Upper Egypt, Part One

Yesterday morning, we returned from our trip to Luxor, Aswan and Abu Simel. This section of Egypt is known as “Upper Egypt” even though it is Southern Egypt. As the Nile flows northward to the Mediterranean Sea, “upper” refers to “up the river.”

Our first stop was Luxor, via overnight train from Cairo. This, along with so many aspects of our trip, turned out to be a cultural experience. The overnight train consisted of cabins (Here with my roommate, Peggy):

And dinner: (Umm… not the best I’ve had.)

A beer I can not recommend:

And a club car:

(I didn’t hang around too long here, pricey drinks and too smoky.)

The porters then came around to pull out the beds:

Our tour guide, Selma, said that only tourists took this train. We weren’t sure if this was due to security or financial reasons. (With Egypt Air flying to Luxor and Aswan from Cairo, maybe the issue was time.) For the most part the train followed the Nile and/or one of the drainage canals parallel with it.

Normally I can sleep anywhere - planes, trains and automobiles. This ride was a bit rough; the train kept jerking and stopping.

Arrive at Luxor, we boarded our cruise ship. The ship, The MS Nile Odyssey, was part of a large fleet; very British in every way. There was tea time at 5pm, four course, sit-down dinner at 8pm. Lunch was a large buffet. As lovely as the food was, when it’s reaching 40C, I really didn’t feel like have stuffed duck, mashed potatoes and gravy for lunch. There were some salads, but with my recovering stomach, I really didn’t want to chance raw veggies.

With the sweltering heat, we toured the sites either very early in the morning, or late in the afternoon. Our first temple was Karnak.

With these ancient temples, you soon find how inadequate the English language can be in conveying size and scale. “Big” just doesn’t cut it. “Enormous” comes close, but still does not capture the height, as it is subjective.

We then went on to Luxor Temple:

This ancient Egyptian temple was buried under sand for over a thousand years. Where part of the temple was sticking out, the Egyptians built a mosque, which is still there and in use. (The tourist below are in the ancient section that was buried.)

On my way to Aswan

Tonight we're leaving Cairo (37 degrees C) for Luxor and Aswan (44 and 41 degrees C respectively). Since we'll be on a Nile cruise, my access to the internet may be very limited. We'll be back in Cairo on Sunday.

I have updated some of the late postings from Italy. To see them, click on the "Late Blog Post" link below this post.

Question time

All right guys, this weekend I'll have internet access. So before I head to Luxor for the week (with questionable access), I want to hear from you. A shout out. A comment. A question. Stop lurking. I've got a little less than three weeks left of this trip and I need some interactions from home.

To get the ball rolling I've thought of some lists:

Top Five things I miss from the States (other than family or my dog)

1. My washer and drier. (Seriously, this doing laundry in the sink is getting old, and the hotel porters stop and count every piece before they take it to be washed. Ask my roommate how she liked her underthings being counted in the hotel lobby. Oh yes.)
2. Free and ample toilet paper at public restrooms. 'Nuff said.
3. My bed and pillow.
4. Wireless 24/7. I'm so out of touch with the rest of the world, it's not funny.
5. Mexican food. (I have stopped talking about all food from America, because it just makes me crave it even more. Do not talk to me about cookies.)

Top Five Things I miss about Europe: (This one is tough.)

1. Cappucino for breakfast in Italy.
2. Wine with dinner, pretty much every night.
3. Chruch bells ringing. In almost every place we stayed there was some type of church bell. For some reason I really liked them.
4. Really long, unrushed dinners.
5. Their public transportation. (Ok the trains in Italy weren't all that great, but they worked.)

Top Five Things I will miss about Egypt:

1. Fresh Mango Juice. (I've never tasted any better.)
2. Pitas and hummus. We get it almost every meal, and I eat it up.
3. Our tour guide, Selma. She's so smart and knows so much about people.
4. Snorkling in the Red Sea. I'm still amazed at what I saw.
5. The Egyptians themselves. Once you get past the lurkers and vendors, Egyptian people are very friendly. They are so happy to meet someone from America.

Your turn now - add your comments!

I gotta go...

When touring around Egypt, we have noticed different levels of security. On the highways, there are various checkpoints; sometimes we have to show our passports, sometimes the tour guide just shows the travel permits for the group. On the tour bus we always have one security guard (who is armed), sometimes two, such as when we went to Sharm el Sheikh and some of us when on to Mount Sinai. When we went to the Great Pyramids we had a police escort.

