shared two seats between the window and the aisle. No one sat next to us. The rows were roomier than I remember experiencing with Lufthansa. I could actually stretch my legs out and my knees did not touch the seat in front of me. The food was pretty bad, but then, it reminded me of airplane food back when they used to always serve it on long flights.

Tara was not able to sleep, and instead entertained herself all night long with English subtitled Egyptian comedy and Arabic subtitled movies like Ice Age III. They cranked on the lights and suddenly started making a lot of noise a couple of hours before landing. I had decided not to ask for breakfast, but got a plate dropped in front of me anyway. I ate it to help me wake up.

The rest of the day we continued the battle to stay awake. Landing was smooth, and everyone clapped. Interesting. Egypt from the windows of the plane looked like a million square miles of flat yellow sand. (I would soon find out that my first impression of Egypt was accurate!) Customs was pretty easy except that I’m unfamiliar with the process and didn’t realize I needed to stop to buy visas first. But every line was short and simple and we went through without any trouble. Baggage claim took a very long time; it was about 45 minutes before our bags came through. The Gate 1 airport representative, Sami, found us before we had our bags and then we were all ushered to the busses and had a 45 minute ride to the hotel.

Our guide for the remainder of the trip, Hossam, did the guide thing with a microphone in the front of the bus, and Tara and I tried to see as much as we could see from the windows. Our driver, Mohammed, deftly whisked us through the outskirts of Cairo to miss the main city traffic, and many of us gasped in disbelief to spot the great pyramid rising beyond apartment high-rises. Hossam continued to talk about our upcoming itinerary as three Giza pyramids drifted by outside the large bus windows. Blah blah, pyramids, blah blah. Amazing sights are not amazing when you live with them.

Egypt is dust and sand and flat. Except for the pyramids. No wonder the ancient pharaohs wanted to build something monumental; everything else is flat. We drank in the sights though, of palm trees and acres upon acres of identical brick apartments. I hungrily scanned the horizon to see every minaret I could see. I love them. There is some kind of pollution/haze/dust in the sky, so we must look at it all through a yellow film.

We pulled into our hotel outside the main city in a quiet area, which I appreciate. It should help for sleeping. We gathered in the hotel lobby and were served an orange drink that tasted like Tang to me. Tara loved it, and searched it out at every stop from then on. We were handed our keys and sent to our  rooms to unpack and take a moment to adjust to our surroundings. The Oasis Hotel is much like an American hotel, so of course, I am disappointed. It’s tasteful and clean and the rooms are large like American hotel rooms. Tara was an extremely dedicated kid and worked on her math homework for about an hour while we waited for meeting time to make plans for tomorrow. Tara then insisted on writing in her journal, and despite my fatigue, I wrote while she did, to keep her company.

It was wonderfully warm. When I was done writing, I went for a walk around the grounds to enjoy the remaining rays of sunlight. Everything is paved in stone or filled with lawn. It’s an apparently successful endeavor to keep the sand and dust at bay. I walked barefoot through small clusters of hotel rooms set up like a tiny pristine village beneath soaring palms. It’s remarkably clean considering the dry desert environment. How much cleaning must be required after a brisk wind! The palm trees have white bark, which I have not seen before. It’s very lovely here, though still uncomfortable for me, since I am used to common, blue-collar living. I truly, truly would prefer a tiny dark room at the back of someone’s apartment to this posh environment, removed from everyday life in Cairo.

At the pre-determined time we gathered in a group in the hotel lobby while Hossam talked with each of us and checked our plans against his lists. I had hoped to be able to individually purchase the optional side excursions, depending on how much I wanted to spend and how we felt at the time. However, the system on this trip was apparently to make all our decisions on day 1, in a sleep-deprived haze. On the bus ride here, Hossam had explained his estimation of the various optional trips, and managed to talk us out of the pyramid and temple light shows that would be offered. I couldn’t choose a temple or a tour to leave out beyond that, and decided to purchase everything else for both Tara and I, in hopes that we could afford it once I got back home and worked out the finances.

Once we were released, I wanted to go directly to sleep, but Tara was hungry. We ate a simple dinner at the hotel's Italian restaurant (ha!), with some of our traveling companions. Then we crawled into our comfortable beds.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

We half slept in and half got up early. Sort of a compromise, designed to get the most out of our day without beginning the trip with too much of a sleep deficit. I made a spur of the moment decision which at first seemed rash, but seems more reasonable the more I think about it (don’tcha just love rationalization?). In any case, I shelled out $140 for a round trip taxi ride for the two of us from the hotel to downtown Manhattan, then the guy came and picked us up again when we were done and took us to the hotel to get our bags, then directly to the Egypt Air check-in. Expensive cab ride, but it was worth it because it bought us another hour at least in the city (probably two hours), without any stress about using the subway, or catching the right hotel shuttle to the airport.

