100 Posts! Last days in Egypt

CAIRO, EGYPT & LONDON, UK -- First off, this is my 100th post on this blog! I think that's pretty cool that I have now posted 100 times and I hope that you have enjoyed reading them.

Picking up where I left off last time...

Thursday morning we woke up early, walked over to Cairo's Ramses Station, and boarded a train up to Alexandria. The train itself wasn't that bad... it only took 2 1/2 hours. A friend of mine who took a local train from Cairo to Alexandria last year said it took them 6 hours. We paid 37 EGP one-way (about $6-6.50), whereas they had paid around $2.50 for the much slower (and sketchier) service. All that said, if they built modern gauges and proper rail lines, the trip could be done in about 1 hour... maybe in another decade or two, right? Anyway we got into Alexandria around 1030am, and it was very refreshing stepping off the train. Even though we had only been in Cairo for a few days, the pollution was overbearing, and just being able to step into clear blue sky and fresh air was wonderful. Furthermore, while Alexandria would still be considered crazy compared with any American or European city, the car honks per second ration was drastically less than Cairo, and the relative "quiet" was nice too.

From Misr Station we walked about 10 minutes to the ancient Roman ruins. Alexandria is located on the Mediterranean, and after Egypt was conquered in the 300s BCE by Alexander the Great, Alexander founded his capital city for the entire empire in 331 BCE and quite appropriately (if un-originally) named it Alexandria. After his death and in the ensuing couple of centuries, the power of Greece declined inversely to the increasing power of the Roman Empire. As such, Egypt, based in Alexandria, became a Roman territory, and most of the ancient ruins in the city have Roman origins. The center of Roman Alexandria was the Roman Theatre, which not-surprisingly reminded me of visiting Caesarea in Israel. Caesarea was built around the same time Alexandria fell under Roman hands, and the two cities share many similarities (located on the Mediterranean Sea, and being the "key" to an ancient civilization - Israel or Egypt). Relatively speaking, however, the Alexandria ruins are much larger and again this is logical, given that Alexandria was the second-most important city in the world for almost 1,000 years, only after Rome itself. Ultimately in the 7th century CE, when the Arabs invaded and took over Egypt, they founded a new capital city to the south at Fustat along the Nile, near ancient Memphis. A few centuries later Fustat was incorporated into the new capital Cairo, which has remained Egypt's capital for the last millennium.

Upon leaving the ruins, we took a quick taxi ride over to the other side of town, on the Sea, to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. To say that the library is impressive is a massive understatement. Sometime during the fall of Rome and subsequent Arab invasion in the 300-600s, the ancient Library of Alexandria, then-considered to be the biggest and best collection in the world, was lost. After Egypt declared independence from France and Britain in the 1950s, the idea of reviving the library was presented and over the course of the last 3-4 decades, it was slowly implemented. Fundraising began in 1990, construction started in 1995, and the Bibliotheca opened to the public in 2003. The dimensions of the building are mind-boggling... the main reading room is the largest in the world, and is built on an angle so that while it is all essentially one massive room, it is spaced out over 11 different stories. Computers, open tables, bookshelves (which can hold 8 million books), and museum exhibits all alternate on each floor. The top two floors are actually separate buildings within the building, and look like two books stacked on a shelf. If for no other reason, take a look at my pictures just to see the library. From the outside, 120 different human scripts are engraved into the walls of the library, and the roof of the building is parallel in slope to the main reading room. From the sea, it looks like the sun rising over the Mediterranean. The library was only 5 EGP to enter (under $1), and we caught a free English tour for about an hour. When we finished we had free internet access as well, which impressed me. The library also contains the only copy of the Internet Archive, which is a massive project doing exactly what it sounds like... archiving the history of the internet. Right now they're up to around 2007 I think. I guess the way I would describe the library was that if the United States was building the Library of Congress today, the Bibliotheca is what it would look like.

Outside the library we walked around... the complex is built into a massive reflecting pool, and contains a suspended Planetarium and a huge shore-side conference center in the shape of an Egyptian wildflower. From there we took a taxi out to the Alexandria peninsula...

After our driver getting half-lost and an attempt at an English/Spanish/Arabic/hand signals/look-at-the-map description, we finally made it to the Citadel at Qiatbay. The Citadel is a big fortress at the point extending furthest into the Mediterranean from Alexandria. From there we climbed along the walls and walked around, and had a commanding view of the city and entire harbor. Non-coincidentally, this was the original site of the Pharos Lighthouse of Alexandria. The Lighthouse was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (along with the Great Pyramid at Giza), and stood as the tallest man-made, non-Pyramid structure in the world for over 1,000 years, before an earthquake destroyed it in the 14th century. In the decade after it was destroyed, the Citadel was built out of the ruins. Many of the ruins also fell into the sea, and the largest underwater archaeological excavation site in the world is at the Lighthouse/Citadel.