With Egyptian traffic being as it is, it is often difficult to tell if we have an escort or not.

We were on the highway outside of Cairo, on our way to the Suez Canal, when I had to go. I passed the worded to the tour guide, who consulted the driver. “Five minutes,” he said. No problem. He started to speed up, and we noticed that a blue security truck cut in front of him. Another one came up on the side, and words were exchanged between their driver and ours. Next thing we know, there’s another truck behind us. The trucks were honking and passing each other, and all of us were speeding up. Five minutes passed and the trucks were still going around us.

We finally pulled over and there were no less than four security trucks.

There was a driver and a guard in the front of the truck, and then two to four armed guards in the back - with no AC. The security followed us from the last check point, because we were “VIP Americans.” Because there were so many trucks following us, our driver had a hard time pulling over, for me to go to the bathroom. I was a little embarrassed for all the commotion, so I tried to thank them the best I could- I bought them some water.

(Thanks for the photos, Ed!)

St. Katherine's Monastery

After the climb and desent of Mt. Sinai, we went back to the hotel, ate, showered and checked out of the hotel. We were now going to St. Katherine's Monastery, a Greek Orthodox Monastery which has been at this site since the 400's. The church has been there since Justinian's rule in the 500's. I've been teaching this World Art History I for years, and we looked at this extensively for the Byzantine Art Class. I was so excited.

Then two really sad things occured:

1) We were not allowed to take photos inside.

2) The Mosaics were covered with scaffolding and there was a POSTER of the mosaic hanging over it. (I think I just heard my Byzantine Art Class gasp.)

I'm glad the climb to Mount Sinai was successful, because this was a MAJOR bummer.

After St. Katherine's we were back on the bus for another three hours to Sharm El-Sheikh. That afternoon I stuck my toes in the Red Sea.

Tomorrow, snorkling.

First Day

Our first day was to get over jet lag and later meet with the Fulbright office. It was hot walking around, and the city itself is overwhelming. As much as I wanted to stop and take photos, I had two things working against me. 1) I was with the group, who wanted to keep at a certain pace. 2) You can’t really look around to gain your bearings, or just look at the sites when you have to navigate a Cairo sidewalk. The sidewalk itself is very uneven, prone to pot holes, gaps, missing bricks, piles of garbage, and drop offs. Look around too much, and you’re apt to trip, which has happened to several group members already. You don’t see baby carriages here like you do in Europe or the States.

Seeing everything in Arabic is the first shock, then there’s the traffic. Before I go further, I must define what goes into this word “traffic.” In the States this would be mostly cars and SUV’s; some semi-trucks and motorcycles with riders (mostly) wearing helmets. In Egypt, there are mostly small cars, and delivery trucks that would be the size of American pick-up trucks; plus a good number of mopeds carrying multiple passengers with no helmets. And donkey carts. Witness a young boy who tied up traffic in front of a bank as he was calling out to sell watermelons.

We took a cab to dinner, which turned out to be as much of an experience as any museum. There are lane markings on the road, which are really just suggestions. Our cab rode over the center line, creating the forth lane, when there were really lines for two lanes. (There was another car squeezed into the other side as well.) The clearance between the vehicles is often measured in inches, not feet. (I took this photo from the backseat of the cab, the thing on the lower right is the cab window.)

During the cab ride, there was a lot of sucking in one’s breath followed by “Oh My God!” as the cab weaved through cars and carts, upwards for 40 miles per hour. Most large intersections are policed with traffic officers, who stop the flow one way to allow the opposite traffic to pass.

We'll save riding the Metro for another day. Did I mention there's a "women only" car?

Trip to Egypt, A Visual Essay

(Note: Yes, I'm way behind, my apologies. Since I'm now in Egypt, I'm jumping over the time in Italy, basically to let me family know that I'm surviving. I will be going back to update the Europe part of the trip.)

A picture essay of my trip to Cairo.

Evidently, people are still using Telegrams in Italy.

There was a service where for 8 Euro ($12US) you could have your bag wrapped with green plastic wrap. I'm not sure why, the bags that looked like they were getting wrapped were not old or falling apart. Maybe to keep your bag clean?

I love that in Europe you see ads with movie stars who would never lower themselves to doing ads in the States.

Lunch at Heathrow. Ploughman's lunch with Pimms and lemonade. (I know my Mom and aunt are jealous.)

Little Shopping.

Finally on the plane.