We arrived in Manhattan around 10:15am, and climbed back into the cab at almost 2pm. It was a very short visit. So we were pleased to have been able to do everything we managed to do!!

Tara had it in her mind that she must visit a comic book shop in New York City. Don’t ask me where that came from. Our first stop was at an address I found online, but it turned out to be a location that was no longer selling comics, and is now more like a hotel lobby. Luckily, the man at the desk knew the comic book shop had closed long ago, and we were able to move right on to the next stop.

We began walking in a direction that I recalled would lead us to another comic store, but stumbled onto Times Square. Wow! What an excess of neon advertisement. It’s a tremendous section of the city – with action and colour and the sheer dimension of everything enough to pop our mouths open. We saw the great ball above a tower proclaiming 2010. I didn’t expect to see the ball – assuming it was removed each year on January 2. There was still multicolored confetti from the New Year’s celebration all over the streets and blowing in the wind.

First we stepped into a Toys R Us store, just because it looked amazing from the street. After getting our photos taken the moment we stepped in (just like at a theme park!), we saw a Ferris wheel inside the building. That gives you some sense of how large it is; four stories that dropped below street level. It’s divided into themed sections like Disney, Legoland, Barbieland, and Candyland. We rode the escalators and breezed through the store that exploded with lights and bright colours enough to be worthy of its prime location in Times Square.

Next on our list was the library that Gramilda had recom-mended, though I must admit we looked for it only because she said so, and not because either of us had any inclination whatsoever to visit a library. We went there via Bryant Park, which afforded our first good view of the Empire State Building. Tara fed dried fruit to the birds in the park, and then we watched people skating for a while on the temporary rink set up in front of the library.

The New York City public library is a stop not to be missed by anyone in the city. I am SO grateful we have a learned, traveled grandmother. We came in by a side door and thus happened accidentally upon the stunning foyer at the front entrance by approaching it from a second floor balcony. Marble floors, marble walls, staircases, arches, ceilings, columns, and even marble benches inside. It all glistened from polishing, and glowed pale caramel and cream. Chandeliers cast fiery sparks onto everything. We walked down the long marble staircase on one side of the room, crossed the foyer and then walked up the long marble staircase on the other side of the room. All the while our heads were tipped dangerously backward and we walked in waving arcs as we tried to see everything from every perspective (and not fall down while we were at it!).

The library is huge, with many staircases and corridors, so we drifted and gaped and continued to rise in elevation until we happened upon the crowning sight of them all: the McGraw Rotunda. A midsize room with 25 foot ceilings covered on all sides with handcrafted wood trimming, handpainted decorative borders, and then huge murals depicting the evolution of the printed word – beginning with Moses’ stone tablets. Tara and I were in awe. We were forced to sit and stare in silence for a long time, in order to absorb it. The intricate detail surrounding us is difficult to do justice to with words. Rather, I insist that if you are ever in Manhattan, do not do not do not miss the library.

Off we skipped back into the street and began looking for Rockefeller Plaza and New York’s 9^th tallest building – the GE building. We were distracted by stumbling upon Grand Central Station. Wow. What a city. It’s like Athens, almost, in that a person carelessly walking along busy impersonal streets repeatedly comes face to face with a landmark from history. And like Athens, there was often no one other than me standing there gasping “look at that!” Of course we went inside, to say that we had.

I knew it was another public place that would have no queues and no fee to explore. We were unimpressed, and would have done better to discover the train station prior to the library. To be honest, Union Station in Washington, D.C. is much more of a show-stopper. But this one certainly was worth looking at. I especially liked the blue ceiling with gold zodiac designs painted on the ceiling amongst sprays of gold stars, as well as the traditional United States-themed carvings adorning the arch of every window.

We exited at the back of Grand Central Station in hopes of discovering either one of the two comic book shops that were supposedly located nearby, to no avail. We walked several blocks north without comic luck, then doubled back to renew our search for Rockefeller Plaza. Facing the back of Grand Central, we saw the glorious American Radiator Building with its stunning gilded crown. Completely understated was Saks on 5^th Avenue. Was it the back door or something? Tame window dressings and two quiet entrances greeted us. I took a photo for my mother, who would have wanted to walk inside. I am the antithesis of an American Shopper, however, and really could care less about the place.

