Mom in Egypt-Luxor 1

I wish I had writing skills enough to let the few people who read this blog know how happy I was/am that my mom came to visit. There is nothing to compare to the unconditional love of a parent and I needed some of that sweet love here in Cairo. Mom, Miss Myles, Little Mom, Mimsy, Gale, came to Egypt and fully impressed all my friends, was a perfect guest (would you have guessed otherwise) and made her oldest daughter very happy. We did a whole bunch of crazy tourist fun stuff, including a trip down South to Luxor. The following pictures are only a glimpse of all the ancient rocks, tombs, things made out of rock and rock with stuff drawn on it that we saw.

To get to Luxor one must either fly (very expensive), drive (no car), or take a ten hour train ride. I forced my mother onto a train less than three hours after her flight into Cairo and we both passed out. Taking a train in Cairo is pretty easy if you have any clue what platform to go to (there are no logical signs) and are able to get tickets. Getting tickets is tricky because all the tourist agencies buy up the first class seats (you do no want to take anything else) so that tourists are forced to buy through them as this is the high season for Luxor/Aswan. Katie and Paul helped me figure this out after their multiple failed trips to the train station to buy tickets. I learned from their efforts and called a friend. Always the thing to do in this country.

We arrived to Luxor after passing out and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast. The hotel manager met us at the station, we assumed we would get in a car, but instead we walked to the hotel! No, we did not stay at a classy hotel, it actually cost 60 LE a night (a little more than ten dollars) for the room, but he walked us to the hotel anyways. There we met katie and Paul who were also vacationing and immediately signed up for a guided tour to the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, Hatshepsut Temple and the rest of the West bank of the Nile. Normally I would not do a packaged tour but there is a lot to see and dealing with the hassles of multiple cabs and their desire to rip us off would have ruined all the old stuff viewing. And see old stuff we did!!!!!! Woot woot old stuff.

Hatshepsut's Temple.

People digging up actual artifacts in the Valley of the Kings, doesn't sort of look like an Indian Jones movie scene?

Mom, being an epic tourist at Hatshepsut's

Pretty stuff on old rock combined with mildly artistic lighting.

Entrance to the temple.

Old face, there were three of these outside of the temple doors.

Next stop these two really big statues, called Colossus, our final stop in a very long and fun filled day.

I turned 24 and someone figured out where a Nazi died!

Shocking news on the front page of the NY Times, they found a particularly horrid Nazi death doctor and he was living in Egypt! Well, they did not find him but, it was figured out that he had been living in Cairo and died here of rectal cancer. Which seems like a fitting disease for a Nazi to die from. Here we all thought all the Nazis were hiding in South America, turns out they were in the Middle East. I suppose if you stopped and thought for a minute hiding in the Middle East would really make more sense.

Odd thing is that this guy converted to Islam, I thought fascists hated religion. Only thing they have in common in Communists right?

In other news I had a great birthday. People actually showed up to hang out with me! Shocking! I feel sort of old, but not really. I do think 24 is the first age after college where is does not really sound like you could still be in college. I have identified myself as a students since the age of 6 it is a little hard to speak about myself in another way. I suppose I will have to find a new way to hyphenate my name. Faye - ?

Any ideas?

A lesson in dependence

One would assume traveling to a foreign country, without friends, with no teaching experience and no Arabic would be an excellent lesson in independence. Being independent is part of the reason we travel right? Plus I am an American woman and we are a rather independent breed. Oddly enough coming to Cairo is turning out to be a lesson in dependence.

My birthday is a prime example. Normally I am all over plans, I know exactly what I want to do, who with, and I probably have an outfit picked out. A little over zealous? Yes. But, planning has always been part of the fun for me. I think for the last three years I have made reservations, mapped out a bar route, double checked the invite list, and made sure people were on board with my plans. Tomorrow I turn 24 and I just invited people today, I had to call a new friend to help me make reservations at a club, I will have to ask someone to help tell the cabby how to get there, and I will even have to ask a friend to help me get bottle service.
Side note: I am not really a baller with bottle services, but in Cairo you can bring your own liquor into clubs for a fee. It ends up being a better deal, especially when you have non-craptastic Egyptian alcohol.
I have little to no idea where to go on a Monday night in Cairo, I have no "must do activity," all but one of my roommates will be on vacation, and the old guard of friends are far far away. Things are a bit different this year.

People who know me at home know I have a hard time relinquishing control. I like to cook the whole meal or not cook. I like to plan whole trips. I like to know what is going on. This part of me is shrinking here in Cairo and I can't say it is all bad. My inner Martha Stewart is dying. I am learning how to, hopefully with some grace, be happily dependent upon other people for plans and how to go with someone else's flow.

Tomorrow I turn 24. Not a huge milestone, although it does sound like an age when you are no longer in college and that seems old.

Tomorrow I will celebrate a birthday with a party that I barely planned, did not check the invite list 12 times, did not pick out an outfit yet, and will ultimately have no control over. I am not worried though because a few good people will be there, others might come, there will be dancing, and there will be laughs.

Tomorrow planning will not be part of the fun, being there will be all the fun.

Tomorrow I will get older and less independent, luckily in the right kind of way.

Tomorrow my lesson in dependence continues.