This was one of the best lamb dishes I've ever had. (I'm sure after 5 weeks in Egypt, I'll have better lamb, but this was amazing for airplane food!)

On the back of the seat, there was your little TV screen, where you can watch different videos or tv shows, or check the electronic map to see how much farther to go.

In the Cairo Airport. (Ok, I didn't take too many photos, it was after midnight, there were a lot of armed guards, and I didn't want to piss anyone off.)

It was after 2 in the morning once we got though customs, found our tour bus and got to the hotel. Our room was 402. (On the 14th floor). The plaque on the doors had both the arabic symbols and numerals, so off we went. We found 401, 403, 404, 405, 406... etc. No 402. I felt like Harry Potter looking for a train station that didn't exist to muggles. We went back down to the reception. "We can't find 402." The porter looked at us like we were crazy. Back up we went, with him. He pointed at room 403, "There." "No, our number is 402." Thankfully our program director was there, "It says 402 in Arabic, even though the number is 403." Oh - of course.

No this is not a bad photo. It really is that yellow.

Here we go.

Lagging Behind

My flight to Egypt leaves this afternoon and my guys left this morning. The plan was for me to stay at the hotel until my flight this afternoon and use every ounce of thier free wireless internet to update the blog (since I'm behind by over a week!). Well, their last shuttle to the airport is at 10:30.

Well, ok, I'll work on it this morning until the shuttle. Then I met a wonderful man, Bill Sperling, who runs tours in Tuscany and the South of France. We had a very interesting discussion over cappucino this morning. This leaves me ten minutes to write this post.

I guess there must be a plan B.

Ciao!

So, Where are you from?

On our way to the Cinque Terre, there was a couple from Colorado Springs, visiting Italy for their 25th anniversary. While hanging out on the beach, I had an interesting conversation with a man and his family from Littleton, Colorado. (They had been to Pompeii, and we were discussing Roman Art.) Later we spotted a University of Colorado shirt in the train station. It was surprising to meet of so many people from Colorado.

As tourists, I always find it fun take group shots for others and often have them return the favor. At Cinque Terre, I just took a photo of a couple and asked where they were from.

“The Twin Cities”

“Oh no, if you tell me you’re Viking fans I may have to delete your photos.” I replied jokingly.

“No way! We’re Packer fans!”

What ensued were shrieks of laughter, introductions and discussions of Farve’s retirement. The wife was from Iron Mountain, not horrible far from where DH grew up in Upper Michigan. It was like meeting an old lost friend.

The next day, we meet another couple who were actually from Green Bay. He works in the Green Bay Police Department, and works the games at Lambeau Field. (They, too, were Packer Fans.)

To top off the stay, our last night as we headed up to our room, we meet another couple with map in hand. Since they spoke English, we asked if they needed help. Lo and behold, they were staying the same place we were. They asked were we from, we replied Denver, and you?

“The Twin Cities”

“I’m sorry, we can’t help you if your Viking fans.”

“What? Are you Bronoco fans? We’re Packer fans anyways.”

More laughter and discussion of the team. She was an elementary school art teacher, and she told us how she purposely uses green and gold for all her sample projects for the kids – which of course drives them crazy.

Three groups of Packer fans in less than three day.

You want me to go where?

(I will admit up front this entry is a bit on the crude side to illustrate some cultural differences. My apologizes.)

When you are in a foreign country, you start to realize how we Americans are accustomed to free, somewhat decent, restrooms. One you get over, here you have to hunt them out. At the train stations, expect to pay half a Euro (roughly 75 cents), to have an older woman wipe and spray stalls between patrons. (DH had to go in front of a female attendant in Avignon.) You learn when you pay to get into a museum or church, better use the facilities while you are there. I was shocked to see this in Florence’s Palazzo Medici (mind you, at one time this was the largest private house in all of Florence.)


This is known as a “Long Drop. See those two ribbed areas? That's where your feet go. I thought I would be dealing with this in Egypt, not Italy. This museum had a state of the art exhibit, where you literally point to a huge screen with the chapel’s frescos (your hand never touches the screen, cameras read your body to see what section you want), and it will explain it to you in the language of your choice. (DH loved it.) And you’re telling me that I have to squat, hover and balance to go?

Later the same day, we went to a café for an afternoon cappuccino and encountered this.

Bidet attachments in a café. That’s takes the idea of popping into the restroom to “freshen up” to a whole new level. (FYI - as Rick Steves’ says, a bidet is to clean the parts of your body that rub together when you walk.)