What we found at 630 5^th Avenue was not what we were expecting to see: a rather ordinary tall building from sidewalk level. This was perhaps because we approached it only from 5^th avenue and never actually saw 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Though I knew there was a plaza with a skating rink that was large enough to accommodate a gigantic Christmas tree…I had no idea where to find that plaza, and we were still scurrying to find a comic book shop and see the other high points on our list. The Atlas sculpture

on 5^th Ave was exciting to see, because we recognized it, and though the street front was nothing worth blogging about, the building profile was also exciting to see, for the same reason – that we recognized it from the show “30 Rock” that we like to watch. We were blessed with stellar blue skies so that the sunlight lit the skyscrapers up till they glowed above us.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral across the street was phenomenal. Simply stunning. I love that its timeless beauty has been preserved amidst such glass-and-steel modern buildings that pack the blocks in that part of the city. Its design would fit comfortably among the cathedrals I saw in France. Prior to the trip, I had wanted to enter the cathedral, but by the time we arrived at it, we did not feel we had the time available to go inside. Though it was shadowed by tall buildings, the front of St. Patrick’s is a brilliant sight, which had to be enough for the time being.

We had one final address written down and we sought it out. I was a fool to wear attractive black leather boots that day. I wanted to avoid looking like my redneck roots just for one day in the city. I paid for it with blisters. Ugh – fashion bites. Tara was beside herself to find a comic book shop, and cranky with hunger and fatigue. So I walked on, resting only when I could no longer bear it. We passed Bryant Park again, turned a few corners, referenced our map, walked some more, and finally finally there it was!! Midtown Comics was the store to satisfy our great need. I sat on the floor while Tara perused the Teen Titans section.

Final stop: Hard Rock Café, another must on Tara's list. We called our taxi driver to come find us and then went back to the center of Times Square to grab a burger and fries. Seated in the Hard Rock Times Square, Tara was glowing with happiness, and I considered the day a success. Four hours later we were settling into our seats on Egypt Air, on our way to the other side of the planet.

Trivia: I learned that this photo is of the GE building under contruction.

Monday, January 11, 2010

 Alright! Let’s get this party started, y’all!

T and I made it to New York without any significant hitches. We also cut 8 hours from our total hours flying… so that’s pretty cool. Our layover here is 23 hours, so we decided to check into a hotel tonight and use our precious morning hours to explore the city tomorrow.

Our plane landed early (7pm E – 4pm Pacific), and we were able to comfortably check into our hotel, rummage through our bags a bit, and then go have a sit-down meal. Neither of us was very hungry after our long day of sitting on planes. Tara consumed about 5 cans of ginger ale today, two large poppy seed muffins, most of a bag of caramel and chocolate-covered popcorn (thanks Heather!), and almond clusters. I drank mostly coffee, but also drank a lot of water, because I have decided I need to get healthy again. Yes!

There is snow on the ground here, and it definitely feels like the 30 degrees NWS says it is. Forecast for tomorrow is 35 degrees with a 20% chance of snow. That will be fun! Mom gave us a great idea. We both brought bulky warm clothes with which to comfortably endure a day of being outside on the streets of NYC. The warm stuff we brought is all clothes we do not want to keep. When we’re done with our day… the clothes will get left behind.

Transportation and point to point exchanges scare me. Once I’m on the train, or the plane, or in the taxi, I am completely relaxed. However, that transition section is so frightening to me. Mostly because I’m from the sticks and really prefer my feet to get me where I need to go. Today though, we went from the JFK airport to baggage claim, to the airport lightrail, to the shuttle pickup spot, to the hotel with ease. I have decided the rest of our trip will be just as easy. I like it this way.

During dinner, I noticed behind the bar, only one single item of decoration, tucked amidst the bottles. A bust of King Tutankhamen. Now, if that isn’t an omen that we are where we should be, then I don’t know what is.

 

Every New Year, Alcoholics Anonymous has a big damn party.

This year the 13^th Western Area Conference of Young People in Alcoholics Anonymous (WACYPAA) was in Eugene, only two hours from home. Mark invited me because it’s an event open to everyone, including non-alcoholics like me, and this way I can share a bit of his life. Mark prefers men’s meetings, so yes, I am often excluded from whatever he’s doing in AA.

I should have guessed – it was a WILD party! (granted, wild for me, a girl who has never had to see true wildness the way many addicts have) There were at least two thousand young, prior addicts and drinkers there for four days, round-the-clock. The average age had to be about 22 years or so, and these kids were on a high they probably never guessed was possible without mild-altering substances.