From there we walked along the Corniche (beach/boardwalk) back into central Alexandria. We stopped for a Chicken Shewarma sandwich, and eventually made our way into downtown. We walked by the Egyptian Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which was a very nice monument, and past several of the famous downtown public squares (Midan Sa'ad Zaghloul Square; Midan Tahir Square). The city itself is quite a contrast (much like everything else in Egypt). Alexandria is the second-largest city in the country, after Cairo, and you can still tell that in its heyday it was a marvelous place to be. It's difficult to tell, however, whether it is on the upswing or the downswing. There are stunning French mansions all along the coast from the time of Napoleon's Empire. There are even a few antique British double-decker buses originally from London. The Library sure is stunning. But all of that said, the city is still run-down, and I fear the worst for it.

In any case we had a great day in Alexandria. We hopped back on the train just as the sun was going down, and got back into Cairo around 930pm. We walked back from Ramses Station in towards the hostel, and we found a local Koshary stand just a few blocks behind the hostel in the neighborhood. Koshary is the Egyptian national dish, and contains rice, macaroni, lentils, and a tomato base sauce all mixed in together. It was delicious and we got a huge tub for under $1. Crazy! From there we got back to the hostel and passed out after a long day.

Friday morning we woke up early, packed, checked out of the hostel, and set off for the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities after breakfast. The Egyptian Museum is the best museum in the country and essentially, it contains all of the relics found in the tombs of the Pyramids during the archaeological excavations, etc. This includes numerous royal mummies of Pharaohs and their wives. I remember a few years back the traveling "King Tut" exhibit was at the Field Museum in Chicago. This is its permanent home. The museum also contains the only evidence from the Egyptian side of the Israelites in ancient Egypt, written in hieroglyphics on a massive stone slab.

Clearly the collection is one of the finest in the world, and there is no arguing that. However, there was another side of the museum that really frustrated and angered me. In the past few months I have visited the British Museum here in London a couple of times. When you visit, most people feel a sense of guilt. The Museum is essentially a collection of all the artifacts the British stole during the reign of the British Empire, and while the collection is hugely impressive, the guilt trip is definitely there. Shouldn't the British do the right thing and return the sculpture to Athens? Surely the Greeks can take care of the Parthenon friezes now, right? The same thing is true of the massive Egyptian exhibit at the British Museum. The standard British defense is that they are "experts" and can take care of the artifacts appropriately. Personally, I have always interpreted that as snobbish British elitism.

At least regarding the Egyptian collection, I was wrong. Guilt trip or not, the British can and DO preserve these artifacts in a way that the Egyptian Museum currently couldn't even dream of doing. The Museum is not air conditioned, and does not have special lighting. Furthermore, only two exhibits in the entire museum have air-tight glass casing. There are virtually zero panels of descriptions on them to even explain what the artifacts are, and when there are, they are in tiny difficult-to-read fonts in a wide array of different languages (English, French, Arabic). Many of the exhibits are sitting on 2x4's on the ground with no ropes or other separation barriers between them and visitors. Sure, there is the occasional "do not touch" sign, but we saw literally hundreds of schoolchildren on field trips to the museum. Intentionally or not, many of them were running their hands along the stones and into the hieroglyphics.

I guess you can say I was (and still am) a bit outraged. Here the Egyptians have what is essentially an endless supply of tourism potential, both with the Pyramids and with the collection in this museum. Yet they treat much of it like trash. Walking around the back of the museum outside, many of the large stones are sitting outside, in the sun and dust and pollution of downtown Cairo, just rotting away. Where is the authority? Where is the interest? Millions of people want to see these documents and artifacts. Needless to say, I don't see the British giving anything back anytime soon, and I am perfectly fine with that.

After a few hours in the museum wandering around (no maps or anything to guide you), we headed out to Midan Tahrir, the main square in Central Cairo. We walked by the American University in Cairo, where President Obama gave his famous speech last June 2009, and on to Abdeen Palace. Abdeen Palace is the Egyptian Presidential residence in Cairo. The security guards did not appreciate us taking pictures, so after snapping a few we apologies and wandered off. Next we went to the Egyptian National Assembly (Parliament), where security was so crazy we didn't even have the nerve to take out a camera. It's a shame too - the building was beautiful and it would have made for a nice picture or two (you can tell in the small picture on their website). Oh well.

