The internet still wont let me load mutlitple images at a time but so i can add some color to the blackness that is my blog, here are some from my collection. The Big Ones for which you will be more properly introduced with time (with any hope)

Luxor Temple

Karnak Temple


Hatepshuts Mortuary Temple

Temple at Dier el Medina



Rameseum




Surprisingly enough, I woke up earlier this morning than I did yesterday morning despite the fact that I stayed up much later last night than I had the night before last…I suppose a lot of it comes down to how you spend your day. Since yesterday was relatively relaxing, compared to the work day I had Wednesday, I had more energy to maintain myself into a later hour, yet no need to compensate for it in the morning. Instead when this morning came, at around 5:50, my internal clock pulled me from my sleep…which is just as well because I was dreaming that I was mapping and taking elevations anyway…yeah it’s gotten to that point, where I work so much that I dream about it too.

So I woke up at 5:50 this morning and attempted to tip toe from my room as quietly as possible, out to the balcony to watch the sunrise and do some reading and writing. However, I managed to trip over my cell phone cord which sent my phone flying across the room where it gracefully met the door with a thud. It was probably the most amount of noise I could have made given the set up of the room and the layout of objects that I could have potentially knocked over…of course when tripping over the cord, I myself could have fallen to the floor and that would have made all kinds of noise, so perhaps not the most amount of noise that could have been made. Either way, point is, I think I woke my roommate up. But I didn’t feel that bad because she didn’t go to bed last night until after 3, and she woke me up when she came in…I’m usually someone that can turn over and fall right back asleep so it doesn’t really matter to me if something stirs my sleep, in fact my own bladder will probably do it at some point throughout the night as it usually does. Hopefully she is the same way. If not, well…it’s not my fault she’s jet lagged and not synched with everyone else.

My stomach wasn’t feeling tip top this morning so I waited to make some coffee (heh read: Nescafe). I don’t think it was a bacterial thing but I had some yogurt anyway, which is supposed to help with that kind of thing. I think its actually from consuming close my weight in baba ghanouge yesterday. For those not in the know, baba ghanouge is roasted eggplant which is similar to hummus in terms of consistency and spreadability. It is probably one of my favorite things to eat, especially out here. It’s amazingly tasty and dirt cheap. It’s not really that bad for you or anything, though with everything moderation is key. It was a lot of oil in it so I think that just may have given me a little tummy ache this morning. I seriously had like a bowl full of it last night…

Yesterday morning by comparison, I did not wake up until 7:00. I made myself some breakfast, did some reading and some writing and at around noon I crashed my favorite five star hotel pool.


Here I took a snapshot of my ridiculously tan hands and dirty archaeologist fingernails. I guess in the photo the contrast isn't nearly as strong even though I'm wearing a light pink shirt.




I remember my dad always had tan hands too….and a really tan left arm from hanging his elbow out of the window when he would drive. Haha I just thought, oh man my hands cold rival the dark olive tone of my dad’s…and then I thought, yes well especially now since his hands haven’t seen sunlight in 8 years…oh that’s not funny, but it is…and it’s the honest path my brain took. Sometimes things like that have to be funny.

While at the pool, I swam and continued to cruise through my Murakami, only 160 pages left! While reading and winding through the labyrinth that is this novel, it struck me that I had a craving to smoke some hookah, so after a bit, I walked home, showered and got ready to go to one of my favorite restaurants here, Felfella! I wrote about this place with much excitement last year. I walked in at about 4:00 and the place was pretty dead, I was the only person there. I wondered how strange it was going to be for this little foreign girl to go in and order a water pipe to smoke on her own. So long as they are paid, nothing should really seem too strange, they should be happy to accommodate anyone with money. I walked in the restaurant, grabbed a menu and waited at the table of my choice, one under a nice arrangement of trees and near a garden. When the waiter came and took my order, he did question me three times about the things I wanted. “You sure?” “That’s it?” I pretended to be a pro and interjected with any arabic I could throughout the order. As I anticipated, all of the men in the restaurant were looking at me and I just, again, pretended like this was a normal activity of mine,…hookah smoking, with a book and some baba ghanouge and fresh bread. It’s not as though I wasn’t a regular here, last years… at least for dining. But of course they probably didn’t remember that. They brought out my hookah and lit it up for me. Egyptian hookah is much much stronger than it is in the states…determined not to make a fool of myself, I had to stagger my first inhale and exhale to avoid the coughing that immediately wanted to rip from my lungs and out of my mouth. I learned to take smaller hits. That’s not the only way it was stronger though. My original envisioning of the afternoon had me sitting outside under the shade, smoking, relaxing and reading my book…however this did not happen, this could not happen. I would try and read and just keep reading the same paragraph over and over again….like my thought process reached the density equivelent of jell-o. I still kept trying to read either way, tried to look comfortable and in my own world independent of the stares and whispers of the baffled workers- and with the buzz of the hookah I created and maintained that world pretty successfully.