Ying or yang, all or nothing.

Florence

From Nice, our trains hugged the coastline, giving us spectacular views before plunging us into the darkness of the tunnels. We had three more train connections, one of which sat on the tracks for 30 minutes, so we did not catch the train to Florence from Pisa until 10pm (2200). It was the most surreal type of experience. We were the only people in the car, and when the train made its stops along the route, the engine stopped and you could literally hear crickets, it was so quiet.

Once we got into Florence, it took awhile to find our hotel – which was three floors up. Now when I was booking this room, I figured three floors, would be American floors, with 8 foot ceilings. Silly me. In Italy, the ceilings are often a good 10+ feet. One flight of stairs felt like 1 /2 flights in the US; there were seventy steps up to that room. Granted it was a lovely room, with private bath; quite large by European standards, but those steps seemed to go on forever – just like those train rides.

The morning greeted us with drizzly rain, which cleared up in the afternoon. I’m not sure exactly what it was, but Florence did not meet my expectations. You heard more English spoken on the streets by tourist, than Italian by the locals. The streets were dirty with potholes. The tour groups from the world overran the monuments. It just was not what I expected.

We did check out some of the sites. We went to the Palazzo de Medici, the Cathedral, Santa Maria Novella, Uffizzi Gallery and check out the Ponte Vechicco.

(To my students of the “Architects of the Italian Renaissance” class. Ok, I’ll fess up. DH and I were walking around in the evening and there was a palazzo. An important one done by some important architect, because I remember putting it on a review sheet for an exam. I just started at it, “Oh.. it’s that one… with the cross-thingy… in reaction to Alberi… crap…” I was standing in front of Palazzo Rucellai and I couldn’t ID the damn thing. Not one of the prouder moments of my life – I’m blaming the wine.)

A lovely couple from Spain took our photo on one of Florence’s bridges over the Arno River:

Maybe missing a day in Florence for some time in Nice wasn't a horrible thing.

Two Hours in Nice

What would you do with two hours in Nice? That’s about how much time we had between trains, so we decided to head to the water. (Most European train stations have huge lockers where you can stash your bags. The one at Nice was horribly expensive, 8 Euros – but what’s the other option?)


Yes, the French Riviera is an unbelievable shade of blue; colors you wouldn’t think would be found in nature.

Just looking at the water wasn’t enough for us; we had to get our feet wet. No, we were not wearing proper beach attire; DH rolled up his jeans and took off his shoes and socks. Unlike the beach in Holland, this one was mostly rocks, which was neither easy nor comfortable to walk on. The waves came crashing and our pants got wet, and we really didn’t care. We were in the French Riviera.

When we were walking along the beach in Holland, DH and I were talking about shells and rocks, and I had mentioned that I never really found any sea glass. The only place I ever found it was in a Nature Preserve in La Jolla, California, and no one is allowed to take anything from the park. Well, guess what I found here?

This trip has been just full of surprises.

Avignon

Here we are in Avaginon, in an Ibis Hotel (think Holiday Inn, with smaller beds.) So far things have gone well. Wish us luck for our train rides (!!!) tomorrow.

Detour

I’m currently riding in a TGV, going to Avignon; listening to the Talking Heads:

And you may find yourself in another part of the world,
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile,
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife.
And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”

With all my planning, there was one thing I neglected: making train reservations for the overnight train from Paris to Florence. (This is where all my friends from Europe gasp. Yes, I know, I should have done this weeks before. Yes, I guess I am crazy.) So like hopeful (and naïve) fans trying to get tickets to a concert that was sold out months ago, we head to the train station. The very kind man behind the counter did indeed try to get us on that train in any possible manner (first-class, second-class, cargo…). No luck. How about Milan? Ok, we would just continue on to Florence in the morning. Nope, that one’s full too.

We then started with the creative solutions. We could go to Frankfurt, and then down to Milan on the overnight train. No, our Euro-rail Pass doesn’t cover Germany. What about Switzerland? Nope, only the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Italy are covered with our pass. Maybe we could get into Turin…An hour of searching and nothing was coming up available.

Then came the desperate solutions. Well, let’s try for the south of France tonight, and then carry on to Florence in the morning. After more vigorous searching by the ticket agent, a solution slowly became to materialize.

June 12 (today)
Leave Arrive
Bruges 1234 Kortrijk 1312
Kortrijk 1322 Lille (Flanders Station) 1354
Lille (Europe Station) 1557 Avignon 2011

Hotel in Avignon, to be determined.

