Friday from Cairo

Today we awoke to quiet - at least compared to last night. Apparently the Cornish is a party place - right on the (Nile) river. There are party boats that are commissioned from right below our window and the party goes on until 1AM, when it abruptly stops. Nothing could have kept us awake last night however, we'll see about the coming nights. We have to leave the window open if we want any air, as there is no heat, air conditioning or fan. However the nights are cool and people evidently are used to sleeping on their roofs even. Cairo is very densely populated and what looked like bombed-out areas of town are actually densely arranged apartment buildings. 

This afternoon we toured the Egyptian Museum with our Egyptian tour guide. There were of course no cameras allowed which actually was nice because people were squeezing in to see the exhibits and not only so that they could take their photos. It was fabulous - although the building itself was in terrible repair. The Egyptian museum opened in 1901 and after the discovery of the King Tutankhamen's (King Tut) tomb in 1922, the exhibit was expanded to include a wing for all the artifacts from the tomb, which were numerous. Seeing King Tuts gold mask was nothing like seeing it in a book or catalog. JoAnn and I were especially impressed with all his jewelry, which was probably 100 times more than I'll ever own. My favorite (jewelry) was the scarab bracelet. 

We saw many mummies - some wrapped and some not, but mummies are mummies to me and with the exception of the mummy that died from two arrows and an ax to the head (which bore the holes from the attack), they all looked pretty much the same - dried up, black...skeletons with the black, shriveled skin still on them. We did find out however that they pack the bodies in salt to absorb all the moisture out of the body. It took precisely 70 days to prepare a mummy for burial.

Bill's one surprise was the role that the Greeks, Romans and other nationalities played in Egyptian Pharohdom. JoAnn thinks that we need a cheat-sheet to map out all the ancestry - too hard to keep straight. I was surprised that there was a female pharaoh - Hatchepsut. More about her later.... and Ed was surprised at how Cheops is really pronounced. 

Bill and I did a little window shopping today although I did buy some sunglasses as I forgot mine in DC and tomorrow we're going to see our first pyramid although we did see them from the air when coming into Cairo on the plane. It's a little dangerous (financially) to window shop as the shop people come outside and try to persuade you to come into their shops....start cutting prices before they even get you in the door. 

We're off to some reception that involves food....not to be missed of course.

And by the way - if you leave comments (click on 'x comments' below), we can read them from here.... (hint hint-and thanks Judi & Louise)

Shalom