After a bit the manager came out and introduced himself and started asking me about where I was from and how I was enjoying Egypt. I explained to him that I worked here and that I lived in the Villa down the street with Dr. Mark and the other doctors working at Giza. The manager then offered me a Turkish Coffee which I could not refuse since I had never tried one. It was okay, whatever they use in it has a mild licorice taste and I’m not a big fan of licorice. The pick up of the caffeine countered the weigh down of the hookah and so I was feeling back to normal and decided to head home,

After I spent some time at the Villa getting my fill of wireless, some of the girls that I work with on site walked in and we had small talk…I mentioned what I spent the day doing and one of the girls commented on how jealous she was that I went out and smoked hookah, and seemed even impressed that I went out and did these things all on my own instead of just sitting on the internet all day at the villa. That being said, everyone decided that they wanted to go hit up Felfella for some drinks and hookah smoking themselves. Naturally because I was sitting right there, I got asked if I wanted to go despite the fact that I had already been there. Again, in an effort to not socially isolate myself, I went along with them.

When we got to Felfella the manager was excited to see me back with with my entourage (it was me, amanda, and amelia (the girls I have been working with on site), and delphine (girl working on water systems research) and claire(maryann’s assistant). He greeted me with a handshake and showed us to a great table…suddenly I’m a celebrity at felfella with the wait staff all coming up, calling me by name, and musing at the fact that I was already back. I wasn’t hungry since I had just been there earlier, so I got another Turkish coffee, lettting them know not to make it as sweet this time.

The evening stretched on. I did get a certain satisfaction knowing that I had established some personal connections with the people at the restaurant! Afterall, this place is awesome, and to be on a first name basis with everyone there when I have only been there a day is likewise, awesome. Egyptian restaurants can be rather slow about giving you your bill…perhaps they hope you will order more if you stay longer. I looked across for the manager and gave the international sign for “check please.” (Richard taught me this, you pretend like you are signing a receipt in the air..perhaps everyone knows this it IS the international sign for check, and if you didn’t know before, well you do now!). Haha however when I did this, the manager shakes his head at me, to let me know that he wont give us our check yet. He walks over and I accuse him of holding us hostage. He asks why we must go, the night is young. I say we are tired. Finally we get our bill, pay, and then as we are walking out he hands me a small flower. Very Egyptian…much like the guy who gave me a stuffed camel on my birthday. I don’t really think anything of it (besides…oh man free hookah the rest of the season! Actually that’s not even an issue…hookah in the states costs anywhere from 8-15 dollars depending on where you are…here it is less than a dollar). I get back to the Villa and hop back online since earlier I left abruptly to satisfy for myself once and for all my regards for this going out with everyone business…Fidgetting like I do, I kept twisting the flower around. There was a rolled piece of paper along the short stem which I didn’t think anything of when the flower was given to me, and truth be told I still wasn’t thinking anything of it except I saw a dead bug and I was going to take the paper and use it to pick up the bug and throw it away. When I opened it up, there was the managers name and phone number. Ha! I thought it was hilarious. Flattering sure, but really quite amusing. He looked way too professionally dressed for a restaurant manager/owner. Definitely the face of the operation but never getting his hands dirty in the kitchen. He wore a well tailored suit of charcoal and a pale yellow tie and his hair was slicked back. If he were auditioning for a movie, he would be your typecast carsalesmen with a sneaky agenda. But in reality he seemed genuinely nice…wont be getting any phone calls from me or anything haha, but as I said, I consider it a pretty big bonus to know the big people at my favorite restaurant here.

The rest of my day for today includes….pool lounging, Murakami reading, and email corrosponding. Unless anything exciting comes up, I will abstain from extensive blogging since its everyone elses weekend and since now half of my days work will be made of computer databasing which is never interesting to write about.

Naturally my thoughts will be family heavy on Easter as I am sure everyone else will be thinking of me too and wishing I was closer to home, both to make sure I am okay, and just for that added sense of comfort that everyone around us is safe and okay. But think of it this way…I really haven’t been home for Easter most years…in high school easter was during spring break so I was gone junior and senior year, and in college, Easter was so close to exams that I really just couldn’t come home. At least this year on Easter I wont have to balance the pressure of exams and research papers and instead I will be doing the job that I love, free to think about the people that I love and miss without having to put away those thoughts in order to be productive in a study setting.