June 13 (tomorrow)
Avignon (743) Nice (1101)*
Nice (1339) Ventimiglia (1418)
Ventimiglia (1458) Genova (1706)
Genova (1748) Pisa (2012)
Pisa (2029) Florence (2133)
*We tried to get on a later train, but it was booked.

I was doing ok with the whole thing, trying not to get overwhelmed and keep the “glass is half-full” mentality. David is reading “Angels and Demons” and I bought along knitting (plus this blog) so it won’t be like we have nothing to do on the train. It’ll be a break from all the sightseeing.

Since we had time in Lille, I went to the information booth, for, well, information. (Out came the rusty French.)

“I need a hotel in Avignon. Can you help me?”

“Ahhhh….”

“Do you have a phone number for their tourist information?”

He types on the computer, “Here is their phone number.”

“Thank you. Is there an internet café here?”

“No.”

“Do you have wireless here?”

“No.”

Ok, stay positive. There was a big, beautiful mall right near the station; they must have to have an internet café. Oh no, they don’t. (But people are allowed to bring in their dogs who can crap anywhere they choose. That was odd.) So then I get a phone card, wrestle with the public phone, call the tourist information and got their *$%& voicemail – twice. Alright, let’s call the hotel in Florence so that they do not give out our room since we’ll be coming in so late. I asked a very kind French woman what the international dialing code was since it was no where to be found on that phone. (She looked too, so I know it was not just me being dense.) She went to the information office and got the number for me. (00 – remember that, you too may one day need to know that.) So I call the number I have for the hotel in Florence and explained the situation. Reservation – what reservation? Evidently two hotels worked together for their reservations, but have now decided to take separate reservations; and I was calling the wrong hotel. So he gave me the number to our hotel. It was their fax number.

And you may ask yourself, where does that highway go to?
And you may ask yourself, am I right or am I wrong?
And you may say to yourself, “My God, what have I done?”

And that’s when I started crying in the train station.

DH feels my pain, but is unfazed by this situation. He claims his favorite trip to Europe is when we went to England for two weeks without one hotel reservation. (We stayed at a friend’s house the first part and the very last part of our trip, but other than that, we flew by the seat of our pants. It drove me nuts.) He asked me if I had ever been to Avignon before, and I said no. “Well, guess what? You’re going there today. Surprise!”

The one of the positive in all this craziness is that our Euro-rail pass is first-class. Though we will be on an ungodly amount of trains, most will be first-class with a little more leg room and overall a nicer experience. (In the TGV, DH and I are facing each other with a small table between us, there’s even an outlet on the side of the seat, so my laptop can charge as I type.)

Before I left the US, I had lunch with a dear colleague who was telling me about a road trip she was planning this summer with her four-year old daughter to Iowa. I told her about the times we took road trips to visit family in Wisconsin; Nebraska is a pain to drive though, but Iowa is so pretty. I love looking at the farms on the rolling hills; it can be a very picturesque drive. While we were talking about I was almost jealous – I want to go on a road trip. Listening to music, looking out the window, eating Twizzlers – such good times. She looked at me as if I was crazy, “You’re going to Europe and Egypt and you’re jealous of me going to Iowa?” Yes, in some ways I was. And now what am I doing? Sitting, listening to music, looking out the window at the picturesque countryside, and eating Haribo cola gummies, because they don’t have Twizzlers here. So maybe, just maybe, in some weird, twisted way, this is what I wanted all along.

Amsterdam

I really like Amsterdam. Most people think of the red-light district, and a certain green-leafy substance, but that is really only one side of this amazing city. We are staying at a bed and breakfast near Vondlepark, (Amsterdam’s Central Park), away from the train station and tourist traps. Our inn-keeper is a charming woman, Monique, who spent ten minutes training us on how to use the key for the front door.


Getting around the city and communicating is fairly easy, since the majority of people speak beautiful English. (This is what happens when an educational systems values other languages.) If someone starts speaking Dutch, just smile with a polite, “Hello” or “Sorry” and they’ll switch right to English. I joked with DH, it’s like finding a button on a remote control, and the language changes.

This is the second time we’re visiting this city, so our “to-do” list of sites is much less taxing. We’ve already hit the Rijksmuseum (which is still being renovated), the Van Gogh Museum, Rembrandt’s House; even the Anne Frank House. Our agenda – to relax and get into vacation mode; so we took a nap.