Work and a visitor

Returning from Siwa and Alex meant a titanic amount of laundry, but once recovered, it was back to work with a vengeance for both of us. The clock is really ticking as our June departure looms. Days are longer, the weather is milder, and everything reminds us how little time we have left. It makes us both anxious and sad.

This week included a visit to the US Embassy on Wednesday for a press conference with local journalists about the Fulbright program. Newly-appointed chair Tom Healy was in town for a fairly long visit, and it was a chance to tout the program and its very real cultural exchange. My only gripe was that this conference took place after a long teaching day, downtown in terrible traffic, and it required going through the massive security at the Embassy.

I saw something startling en route to work: a flash mob of young men throwing stones at the police and blocking an entire lane of the Ring Road highway; ahead of them was a massive 16-car+1 truck pileup. The police seemed disengaged, and it was a very strange event.

Ring Road flash mob

My colleague and boss at Trinity, Paul Lauter, arrived on Saturday, and though I had to teach Sunday, we managed to fit in quite a bit of touring. Harris and Paul spent Sunday together until I returned from work around 2PM. I’d arranged for Emad to take me and Paul to the Corniche, where we had the pleasure of descending from the noisy street into the quiet of a felucca. After a lovely ride going north, we headed to the Grand Café where I introduced Paul to my Egyptian vice, sheesha (apple-flavored). You can decide for yourself if he liked it! We finished the day with a feast at China Winds, and got ready for a big day on Monday.

Paul tries sheesha

A game face but he didn't really like it!

Nothing like a felucca on the Nile

Monday found us touring with a vengeance, starting with a clamber up the Red Pyramid at Dashur and then down into its burial chambers. The Bent and Red Pyramids at Dashur were the work of the father of Cheops, whose Great Pyramid is so well known. I have a soft spot for these earlier pyramids, particularly since they show the trial and error of finding the right angle to build a pyramid. I’d been there before but it was more powerful this time. The corbel vaulted chambers were impressive on their own and even more so when you realized you were underneath thousands and thousands of tons of rock with no mortar.

The amazing Bent Pyramid of Snefru

At a crumbling corner of the Bent Pyramid
After that, we continued to the Bent Pyramid, and Paul and I posed at a corner at which the giant limestone blocks had tumbled.

Gives a sense of scale

Looking up as Paul climbs the Red Pyramid

Internet diagram of the burial chambers of the Red Pyramid

Corbel vaults and a viewing platform inside

Not sure if it's harder coming down or going up....

Red Pyramid view

Our excellent guide Eman then took us to Saqqara to view the very first attempt at a pyramid, Djoser’s Step Pyramid. Even more beautiful were the tombs,  with their sensitive bas-reliefs and paintings, like Princess Idut’s tomb depicting the slaughter of animals to feed her in the afterlife and the false door depicting her at table with feathers indicating thousands, metaphorically multiplying the offerings she would enjoy in the afterlife.

Road to Saqqara and farms

Strike a pose in a tomb!

Careful reconstruction of the limestone facing on the Step Pyramid

One of the many burial shafts

False door of Idut's tomb

Exquisite detail of butchering cattle

Saqqara remains a goldmine for archaeologists, who find new tombs almost weekly. Great shafts are now exposed, and the problem now is engineering: as layers are removed, those below become honeycombed and less stable.

Lunch was a necessity after so much scrambling, and we enjoyed viewing the Great Pyramid of Cheops from our table at the Mena House. Finally, it was time to view the last wonders of the ancient world, and the Sphinx. I’d been here many times but it never fails to amaze.

Yup, it's great!

The classic view of all three pyramids at Giza

Paul views the Sphinx

Paul and me at the Sphinx; notice ancient Egyptian pigeons on top

Paul, in trooper fashion, went to Luxor the next day for a flash visit to Karnak, Luxor, and the Valley of the Kings in one day, returning in time to catch his plane to Turkey early the next morning. How he did so much without keeling over is impressive.

The rest of the week meant some socializing and lots more work. We are preparing for a trip over spring break, 6 days in Italy and a week diving the southern Red Sea, so being ready for everything, both work and leisure, is a must. Spring weather here is gorgeous, though probably not as warm as what the news tells us has happened this “winter” in the U.S..

Finally got a shot of the silliest sticker I see on cars!