During my last few weeks in Egypt, I started to get a bad case of cabin fever* as circumstances, and my own laziness, confined me to a three-block area in Giza. I finally had the genius idea of getting out of the house more often and suddenly found myself a much happier person. Duh. Some highlights below....



Week 6: On one of our forays out on the town, we decided to act like tourists and took ourselves shopping and then out for a proper coffee at yet another opulent former palace turned hotel. While we were there, we ran across a group of American women in short, tight, expensive party dresses -- and while they would have been considered unremarkable at home, it was hard not to openly stare at them (just as I am stared at in Giza). When you never see so much as an upper arm and are constantly aware of how tightly your shawl is wrapped, the sight of so much casually exposed girl-flesh is transfixing. After only a few weeks here, I’ve found myself extremely conscious of how much of myself I am showing. Freya, who has been coming to Egypt for a few years, says it’s even carried over into the way she dresses at home. **




Upon leaving our upper-class tourist oasis, I was brought back to reality almost immediately when I stepped in a mysterious brown puddle…could be mud, could be raw sewage. If I get the cholera, then I guess we’ll know for sure. Unfortunately, this was the one day I had forgotten my vow to never wear sandals in town. Immediately upon arrival for our dinner date at a fancy restaurant in Zamalek, I headed straight to the bathroom and unceremoniously washed my feet in the sink – just like some kind of dirty hippie! The shame!

I was somewhat soothed by an incredibly delicious date shake and a taco salad. I know…a taco salad in Egypt…whatever. I quickly grew weary of Egyptian food. I had some vague idea that being in North Africa it would be Moroccan-like, but instead spices are doled out like gold and even the Brits find it bland. Even the Brits! Admittedly, part of the problem at work is that our cook a) used to cook for the Egyptian Army and b) is working with only a vague idea of what Westerners want to eat and c) is doing LCD cooking for a crowd. But still. Everything I eat I drown in Tabasco sauce, or “hamdillah sauce” as it is known around the site (because praise be to Allah, it gives the food taste).

The next night, we treated ourselves to a movie in town – The Aviator, which has made me determined to find out more about Miss Ava Gardner – and then went out for kofta, where we unwittingly stumbled into the middle of a birthday celebration. Since women can’t dance in public, the men danced with each other in a way that would be considered highly suspect at home. I have never seen a man move his hips like that and I’m not sure that I was meant to. When they brought out the cake, I was surprised to hear the dj start playing what was clearly the “Happy Birthday” song – and then realized this was like no version I had ever heard before. It was a medley that lasted a full twenty minutes and concluded with a seemingly never-ending refrain of the words “happy birthday cha-cha-cha” repeated over and over and over again as people stood around clapping and ululating and waiting to eat the damn cake.

Week 7: We went out for a tour of Cairene hotspots, which I found fairly dispiriting. The places were generically sleek and the people generically wealthy, attractive and scantily clad. I found myself compulsively staring at all the exposed flesh and aghast over the price of the drinks (LE 50 for a drink, or about $10). The Swedish girl (Jessica), being true to the stereotypes about Swedes, *** bought us a couple rounds of blue Curacao. This is a disgusting, almost passive-aggressive thing to do, though it did elicit a good story from Freya on the subject of Curacao. ****




The next night we went back into town to a party given by people from the German Institute. The Germans, they have it good. The flat was amazing, the import booze ***** flowed like water, there was dancing, people played the piano -- it was positively civilized. One of the piano players was a British arcachaeobotanist who looks remarkably like Gene Wilder, to the point where he made a comment about the Original Willy Wonka being his father and no one was quite sure if he was kidding. Gene Wilder Jr. is an amazing piano player and it turns out he’s actually a ringer – he was in a band that hit the top 10 in the UK. In fact, he’s leaving archaeology to try to make a go of it with his new band and as an actor.

First off, note that he finds being a musician/actor a more viable career choice than being an archaeologist – just try to wrap your head around that for a moment. Secondly, this touches on one of my favorite reductionist theories about Europeans vs. Americans – the impact of the geography, and specifially the size, of the places. It is ridiculously easy to become famous in a country like England because there are only about 30 people on the whole island and they just sit around taking turns with who gets to be famous this week. Conversely, people underestimate the influence that the vastness of the USA has on everything from our national character to our political quirks. But this is a long and involved rant that I will save for a future posting.

Week 8: We started out at the ridiculously fancy Mena Palace pool where we sunned & swam & laid around poolside reading books, while waiters brought us fruity drinks & ice cream sundaes! Jesus! To be rich! The pool was so deep that I swear a got a minor bout of the bends when I attempted to touch the bottom.