I keep assuming that a non-drinker is a mellow person. NO. I should think of it as that people on the edge are often prone to drinking or using. Take away the booze, and they’re still on the edge. The drugs don’t create the original pain.

There were sobriety meetings all day long, all night long. A new meeting every hour. Everyone we spoke to decided their goal was to stay awake the entire four days. Why? I guess because they were 17 years old, or 23 years old. Needless to say, the amount of coffee and Red Bull consumed in Eugene that weekend probably quadrupled. There were dances and raves, poker games, dominoes, and these awesome 5-foot-long nerf dart machine-guns that were going off into random crowds. There was a movie room, a TV for the sports fanatics. A piano was resting in a corner and random people would decide to sit down and play, and immediately be surrounded by a group of people who wanted to sing. Every 20 minutes, someone would shout “Wacky Wacky Wacky!” and hundreds would shout back “Paa! Paa! Paa!”

There were guest speakers that had the crowd laughing and crying. Every gathering had many speakers. As everyone knows, speakers stand up and say, “Hi, I’m Anna, and I’m an alcoholic,” and the entire room says, “Hi Anna!” At WACYPAA, there was an elaborate ritual that goes well beyond ‘Hi Anna,’ and includes arm movements and getting up out of your seat and a lot of shouting. A few people had those horn-in-a-can things that sound like a semi-truck horn inside a Hilton conference room.

I watched a skit presented by the East Bay group (North Cali) that had me bawling. Dude. Bawling my heart out. I felt a little less like a marshmallow when I saw all the tough guys in black leather with neck piercings bawling right next to me. There were no words. The actors danced out a story of a girl trying to get to AA from her horrible life. Ok, Ok, you artists, you win! Without words I could understand. Usually, I never understand what these people are talking about when they tell me their story. My insane, overriding urge is to say, “If you hate drinking, and the only thing you want in your life is to stop… then freaking STOP.” They tell me that’s what “civilians” always say. So I watched this skit and sort of got it, and got how hard it is, and how many times they have to start over and start over, and how it seems hopeless even when they are close, because it’s too hard to see the way out. Anyway, I’ll try to find a video of the skit for you and post the link later. But watching it on You Tube won’t even come close to sitting in a room with two thousand sober brothers, and sisters, all feeling the same thing. That kind of energy is important to the experience. I wish you could have been there.

Mark hawked his new "knuckleheads" sweatshirts. That's the name of his rowdy home AA group. I did the art for the back. There was a contingent of LA knuckleheads, and they all put in orders for sweatshirts as well. Mark is charging $4 extra per sweatshirt, so he can use the profits to buy more AA Big Books for the new guys.

There weren’t only young people there, of course. Mark and I were near forty, and we talked to several men there who were in their 60s and 70s. And kids about 12 or 13 who were trying to sober up because they lived a life of hell. Doesn’t that just break your heart to think about? Nearly everyone was in black, and was tattooed and pierced, and had streaks of blue or red hair hanging over their emo face. And there were lots and lots of beautiful girls and women, and homosexual and transgender members. There were mostly young men steeped in testosterone though. It filled my heart to see these men in honest, earnest, fellowship with every other human in the building.

Despite all that, I was keenly aware of being an outsider. Not because anyone treated me that way, of course, but because I couldn’t know or feel what they knew and felt. I was clearly an anthropologist in ethnography mode.

The weather was gorgeous for January, and by that I mean – warmer than 32 degrees. I asked around town and found out that there’s a bike path by the river that apparently took me directly to the University of Oregon campus, home of the Ducks. So I left Mark to attend more meetings, and I went on walkabout.

The bike path was nice to follow, and I was pretty damn happy until I had walked about two miles and spotted the “O” on the other side of the river! Arrrgghh! I cursed the woman who had given me directions. But it was a decent day and I prefer fresh air to being inside a hotel any day. Besides, I wanted to see the UofO stadium, and was hoping something would work out.

I’m glad I’m a glass half full person, because after another half a mile, there was a walking bridge across the river! I crossed the river, crossed through the trees, and viola! There was the stadium.

At Gillette Stadium, one can walk right up to the gates and see the whole place from the outside. Not so in Autzen Stadium. I saw one tiny rectangle of green that I assume was the football field. Ah well.

The next morning, Mark and I were up early (because we had not made a pact to stay awake for four days straight, and went to sleep instead). In the hotel lobby was indeed full of bleary-eyed, super-amped young people who were looking for fresh coffee. They greeted each other with “Get any sleep?” “Hell no!” It was funny. Weather was even warmer, so we went for a walk to kill time till restaurants opened. We found the “5 Market” lit up and beautiful and empty.

It was a great weekend.

