back in Cairo Everyone has been asking me if things feel or look any different here in Cairo after the revolution. When I left, there were tanks in my neighborhood, a curfew, lots of gunfire, there was no internet, and Mubarak was still president. Now, Mubarak is gone, the police are back on the streets, the tanks have rolled out,...
from ancient to medieval in Cairo On Tuesday we started our day with a cab ride to Tahrir to see the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities.
We spent a few hours enjoying the Tutahnkamun exhibit, Akhenaten collection, and other ancient art and artifacts of Egypt.
We then took a taxi to the Citadel.
The views of the city were stunning.
We...
weddles in luxor This past week has been a whirlwind! After seeing some sights around Cairo with Ryan, my parents arrived and we left for Luxor. We arrived in Luxor around midday and decided to check out Luxor Temple in the afternoon sunlight. It was incredible. The city of Luxor creeps right up to the edges of these ancient sites,...
Mount Sinai Last weekend we went on a faculty trip to Mount Sinai. After a 9 hour bus ride through barren, empty, desert, along the eastern coast of Egypt and across the Sinai Peninsula, we made it to Dahab where the best thing about our hotel was the coral reef meters from our room. Another 2 hour bus ride through a forbidding...
Unfinished Obelisk Once we got to Aswan and after a crazy taxi experience that entailed some serious driver rivalry, keys stolen from the ignition, a chase involving a tire iron, and a group of tourists, ahem, us, quietly unloading our luggage and finding another cab... (yeah, I know, OH EGYPT!)
Anyhow once we got to Aswan, we decided...
So you may already know that one of my favorite things is ice cream. I won’t get into it here, but I could talk for hours about gelato and ice cream, and probably shed a tear or two for the absence of pistachio gelato made with pure Sicilian pistachio butter in my life. But as I said, I won’t get into it here.
In the ongoing effort to make our apartment feel a little more like home, we recently got some plants to liven up the place. It was a lot of fun walking through all the nurseries in our neighborhood. Instead of cheap plastic containers, most of the plants seem to be potted in hand-formed clay or terracotta pots, and the plant nurseries felt a lot more like gardens than the nurseries back home.
Here’s our one and only flowering plant.
Today I decided to pick up some baskets to help with my ongoing efforts to get organized and de-clutter our space, so I headed toward the Maadi Grand Mall because that’s where the basket guy’s cart is usually parked.
Here it is.
Don’t you love it? Car, car, car, car, basket wagon, car, car, car. I love it.
Category : Food, My Life in Cairo, Sightseeing in Cairo, Travel & Sightseeing
Today we packed a picnic and went to Al-Azhar Park. It was absolutely delightful!
The park is beautifully landscaped and has truly incredible views of the city. I had no idea exactly how wonderful the park was until today. I first heard about it when I watched a documentary about an urban development/renovation project in Cairo this summer. The park is located near the Citadel (I still haven’t been there yet, by the way) on the site of what used to be a “500-year-old mound of rubble in the inner city, between the eastern edge of the 12th Century Ayyubid city and the 15th Century Mamluk ‘City of the Dead’,” to quote the park’s website.
That’s the citadel.
And here’s our lunch…
On Tuesday Brandon and I went to the Wadi Degla, a dry riverbed near Maadi. It was a great place to hike, look at fossils, and fear wild dogs. Here are some photos:
Fortunately we didn’t meet any dogs in the park. However we did meet some on the long walk to find a taxi in the middle of nowhere after we left the park. There is really nothing quite like a long walk in the middle of nowhere looking for nonexistent taxis surrounded by wild dogs. Nothing like it.
Category : Family, Food, in America and Elsewhere, Travel & Sightseeing
I went back to America in December. It felt so good to be home! But now it feels good to be home in Cairo. Funny how that works. I blame wanderlust.
I really enjoyed seeing family and friends and eating salads without a care in the world. It was delightful! I also got to spend ten days or so with my Mimi in Oklahoma. We had lots of fun together.
What a beautiful country…
We were lucky that the rest of my family arrived when they did, because a huge blizzard hit the midwest on Christmas Eve.
That’s the view on Christmas morning. The snow was incredible. Good thing we were all together!
Back in the day when Meredith was visiting, the three of us decided to get out of Cairo and visit Alexandria on the Mediterranean Sea. We stayed at the Sofitel right on the Corniche (the street that follows the coastline), and enjoyed the semi-fresh sea air and semi-break from Cairo life. Here is our hotel. It was relatively old and had lots of charm. I take that back. It had lots of charm, but there is nothing “relatively old” in this whole region that isn’t about 5,000 years old. Nevermind.
Here is the view from our hotel.
Love that landscaping. Love it. I love when cities go the extra mile. Thanks, Alexandria. Plus, look how tidy everything looks! I was loving it!!
Category : Meredith's Visit, Travel & Sightseeing, Travel within Egypt
When Meredith was visiting we took a day trip to Saqqara and the Red Pyramid. Here are some shots from the car.
Yep, that’s a truck full of eggs.
After driving through agricultural areas and more small towns lining a canal, and going through vast, dense forests of date palms, the lush greenery abruptly ended and all of a sudden we were in the desert.
The step pyramid at Saqqara is the oldest stone pyramid in the world. Meredith and I really enjoyed the tremendously informative museum at the site. It pointed out interesting details that I might not have even considered, such as the oldest stone frieze known to man and the oldest stone ceiling. It was incredible and I enjoyed being able to see things like pottery and jewelry on site, rather than seeing everything from everywhere all together at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. It was also a great refresher on some of the basic iconography.
Here are some photos from our visit…
Category : Cats, My Life in Cairo
Do I even need to say anything about these adorable, teeny, tiny, tough guy kitties hanging out in the sunlight. omg.
As you may have noticed, I am trying to catch up. I have about two million pictures I want to post, so I am just going to do it. They may be out of order, fair warning.
So here are a few from around Maadi. This is one of my favorites.
Meredith captured the best picture of the day from our trip to Giza and the Solar Barque Museum.