We eventually made our way into town only to find the private room Korean karaoke place was already closed for the night, which about broke my heart. Instead we made our way over to the Cairo Jazz Club for what was supposed to be the best Rai band in town. While I like a lot of Arabic music, as with most everything that's not hip hop or old country, it does not make me want to dance. Rai, apparently, is the exception. I danced, and danced, and danced until the music was no more. I think it may in fact be the perfect dance music because you can dance to it either with a Arabic/Bollywood hip-shake by yourself or in a salsa/waltzy partner-style with lots of spins (and oh Lord, do I love to be spun). I danced with this Polish guy for awhile and he said I dance like a Spanish girl, which I’m taking as a sign that this is the summer I will finally learn to salsa. Inshallah. Listen to some examples of Rai music here or here.

Week 8+: Now I’m back in London, slightly the worse for wear, but nothing that two days of sleep and a diet of flat ginger ale didn’t fix. It’s raining and cold here (in May!) and reminding me of why I could never live here for real. Anyone who knows me at all knows that I have two unwavering traits – I can’t remember anything and I am meant for warm climates. Luckily, tomorrow I return to the warm embrace of an Austin summer. More postings and photos to follow.


* I am a spoiled American and had a luxurious time of it compared to the people who worked on the site. Yes, I had to work ridiculously long hours and share a bedroom and eat crappy food and yadda yadda yadda. But the they work even longer hours, eat even crappier food, do most of the actual labor on the site and yet live in conditions that are pretty similar to something you would have found in a coal mine or sugar plantation at the early part of the 20th century. Most of the Egyptians laborers come from families that have been working on archaeological sites for generations and can be incredibly knowledgeable about Egyptian archaeology, but as they are not university educated their jobs and status on the site are extremely circumscribed. During the five-month working season they live in tents on the site, about a dozen men to each tent, can be charged for any sort of infraction (from fighting to smoking), and cannot come and go as they please. These are adult men and the live like this for five months. Needless to say, it takes its toll and they start to go a little crazy towards the end of the season. For instance, during one of the rare joint parties, after the skits and songs, a table was brought out and two men got into a heated competition to see who could blow flour out of a bowl the fastest. These are grown men blowing flour out of a bowl for entertainment – which I think takes make-your-own a to amusement to a new and heartbreaking level. Whenever I felt like someone was starting to lose it, I would try to judge how close they were to pulling out the bowl of flour. After four months, almost everyone was very very close.

** While I’m not sure how much of a desire I’ll have to wear long-sleeved shirts once I get back to the Texas heat, I was somewhat shocked to see nudie mags in full display at the corner stores in London. It does seem like both the Middle East and the West have gone completely mad sometimes. Isn’t there some kind of happy medium where we can have sex lives but yet keep it to ourselves?

*** One of the Swedes here made a comment about “falling out of the whiskey tree” – another great expression I have adopted. Apparently, in the countryside where there is not much to do, one way to pass the time among the hard-drinking Swedes is to climb up a tree with a bottle of whisky and drink until you fall out. I'm not sure if this is more or less sad than blowing on a bowl of flour.

**** Freya and a friend decided to take a six-month trek through South America. Unfortunately, they only had enough money for a three-month trek, so their solution was to eat on alternate days. They soon found themselves starving, stick-thin and working at the worst archaeological site in the world for some extra money (the tales of this site are so horrible that I will spare you the bulk of it -- but they did manage to put up with the outhouse seats that were a solid layer of moving bugs at night, the shaman who communed with the gods to decide where they should dig each day, etc. until Freya was actually attacked and bitten on the neck BY ONE OF THE OTHER WORKERS and finally fled for her life). As they were suffering away they sustained themselves with this fantasy that at their final stop, in Curacao, they were going to meet a rich American who would shower them with gifts. Lo and behold, they did. He took in the grubby girls, cleaned them up, fed them, bought them gifts, sent them to the spa -- and Freya claims she didn’t even have to put out in return! This is yet more proof of my theory that if you just keep talking about things out loud as if they’re going to happen, they tend to have a way of conjuring themselves into being. Please don’t ever refer to this in front of me as the power of positive thinking or I will have to punch you in the face.

***** In Egypt, you can only buy local Egyptian booze which ranges from rotgut to passable. A few years ago some Canadians did go blind from a bad batch of it, but quality control has supposedly tightened up since then! Real imported booze can only be bought at the duty free shops within 48 hours of landing in the country, so newcomers are expected to bring in their limit of three bottles whether they intend to drink them or not. Everyone is obsessed with Johnny Walker in particular, for some reason, and one of the Egyptian brands was rumored to be labeled as “Johnny Wanker” in emulation of it though it seems to have disappeared from the market. Alas.

