The Mysterious Cairo This morning we were awakened at 5 AM for another early morning airport pick up. After the typical Nile cruise line breakfast, the porters hustled our bags up to the waiting van for the half hour drive to the Aswan airport. Aswan is actually quite a pleasant and slightly more modern city than others we have seen in Egypt. The airport was uneventful and efficient with the exception that we still had…
Coptic Coupling Tonight, Mike, Melissa, Kim and I decided that we would do a simple sandwich dinner at the lobby bar. That was a well conceived plan that bore little resemblance to what actually happened. To begin with what we thought was a lobby bar that offered bar food or sandwiches turned out to be a lobby bar that offered a full menu from one of the restaurants. In theory that shouldn’t be a problem,…
Reaching for Africa We have been on the continent of Africa for over five days now and don’t realize it. Africa is a big continent, but at least it’s very well defined unlike Asia or Europe. You know where it starts and ends. But the reality of Africa is that it’s separated into at least two Africas. The first is North Africa, of which we are in a subsection referred to as the Levant. And…
God of Gods Horus was the God of Gods in ancient Egypt. When you think about it, that’s a heavy burden to carry. Being a God is tough enough, but being the God of Gods, seems like an impossible job. As we will see, Horus certainly had his challenges. This morning we visited Horus’ temple in Edfu, which is a small river city here on the upper Nile (a.k.a.- the southern Nile). Our riverboat tour…
Allahu Akbar Anyone who travels to the Middle East has heard the call to prayer many times during their stay. It always begins with the beseeching cry of Allahu Akbar, which means God is greater. It is, perhaps the most succinct statement of the optimism of religion one can hear. It is less about power and more about the importance of the good life and why it should trump all else. It is one of…
Luxor Today we had to start our day rather early. We were to be in the lobby at 4:15am ready to go. We had all the best intentions of going to bed early and getting a solid night’s sleep in the shadow of the Great Pyramids and it started out just that way. Despite a very comfortable bed in the Marriott Mena room, I woke up at 12:30am with some very stiff legs and joints.…
Getting Your Cartouche Cleaned The other day we took a ride around the Borghese Gardens in an enlarged golf cart. It wasn’t part of a plan, but the cart showed up when we got out of our cab and it was hard to pass it up as a way to see the entirety of the lovely gardens before ambling down the Via Veneto to the Cappucin Crypt Church on the Piazza Barberini. One of the…
Back in the Kabubble I watched some movie or other five years ago that was about a journalist that ws covering the war in Afghanistan. It seems that it is always the case that journalists in war zones hang out at the same western hotels where they commune with one another and both check notes with one another and stay connected to a world they can recognize rather than the one that’s going on around…
Stanley Tucci Go Home There are certain actors and actresses that everyone likes. That can’t be said for all actors and actresses. I have always found it interesting that while Tom Cruise and Kevin Costner have drawn lots of controversy, Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep have stayed above it all and are beloved by all. That’s all a little easier to understand with star-quality actors and actresses who get paparazzied to death on a daily…
The Real Rome Kim booked us for a tour of the working side of Rome. I can only assume that I have done a good job of showing her all of the regular tourist stuff that constitutes the bulk of the Trip Advisor tours she can find on the internet. What she did instead of that was find a woman who proposed a tour of the Testaccio and Ostiense areas of the city, areas that…