We cabbed it over to Gezira Island in the middle of the Nile River, downtown Cairo. More specifically, we went to the Cairo Tower, and took the elevator up 614 feet to the observation deck. From there we had a commanding view of the city. To the North you could see the Nile spread out into the Nile Delta. To the East we could clearly see our Hostel, the Egyptian Museum, Islamic Cairo, Al-Azhar Park, and the Citadel. To the South we could see the Nile flow to "Upper Egypt" for miles out, and just to the Southwest we could clearly see the Pyramids of Giza. It's very thought-provoking when you're standing at the observation deck in a building constructed in the last few decades. As you hear the car horns blaring, and see the pollution. See the Mosques and hear the megaphone call-for-prayer. All of the asphalt and concrete, the motorboats, and just the millions of people. And yet NONE of it existed 5,000 years ago, when those same Pyramids were standing in the exact same spot, looking out over the same Nile Valley. Just the Pyramids and the River, and sure, maybe 100,000 people or so. But certainly not 15 million. Or any cars. Heck the Pyramids predate Islam, and even Christianity. Monotheism and Judaism were a new concept in those days. Looking out at those towering Pyramids and thinking about all of this was a great way to end the trip.

After a quick lunch at the observation deck cafe, we descended to street level, walked back to the hostel, grabbed our things, and got in our car to the airport. Thanks to zero traffic on Fridays in the Islamic world (Friday prayers in Islam are the equivalent to Shabbat in Judaism or Sunday prayers in Christianity) we made it to the airport in only 30 minutes or so. The airport Terminal 3 just opened in April 2009, so it's not even 1 year old, which explained the spotlessness. Our flight was on-time, and by 9pm we were already on the Piccadilly tube line back here in London.

What a trip!!?!! I suppose I don't know what more to say. I clearly had a great time and we also clearly did a great job of packing a TON of things into a very short timetable. In hours, we were on the ground in Egypt for about 90, from wheels down to wheels up at CAI. My advice for anybody going to Egypt (or anywhere else for that matter) would be to do your homework ahead of time. I spent days researching all of this stuff before our trip, and in the end, there was only 1 thing on my list that we did not do (felucca ride on the Nile), and in exchange an extra thing that was not on the list, but that we did do (Dashur pyramid necropolis). We also did very well financially. Not including the flight (since, let's face it, you don't always have much of a choice there), or souvenirs (again, that's a very subjective thing), we ended up paying only around $225-250 per person. That's for the hostel, all meals, all cab rides, the train rides, pickup to/from the airport, driver for pyramids day, and ALSO includes all of the museum entrance fees, the national park fees, hostel internet access fees, bottled water everywhere, etc. Honestly I would have spent almost that much here in London on nothing but food! If you ever get a chance to go to Egypt, definitely go. As for me, I look forward to going back, though I would be equally happy waiting 3-4 years, or waiting 10-20 in the hopes that some of the infrastructure is vastly improved (metro line from the airport, a proper museum for all the antiques, national parks services, less traffic, less pollution, etc. etc.). Of course, if all of that improves, everything else will in turn get more expensive, so it's a two-way street. Next time though, since I'm assuming I'll be coming across an ocean instead of a sea, I think I'll try to do a longer trip and include Aswan and Luxor in Upper Egypt, and Mt. Sinai and Sharm el-Sheikh on the Sinai Peninsula. From there you could easily take a bus ride for 2 hours or so up to Eilat in Israel, and drive up a few more hours to Petra in Jordan. Count me in!

Since I got back to London I have been pretty busy. The first couple of days I was just trying to catch up on sleep and uploading/editing/posting all of my pictures (and unpacking too). Monday night I met up with my travel buddy Eric and several of our LSE friends and talked about the trip, which was nice. Yesterday I was busy actually doing some work for People to People, go figure, from over here! For the international Student Ambassador Programs that travel from the US to the UK & Ireland, there are local guides from here that greet the students at the airport when they touch down. Obviously these "Delegation Mangers" need to be trained, and the training for the DM's who will be working this summer is this week in London. My friend Charity is in town from People to People's headquarters in Spokane, WA, and we had a nice dinner over at the Mango Tree Indian restaurant I discovered with my Grandfather back in January when he visited. Then yesterday I spent the afternoon in Croydon, which is in South London. I gave a 15 min presentation on student perceptions of DMs and also staff perceptions of DMs (since I have a ton of experience on both sides). The presentation went really well. Apparently when they have covered the things I said in the past there are usually only 4-5 questions from the DMs in total, much like any other short presentation. After my 15 mins of speaking I took at least 30 mins of questions from just about every single DM in the room (maybe 30-40 of them?). So yeah... it went great!

Today my goal was to catch up on the blog (success!), go shopping for food (doing that next), and put together a group reservations proposal for Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon for April 2011.

That's about all that is going on! The weather here has been crap every day, which is fine, since I want to get started on one of these big assessed essays I have to write anyway. Italy in two weeks from today! Have a great week and a Happy Passover to all!

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