The last couple weeks have been fairly calamitous and I have been rather lax about posting, but I'm going to try to catch up as best I can in my last week here. That's right, I leave for London one week from today! Inshallah!*

Just a day or so after my last post, I had the worst stomach flu I've ever had and spent two days laying in bed moaning and clutching my tummy while being constantly assaulted by flies trying to fly up my nose and my upstairs neighbor practicing his nu-metal version of "Hotel California" over and over and over again. This was quite possibly one of the most miserable experiences of my relatively privileged life. However, the guys who work in the kitchen were kind enough to make me brothy soup, Derek brought me foul-tasting rehydration salts, and LB stayed up late to distract me & keep me company -- so at least I was well-looked after.

Just as I was recovering though, I found out that my father had another TIA and ended up back in the ER on his 60th birthday -- and though he seems to be fine and no damage was done, I spent a couple days worrying and feeling guilty about not being able to help out. At this same time, when I most wanted to make sure I could keep in touch with everyone, my cell phone stopped working, was fixed, broke again, and was finally returned sans-SIM card. Meanwhile, Yahoo decided that I shouldn't be allowed to check my email for two days. Next, my electrical brown thumb spread to my computer, which started developing mysterious viral-like symptoms and became basically a very expensive and unattractive paperweight for a couple days. After much coaxing, it does seem to have recovered, though my CD drive is still mocking me by pretending that it doesn't exist.

Next, there was a panicky day when there was another bombing and two veiled woman attacked a tourist bus. The state control of the media here makes news reporting somewhat suspect, but shady details notwithstanding (like the reports that the two women shot each other -- though, actually, I can see how being fully veiled might hamper one's aim) it does seem like these were isolated incidents carried out by a small faction...so far. Women being involved in the violence does not bode well for the future. At some point, martial law is not going to be enough to hold it together here. Mubarak gave an interview recently where he basically asked why he would consider loosening martial law when most other countries in the world are just now instituting it. And he does have a point there. However, having thousands of people rotting in jail does lead to some hard feelings in the community, not to mention an institutionalized and routine abuse of power. For instance, one of the women here (Erin) is dating a policeman and after she repeatedly received vaguely harassing calls from someone** -- he tracked the guy down, threw him in jail, then called Erin a few days later to see what she wanted him to do with him. While this story is generally told as if it were funny, I find it pretty horrifying.

Finally, and most miserably of all, for the last two weeks, the plague of flies has descended upon us again. I don't know what temporal or seasonal variation has caused their return, but I curse it! The air is thick with them. They're in my hair, on my face, on my hands, on my computer, on my food the instant I set it down, and they seem to take particular delight in dive-bombing my face and attempting to fly up my nose. They are driving me completely mad! Some days I sit in the villa with my scarf wrapped around my head like I'm in purdah while I futilely swat at the air like the crazy person I am. While I will miss many things about Egypt, here's what I will not -- THE GODDAMN FLIES!

Now for the good news! I rented Angela Miller's old house in Austin & will be moving in immediately upon my return. If any kind souls have misfit furniture that they would like to get rid of, I will happily accept it as I have nothing.

Also, I straightened out my pay here and am finally going to be paid for the entirety of my time AND I have been guaranteed work at least through the end of the year. This means that this summer I will have two jobs as well my dissertation to write. I am apologizing in advance for any crankiness on my part and would advise you to just ignore me when I start randomly banging on the keyboard and shouting obscenities...or, if you're feeling especially sorry for me, you could try to cheer me up with a piece of cake or possibly a nice stiff drink.

I have gone on some kind of Stevie Nicks inspired scarf-buying frenzy. Guess what you're getting for a present. That's right, a scarf! All of you! Don't like it? Live somewhere hot? Well, too frigging bad! You're getting a scarf anyway! Maybe, if you're nice to me, I'll bring you back a pyramid paperweight from my next trip. I should be returning in September for another month or two -- inshallah!



The brown smog that hangs over Cairo.

Living here is supposed to be the equivalent of smoking about a pack a day, but without the lovely nicotine buzz. I think the dry, sandy, polluted air may be the cause of my mysterious eye ailments (one bright red painful eye that bothers me for several days after any attempt to wear my contacts) and combined with the shockingly chlorinated water (picture doing all your bathing & washing in a swimming pool), it is surely contributing to the complete ruin of my clothes and the mysterious straw-like texture of my hair.



A little boy (who really should be in school) follows a donkey-cart full of veg through the street by the villa.

One of the first and most terrifying things you notice here is the traffic laws -- or rather, the absence of them. The streets are all clogged with dangerously overladen trucks, cars literally held together with gaffer tape, donkey carts, jaywalking families running for their lives across the freeway, people praying in the streets outside the mosques, etc. etc. Street lights -- non-existent. Lane markers -- purely for decoration. Sidewalks -- ha! There is one single traffic law -- to the brave go the spoils!