 

...because I know exactly what I want, right?! 

I turn 40 January 9th. Forty. wow. It's a significant landmark, and I decided to do something amazing. So I'm taking my daughter to Egypt. It was my 4th choice of a destination, narrowed down by January weather and price tags. I think our choice will be excellent, though.

I'm taking the laptop and crossing my fingers for a wireless connection or two along the way, so I can update you ON SITE. How fun would that be?

I've been practicing my Arabic, got our immunization records together, renewed my passport (whew! It had almost expired, good thing I checked).

What will we learn? This wide world has so much to teach and I have a mere speck of time in this life to learn it and see it. I told my grandmother that it's frustrating sometimes because the planet is so large I'll never get to see it all.

My daughter is leaving North America for the first time, and I am dying to see the effect it has on her. She already has a much broader view of the world than I did when I was 12. She is an incredible human and I can't wait to see how she incorporates this experience into who she is.

We leave for NYC on the 11th. I'll keep you posted!

patience.

but then, I'm not even sure it was a gift. I'm actually afraid it's been a cop-out.

I am so tired of obstacles. Man, over and over in 2009 I feel like I'm just bopping along all innocent-like, and wham! Right in the kisser. You know? jeez.

So my tendency to react with fury, indignation, superiority, fear, defensiveness, etc. is weakening. I'm starting to think that I'll get blindsided periodically for the rest of my life, and that it's normal and natural and I need to learn how to relax and accept it with grace.

For what it's worth, in answer to the question, I've given my patience. Rather than add some mean & nasty energy to the planet, I've merely sighed and trudged on. I guess that's good. I mean, I guess it's better than being angry. Or fearful.

Or is it?

Friday night: open presents

Saturday morning: open stockings

Saturday late morning: start driving to California

Saturday evening: drop my pretty girl off at her dad's house to spend the holidays with him in Eureka.

I was exhausted by that time, but I still managed to find an adventure!

Christmas is a stressful time for me, because I do so much to get ready. This time we crammed our "Christmas" into a Friday night after work and a Saturday morning before an 8-hour drive. I was tired, cranky, and frazzled by the time my girlie was reunited with her other family, I wanted 1) quiet 2) dark 3) absolutely no people.

So rather than call up one of my girlfriends (sorry ladies!), I drove out to Clam Beach and found a spot for my tent. The first available parking spot was also an official camping spot. It was full of cars and RVs with a couple of generators running and lots of street lamps lighting the place up, and flourescent lights blaring from the windows of the whitewashed bathrooms in the center.

Uh, no.


Instead I found a place to pull off the road where the sign said clearly "DAY USE ONLY" and I hauled my gear over a couple of sand dunes (the kind where the beach grasses and blackberries and cool beach plants have completely taken over), and hid my camp in a little gully. I was totally surrounded by dunes, buried about 4 feet deep in brush. It was soft and almost completely dark (except for the beam from the airport slowly slashing through the fog over McKinleyville). I could hear the ocean roaring and an occasional vehicle on Highway 101. I'm such a lawbreaker!


At exactly 5:50am, a few raindrops on the rain flap woke me up, so I started packing up. As I did so, I was startled by dazzling flashes of light...and a little later, the rumble of a thunderstorm. When I used to work for NOAA there on Woodley Island, I learned that thunderstorms are somewhat rare on the North Coast. Partially because they are rare, but partially because meteorologists can't help themselves, the storm thrilled me and was an excellent start to my Sunday morning.


Just as I was slinging my backpack over my shoulders to head back to the car, the downpour began! I laughed. Mother Nature is so awesome. What excellent timing! I stayed almost perfectly dry by getting into my car at 6:15am. The rain POURED until about 10am. By that time, I was in Crescent City having a salmon omelette.

So when the sun finally came up, I moseyed off the path a little. Explored the Smith River, tooled through the Redwoods, watched the fog slowly lift off the ground into the sky, and then evaporate.

By the time I hit Grants Pass, it was a sunny blue-sky day. Funny.

The solitude did me so much good. Man I get sick of people. Yes, I'm an introvert, and you are all wonderful. You really are. I still need to get away though. I am truly myself when I am in nature, and can hear the air whistling over a crane's feathers as she soars over me, and I hear the spray of water droplets fall off a trout's back as he snaps a bite off the surface of a still pool in the river. My soul craves the smell of moss and decaying leaves; the sight of a frog leaping through a clearing; the sound of raindrops clinging to each and every tip of the fern-like sprays of redwood branches and then - letting go to create a whispering ceremony of percussion on the branches below.

My batteries are recharged.