Egypt 3

The Grand Egyptian Museum and the pyramids. I am overwhelmed. First the museum. As ever, at a fast pace, but with Ehab at the helm, we bypassed the main area and went straight to the boat of King Khufu, the oldest boat in the world. Found in 1954 next to his pyramid, it was reassembled and given the place of honor in its own building. Eventually it will be joined by another. 

Next, the treasure of Tutankhamen. Gold, gold, gold including the 11+ kilogram mask that never leaves Egypt. But also all the things the king would need in the afterlife: food, clothing, chariots, weaponry, furniture, etc. 

My favorite: the 365 small figurines of the king that would handle all the work he was going to be required to do, one for each day. Exactly what I need at home for my gardening.

Given an hour of free range, I headed to the gift shop for post cards (meh selection), a cat magnet for our cat sitter Vera (all I could find), a pillow cover with a sacred ibis (will go with my dingo one from Australia) and a string bracelet with an ankh (to replace my one of the Virgin which came apart Monday). 

We opted to get lunch early to avoid the crowds and to sit. Looking back, I wished we had returned to the galleries to run through the ones in chronological order. Easy to say after having rested. 

On the bus to the pyramids. First a chance to get on a camel and have one’s picture taken. Grant opted in, not I. I did get nuzzled.

Even with Viking’s driving us a close as possible, the beauty of a tour, still a lot of walking. We managed to circumnavigate the great pyramid of Khufu, trailed by our security guard, and I climbed up to the entrance (too small and crowded for me to consider going in), but just admired Khafre’s and Menkaure’s from afar.

A bus ride to the sphinx cooled us enough to walk nearer. Were we on our own, we could have ridden a horse or in a horse drawn carriage to other viewpoints. All around were vendors of rugs, statues and trinkets. I wonder who would buy the sheets of coins. Are there that many numismatists visiting?

Dinner at the Italian restaurant in the hotel. Grilled chicken and veggies for me and a house salad the chef sent out. The lettuce was delicious, which is not something I usually notice. Grant’s seafood pizza was at 14” in diameter. We each have lunch for tomorrow.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bahia Honda State Park, Cabin 3

Image
Our trip to the Keys was marvelous, but hard on my bracelets. First, I realized my sweet little beaded one I’d bought the last time we were down disappeared from my arm. All I can figure is that I accidentally pulled it off when I tucked my hands inside my long sleeved sun shirt. Surely if the elastic had broken, I’d have had beads in my shirt. As soon as I noticed it was missing , I retraced my steps at the gas station and the bait shop, but didn’t find it. I’d restrung the original on elastic bead string, adding the glow-in-the-dark bead I’d found at our campsite. Ah, well, I hope someone else is enjoying now. When we got back to our house, I realized the one made for me by Rani, mom of our old congregation’s pianist Brenda, was coming unstrung. Fortunately, I have all the beads, including the one I stepped on in our dining room, which was amazingly not sucked up by our Roomba. In between jewelry loses, it was a good trip. We were supposed to be in the cabin Saturday, but that was ov...
Read more

A Month of Garden Club

Image
April seemed to be all garden club, all the time. I started with the zone leader’ walkthrough for Spring Fever on Friday, the 5th, then 2 whole days of that event. Whew. April 11th was the Windermere Garden Club’s monthly meeting, a field trip to Southern Hill Farm, a you-pick and wholesale blueberry farm. We were inspire to add blueberries to our garden. Friday, April 12th, I was the speaker at Bloom and Grow’s monthly luncheon, touting the value of becoming a citizen scientist, specifically, downloading the iNaturalist app and participating in the City Nature Challenge 2024: Orange County. I was pleased with my talk, the first one I’ve given in person in 5 years. I still attend EarlyBird Toastmasters, but we’ve been on Zoom since early 2020. Before that, we’d moved to Key Biscayne for a year, and I didn’t drive up to Fort Lauderdale often. On the 21st, we toured Jeanne’s almost-all native, completely grassless yard, a B&G social with the mandatory wine and lovely appetizers and d...
Read more

Cold Weather

Image
Brrrr, it has been 45° the last 2 nights. During the day, in the sun, it is comfortable, however in the evenings and early mornings, it has been chilly. Our Connecticut friends were not impressed. Fortunately, we finally finished repairing William’s hut the day the temperature dipped. It had been sitting in the garage all summer. Nothing like just in time inventory. Gracie helped while we decided what to do. To keep it warm, we had built it with a reptile heater big enough for an African spurred tortoise. It had to be hung on the ceiling of the hut because it is too warm for a small turtle. However, it was the only heater that could be outside. All the smaller ones weren’t waterproof. Overkill, but what was available. We took the sides of the hut off, and I cut them the same height. Originally the top had a slant to let any rain run off, but it doesn’t need that since our house eave protects it from drips. We added 1x4s on each side and along the back to make the structure more stable....
Read more