The strange, chaotic traffic system extends all the way to the level of taxi fares. First off, most taxis are tricked out in a way that would make a lowrider blush. Blinking lights, velvet seats, bouncing dashboard doodads, flowers, bring it on! It seems at one point there was a push to install actual meters in the taxis, but it's unclear if they ever actually worked. In any case, they certainly do not now. Fares work like this -- you reach your destination and pay the cost. What is the cost -- well, you're just supposed to know this. And in the taxis, as with most things here (tourist attractions, hotel rates, you name it) there is, either officially or unofficially, a local and a hawaga price. In general, I don't mind paying the hawaga price. Compared to most people here, I am incredibly well-off and if the price I pay for that is an extra 50 cents here or there, I really couldn't care less. It does drive some people mad though. I have actually seen people get out of a taxi and storm off over the equivalent of a dollar in price. This is really taking thriftiness too far, even for a Brit. But the fact that every price is negotiable seems to make people completely obsessed with always getting the best deal. It's a form of madness.


* Inshallah: Translates roughly as... 'If Allah wills it'. A marvellously useful term of complete fatalism and one which has no direct English equivalent. The nearest thing would be '...but on the other hand I might get hit by a number 73 bus tomorrow' - uttered in tones of sodden dejection by a clinical depressive with a strong Solihull accent. (Definition stolen from here.)


** This is actually a fairly common occurrence. If a woman answers the phone, sometimes men will keep repeatedly calling back just on the off chance that you might talk to them and perhaps, just perhaps, have sex with them.

More pictures from the site.



The pyramids on a sandy day.



An excavated structure, including a massive sherd dump. What appears to be a wall on the left-side of the photo is actually composed of layers and layers of potsherds.



A nice late-period pot, still in situ.

Picture of the day:
The stuff of nightmares at the Cairo Mall

Picture of the day:
A camel caravan through the desert.

fe·luc·ca ( fe -lū ' ke, -lŭk ' e ) n. a small boat propelled by oars or lateen sails or both, used on the Nile and formerly more widely in the Mediterranean region.

ORIGIN early 17th cent. : from Italian feluc(c)a, probably from obsolete Spanish faluca, of Arabic origin.


Farrah and I on a felucca ride down the Nile. Note the new "gypsy" look I'm sporting.


My British flatmates and I hanging off the prow. Freya momentarily lost her mind and stuck her feet in the Nile and my hands were splashed with water by the boatman when we were docking. Luckily, when her feet fall off, I'll still be able to walk to the kitchen -- and when my hands fall off, she'll still be able to open my beers!


Tom claims the only thing he learned in the Swedish coast guard is how to spell out dirty words in Morse Code. Unfortunately, only in Swedish though.

Last night, one of my flatmates and I realized we were going a little stir-crazy, so we decided to venture out in search of the hidden charms of Giza. We live in a really quiet, residential (safe, boring) area of town, so we took a cab down to Al Haram and then just aimlessly wandered down whatever little back-street seemed to be bustling. After circling around for awhile, we heard some Arabic music and laughing coming from a side street, which turned out to be a little party tucked away in an alley. There was a banner overhead that probably explained what was being celebrated...though it could have said "Death to the Infidels" or "Big Ali's Esso Shop" for all the Arabic I know. Anyway, it was celebration. Of some sort.

It was around 9 or 10pm and the alley was filled with 100 or so people of all ages, singing and dancing and clapping. It was making me happy just to watch, but I wanted to cross the street so I could get a better look. Derek warned me that if we did someone would surely come and insist that we join in...and indeed, as the words left his mouth someone came up and grabbed us both by the hands & insisted that we join the party. After much half-hearted protest, we were led into the middle of the crowd.

The men were all up front singing along and dancing together, while the women were in the back with the kids, talking and clapping. I tried to hold back with the other women, but our Pied Piper insisted that I dance with him...which I was somewhat hesitant to do as none of the Egyptian women were dancing. There was one woman there -- the only one not veiled -- and when she saw me hesitating, she grabbed me by the hand and had me dance with her instead. There was lots of shimmying and shaking and seeing how low you could go (including by me) and attempts (not by me) to dance with a bottle on your head. Basically, I once again proved to an entirely new population that hawagas ain't got no rhythm. But I was having fun doing it.

While I was a little embarrassed and unsure if I was being completely inappropriate, the veiled women seemed to be smiling and clapping and cheering me on. I was making a complete spectacle of myself, but the love of watching a shy girl beam while dancing poorly is apparently universal. So I danced around, while trying my best to be somewhat modest and keep my shawl around me with my one free hand, which was pretty futile as I was being twirled around in circles by the other hand. At one point the guy who pulled us in grabbed me by my shawl to try to pull my hips towards him while he danced with me, but even I felt like this crossed a line, and a couple of the women who had been watching pushed him away and scolded him for it.

It's strange because Western women are the center of everyone's attention here, male and female. Even in my naturally oblivious state, I'm aware that all eyes are on me whenever I leave the house. It's not threatening, but you do feel like you are constantly on display. It makes it very hard to know how to act at times, which is a shame. If I hadn't been so self-conscious I would have danced more. None of the veiled women would dance at all, not even with each other. I know that even devout Arabic women do get to dance, but not in public or with men. It made me acutely aware of the attention that is focused on me here but also the relative freedom that I enjoy. I've rarely been so self-conscious, but it was still a really good time. Even though, or perhaps because, it seemed like someone else's life I had accidentally stumbled into.

After a bit, someone brought out cold orange drinks to cool us off and then we took our leave, while all the little kids followed us, waving and trying to shake my hand, all the way down the street.

Last Thursday night, our plans to go into town were thwarted in the confusion caused by the bombing. Instead, we ended up going to the disco inside The Mena House -- a fancy hotel down the street that was formerly a palace and still houses a fabulous and much-beloved-by-the-Brits Indian restaurant. It's all very colonial.

The hotel itself is lovely, but for some inexplicable reason the club inside has a Western theme. It's called "The Saddle Bar" and has wagon wheels on the ceiling and waiters in fringed vests roaming around bringing you overpriced drinks. Wherever you go, there you are...and apparently there's a goddamn Western-themed bar there as well.

The last time people from the project went there, they claimed they ended up in a 3AM dance-off with some Sudanese whores...and everyone knows how I long to see a dance-off! Just imagine how cheated I felt when we arrived to nary a whore, Sudanese or otherwise, much less packs waiting to challenge us to a dance-off.

The night wasn't a total loss though, as I learned some awesome Turkish insults that I plan on bringing back to the States. One involves using your index finger to flick someone's face (see below), but the other better one involves licking your palm and then smacking your fist/forearm through it. It makes a really great noise and is completely dirty and insulting. Everyone agreed that I took to it like a Turkish sailor -- perfect execution on the first try! Maybe someday I'll grow up and be a lady...but it really isn't looking very likely at this point.



I wasn't aware that cowboys once herded wild mustangs right through the pyramids.



The less dirty, less fun Turkish insult.



Why is Anneis in every damn picture I take? Could it be because he dances like Little Stevie Wonder? His wife is actually an amazing dancer -- those Turkish girls put us to shame! East meets West in their hips. Damn them!

On Thursday, I finally got a tour of the pyramid complex itself. I've been living across the street from the things for two weeks -- seeing them from a distance or quickly driving past them on my way to the site, but never stopping to take a real look. So, it was nice to finally get a proper tour of the plateau and a trip inside of Khufu. We went at the end of the day, after they had stopped letting people in, so it was relatively uncrowded. Though, actually, while you'd think the place would be swarming with people, it's never THAT crowded. It's the most recognizable building in the world and yet there are more people at, say, Six Flags any day of the week.



Note the veiled ladies picnicking on the pyramid, while some other people ride horses through the site.



At the tippy-tippy top is one of the control points for our survey work. Unfortunately, they keep moving it. Look, I'm crushing the pyramid!


This is the spot where everyone poses on their way out of Khufu.


Inside one of the smaller tombs. While the smaller ones are covered in hieroglyphics and statues, there's not much to see inside Khufu except for an empty rock sarcophagus.


Banu is a blur. Really, it's all a blur though isn't it?

Sorry, there are no pictures from inside Khufu, as photography isn't allowed. Not much to photograph though either -- it's a small, dark, cramped rampway with an empty room at the end. And it's hard to really get any sense of scale while you're inside the thing. However, there are the most amazing acoustics in the King's Chamber -- all echoey and suitably creepy. Apparently, our site director spent the night inside the chamber once and I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that he slept inside the actual sarcophagus.

There was a bombing today at the market in Cairo, but everyone seems to think it was just an isolated incident and there's really no need to worry. The worst effect it will probably have on me is to disrupt my shopping plans -- not to be flippant about it, but just to emphasize that it really is still very safe here.

My grandmother told me that a friend of hers was always suspicious about the idea that slaves built the pyramids "because when the Jews left Egypt they mourned the loss of the milk and honey, and whoever gave slaves milk and honey?" Seriously, old Jewish ladies know everything. I'm thinking that if I full-on convert, then maybe in a few more years I can also know everything -- rather than just pretending to, as I do now.

You did know that the slaves really didn't build the pyramids, right?

There were slaves in Egypt but the discovery that pyramid workers were fed like royalty buttresses other evidence that they were not slaves at all, at least in the modern sense of the word. Harvard's George Reisner found workers' graffiti early in the twentieth century that revealed that the pyramid builders were organized into labor units with names like "Friends of Khufu" or "Drunkards of Menkaure." Within these units were five divisions (their roles still unknown)—the same groupings, according to papyrus scrolls of a later period, that served in the pyramid temples. We do know that service in these temples was rendered by a special class of people on a rotating basis determined by those five divisions. Many Egyptologists therefore subscribe to the hypothesis that the pyramids were also built by a rotating labor force in a modular, team-based kind of organization.

Egyptian society was organized somewhat like a feudal system, in which almost everyone owed service to a lord. The Egyptians called this "bak." Everybody owed bak of some kind to people above them in the social hierarchy. "But it doesn't really work as a word for slavery, even the highest officials owed bak."

From The Rough Guide to Egypt's section on Cairo:

"Its population is today estimated at around eighteen million and is swollen by a further million commuters from the Delta and a thousand new migrants every day. Today, one third of Cairene households lack running water; a quarter of them have no sewers, either. Up to three million people reside in squatted cemetaries, the famous Cities of the Dead. The amount of green space per citizen has been calculated at thirteen square centimetres, not enough to cover a child's palm. Whereas earlier travelers noted that Cairo's air smelt "like hot bricks", visitors now find throat-rasping air pollution, chiefly caused by the traffic. Cairo out-pollutes LA every day of the week: breathing the atmosphere downtown is reputedly akin to smoking thirty cigarettes a day."

The good news: pretty much every Egyptian I have met is incredibly, shockingly, overwhelmingly kind. The same guidebook above recommends that you bring along pictures of your family to show to Egyptians. This sounds like ridiculous guidebook advice, but actually I have had so many people pull out wallet-sized studio portraits of their wife/girlfriend/children to show me that I'm starting to feel really bad about not being able to reciprocate. I'm contemplating printing out some random photos from the web, just so I can fully participate in the ritual.

More good news: there is a really delicious take-out place around the corner from my house with falafel for $0.15 and shwarma for about $1.10. Being a Muslim country, the one thing here that is not cheap (or plentiful) is alcohol. This causes quite a quandary as archaeologists are as well-known for their love of drink as for being underpaid and cheap -- as far as I can tell, when push comes to shove, the love of drink always wins out.

I love that this looks like just like an old Camel cigarettes ad.

By the way, I have seen lots of camels -- mostly with either policemen or Japanese tourists on their backs.

Slideshow, Day 2:
The Ahmad ibn Tulun Mosque and the Gayer-Anderson House
(click on a photo for a larger view)

The mosque was built in the 9th century by Ahmad ibn Tulun, the son of a caliph and a Turkish slave girl. He eventually rose to become the governor of Egypt and built this mosque for the glory of God (and perhaps, just a wee bit, the glory of Ahmad ibn Tulun). It is the oldest surviving mosque in Cairo and the third largest mosque in the world. It is simply ginormous -- it was built to be large enough for an entire army to pray in at once. You can read more about the mosque here or see a photo library here.



Channelling 19th century lady-expolorers outside the mosque.


The strange thing was that almost no one else was here, despite the fact that this should be a major tourist attraction and it was a Friday. One of the half-dozen or so other people there was this lady, who was completely veiled (with only a slit for her eyes) but wearing lethal looking high heels.


This building houses what was once the fountain for ablution. The minaret in the background has an amazing external spiral staircase.


Next door to the mosque is the Gayer-Anderson House, which unites two ancient residences -- the Beit el-Kiridiliya from 1632 and the Beit Amna Bent Salim from 1540. Major Robert Grenville Gayer-Anderson, after retiring from a "colourful" British army career, spent most of his life collecting antiques from Egypt and the Levant and later bequeathed this house and its contents to the Egyptian Nation. For this he was rewarded with a title of Pasha, given the rank of Lewa’, and is still referred to by the guides as "our friend, Mr. Anderson." He seems like a kook of the peculiarly English colonial-type -- every room in the house has a different theme ("Turkish" or "Queen Anne" or "Chinese") and is decorated with museum quality plunder and paintings of his beloved dachshund and himself as the Sphinx. The place is so perfect that part of the "They Spy Who Loved Me" was filmed there for atmosphere. I really wish this was where I lived -- ghosts of ancient concubines be damned!



View of the summer room on the men's side of the house.


The screens that allowed the women to watch the men's side of the house -- the tiny window that opens is only a few inches across. It's all really just too depressing to contemplate.


Unfortunately, I couldn't get the opium pipes, ancient armour, gaudy chandeliers and sarcophagi in the shot as well.


Our friend, Mr. Anderson, was apparently the humble, retiring type.

For the next couple days, this is going to degenerate into one of those boring travel picture slideshow things. That's what happens when I get a day off. Sorry!

The Khamsin is still blowing through and today was an ugly, hot, windy, sandy, can't-breathe kind of day. Since it was also my only day off, I ventured into Cairo anyway to try to see something, anything, besides this 3-block area in Giza I have been trapped in all week.

I managed to convince one of the few people here without a hangover to share a cab into town and we went to the Ibn Tulun mosque (pics tomorrow), then walked through town and over to the Citadel (read more about the citadel here). After climbing to the top, there was a great view (yeah, whatever) but more importantly, the most amazing, refreshing popsicle (ice lolly) I have ever had the privilege of eating. After much sweet but confusing banter, the lovely girl who sold it to me managed to tell me that I had very pretty blue eyes. It made me blush a little. Thanks nice lady! With your sweet words and your magic frozen concoction, you made my day twice over!

There are relatively few Western tourists about, so we do stand out a bit, but everyone is generally very friendly. Sure, sometimes some of the "welcomes" were followed by "you have a very nice body" -- but whatever, I've heard worse ("Welcome, welcome to Egypt, you have a very nice body" is actually charming in a way). The trick seems to be to never make eye contact, which my two years in NYC more than prepared me for. Once again, my natural obliviousness and tendency towards navel-gazing pays off in spades!




The citadel walls


The approach is set up so you see nothing, nothing, nothing, then suddenly round a corner and get this amazing view of the mosque.


Ladies who show up dressed inappropriately are forced to wear ugly green robes as penance.


The view from the top. Behind the creepy Tim Burton tree growing out of the ancient palace walls, you can get a glimpse of the sand-clouded city.

The Khamasin started blowing today and has effectively brought all outside work to a standstill.

The Khamasin is the crazy fierce winds that hit in late March and cause sandstorms, car accidents, extreme hairdos and general unpleasantness. The word means "50" in Arabic and refers to the 50 days in Spring when it's most likely to hit.



Hair by Khamasin!

I'm somewhat sequestered from the life of the city out here in Giza. Most days I work from 7AM to 8PM (more or less, "work" being somewhat subjective) and am therefore limited to either the site or the three block radius that includes the villa and my flat, if for no other reason than that I'm so damn tired. I need to shake this jet-lag and venture out into the city. The three block radius, pyramids aside, is not especially picturesque.


The giant hole across the street from my flat. It's not a building site, it's just abandoned. It's hard to see in the photo, but there are actually dozens of chairs in the "basement" under the hole. Every day, when I walk past, I wonder what kind of meetings they could possibly be having down there.


The courtyard wall to my flat. The open shutters on the right lead into my flat. I heart graffitti!

Parts of the city look like they've been recently bombed. The blocks of flats lining the Ring Road into Giza all look half-finished, though actually, it turns out that people only have to pay taxes on their buildings once they're fully completed...so consequently no one EVER finishes a building. They build what they really want, then build one more floor on top that's left roofless, with rebar sticking out the top & is then filled with trash and/or farm animals. Not especially pretty, but canny.

Today, I've been contemplating the Plague of Flies, which is still haunting Egypt. I spent half my day flailing my arms around my head, like the crazy person I am.

My flat may also have bedbugs. Grrr. Goddamn mummy's curse!


Note the brand of flypaper: Fury!

Some suggestions for the kids:

10 Plagues Activity Kit
(if the link doesn't work at first, try reloading the page -- it's worth it, whoever made this really hates children)

10 Plagues of Egypt Coloring Book Fun

Touring the site with the Cambridge ceramic specialists. It's hard to represent the true scale of the site...trust me, it is big!


One of my favourite things about archaeologists is that they all dress like you imagine archaeologists should.


The reality of an archaeological site is that it can appear very similar to a trash dump. Here the rods with plastic water bottles on top are marking out the grid and the plastic bags are covering individual graves.


Where all the goodies are kept -- the store room. Watching the ceramic experts at work is both really amazing and like watching paint dry, all at once.

Last night, we snuck back onto the site after hours so we could watch the light show at the pyramids, which managed to be both cheesy and sublime all at once. Somehow the Sphinx's ridiculous plummy accent only added to the whole experience (you can hear a snippet of it here). The pyramids really are much more awe inspiring when they're lit up at night. During the day, they somehow seem smaller than they actually are...but at night they are mysterious and amazing, just as they should be.

Rather than pay the £60 Egyptian ($12) to sit where we could actually legally watch the show, we hid out in one of the tents until it got dark and then snuck back onto the Wall of Crow ninja-style, hiding from the camel-mounted security guards. While archaeologists are poor and cheap, mostly this was just done out of principle and because it is way more fun to do anything when it's illicit. So we crouched behind the rocks on the top of the wall and watched the show. Towards the end, the night-time call to prayer went out...and suddenly the usual five-times daily cacophony of competing prayer-callers (some better than others) was joined by the howling of the dogs that prowl the pyramids after dark. The call to prayers is eerie under any circumstances (Farrah thinks it sounds like something out of Night of the Living Dead), but especially so when you're laying under the stars, in the cold desert night air, giggling and hiding from the guards.

If you ever make it to Cairo, don't be too jaded to enjoy the light show (like some of our party...the poor saps). Even as a paying guest, it is well worth it. In fact, I may actually pay to go in before I leave just so I can watch the Sphinx's mouth pretend to move.



Farrah & I on our way to the site. Alas, there is no lipstick in the desert.


Sneaking around in the dark

Today I got my first view of the site and it has finally struck me how incredible this really is...I'm working on the most famous archaeological site in the world. How in the hell did this happen? Two years ago I was taking an archaeology class on a whim, and now I'm being paid to work in Giza. I am a lucky girl. Sometimes, anyway.

Farrah & I are trying to set up the GIS for the workers' village near the base of the pyramids, later extending the GIS to include the entire Giza Plateau. There's so much to do here and it is such an amazing opportunity. I am actually excited about my job again. Oh, I am in the first blush of love! I'm trying to enjoy it before the reality sets in...but right now, I am deliriously happy.





Contrary to what some people think, I really am in Egypt


The view from the site


The giant trench


A partially excavated room


Back at the villa

I arrived in Egypt last night around midnight and, after dosing myself up with Nyquil, finally slept for more than two hours in a row for the first time since last Sunday. Oh, sizzurp, why you so good to me?

This morning I met one of my new flatmates (Derek, the hungover Scotsman), but not the others, Freya and Erin, who are off travelling. The flat is fairly large, if not exactly plush. It does have a wrap-around balcony and views of the pyramids though, so I can't exactly complain.

We went into Cairo today to do some shopping and have a look around. Everyone else has already been here for a couple months, so it's all old hat to them but I was a wide-eyed innocent. The girls all went lingerie shopping and, based on the stores we saw, you wouldn't believe the trampy things those ladies have on under their robes and veils! Positively filthy, in a silly Frederick's of Hollywood way. All see-through fabric and maribou feathers. There also seemed to be an entire displaycase of what appeared to be feather/fake-fur merkins.

Tomorrow is my first day on the job, and I'll be getting a tour of the site and my first up-close view of the pyramids. Later that night, I'll be going to the Bryan Adams (yes, Bryan Adams!!!) concert at the pyramids. It's free & about the most perverse thing I can imagine. I'll take photos.

UPDATE: Bryan Adams at the Pyramids (God help us) was last night. We will be seeing the All-Egypt laser light show instead.

Tonight, I watched a British TV show called "My Penis and I" all about one man's obsession with his penis size. The show featured his admittedly smaller-than-average penis in various scenarios including in a penis-pump and in the painful clutches of Miss Cynthia Plaster Caster. This show was followed by one called something like "I Slept with a Celebrity," which featured various people who kissed-and-told minor Brit celebrities (and really, aren't they all minor? Excepting maybe Becks and Princess Di, and the show was notably lacking in people who slept with either of them). I have also seen a program that showed couples having sex and then having their performance critiqued by various sexperts and there is apparently a show in the works that will show a dead body decomposing...to air as soon as a volunteer donates his or her body in the name of posthumous celebrity.

This is either the future of American reality TV or a sign of the apocalypse. I leave it to Jen BB to sort this out, as she is an expert on signs of the impending apocalypse.

I left Austin at 6AM yesterday and arrived in London around 11PM. I caught one of the last trains of the night, but by the time I got to Ricky's the buses had stopped running. I've yet to understand how public transportation in a city as large as London can just grind to a halt when the clock strikes midnight. Can you imagine that happening in NYC? Bah!

A couple months ago I had an Elvis impersonator silently but graciously insist on giving up his seat for me on the tube. I'm half-afraid I'm going to find out it was some elaborate performance art piece, which would sully it. If you know of any Eastern European* Elvis-impersonating performance artists, please, just keep it to yourself.

* Though he didn't say a word, he just seemed Eastern European.


Riding the night bus home on an earlier, tipsier occasion

Whenever I'm in an airport, I start jealously eyeing the departure boards...daydreaming about the exotic cities I could swap for my prosaic destination. This time though there was no need to trade up, so I just sat there contentedly listening to the lists of connecting flights and pitying all the poor saps headed to Buffalo.

"Those large and beautiful ships, invisibly balanced (hovering) on tranquil waters, those hardy ships that look dreamy and idle, don't they seem to whisper to us in silent tongues: When shall we set sail for happiness?" -- Baudelaire

The villa where I'll be working.



The view from the site.

It's official, I got the job in Egypt! I'll be spending two months in Giza working on an archaeological site.

Special thanks to Greg Beets for naming the blog.