LUXOR PART II

to continue my rambling:

we woke up very early 730 and had a very good breakfast this is the list of food that each of us was served-cucumbers, tomatoes, cheese, white bread, pancakes, apricot jelly, honey, butter, sweet lemon juice, yogurt drink with fruit in it. what a great way to start the day.

next came the bikes, this vehicle was central to our plans today, unofortunately, it seems as if all the bikes owned by happy land are old and waiting to fall apart, especially if you push them like we did riding to valley of the kings. WARNING: you must have a bike mechanic with you if you take a bike out. just kidding but some knowledge would help, but there are lots of people here who can fix bikes for you. it is a bike town. my chain popped off i don't know how many times and i even broke it once. my suitemate's bike back wheel somehow got out of alignment and couldn't go anywhere. thankfully there are some very nice people in luxor who fixed these problems for us.

we biked to valley of the kings 8km. all a slow uphill, not to bad a ride if you have gears and it was a cool day. it was neither for us. but it was worth the ride and we saw three tombs. rameses ix, tuthmosis iii, and ramses i. in these tombs i really felt like indiana jones. to get to them was sometimes small and cramped down steep passageways and opening into sometimes large tombs. the coolest one was tuthmosis iii. he did not want his grave touched by robbers at all, unfortunately it was 3000 years is a long time to not try and get robbed. he built his tomb at the very end of the valley up in this crevice and then from the crevice steeply down into the rock. you have to cross over a 15-20 pit 10-12 feet in diameter to get to the antechamber. from there is was down another steep slope into the burial chamber itself. the painting in many of these tombs was very well preserved and we made up stories about what was happening in some of them.

after leaving hear we went to the temple of hapshepsut in which ws this huge temple carved out of limestone embedded in the the rock walls itself. it was too stories with lots of columns and carvings. and walking up the steps to the temple's second floor i tried to imagine that i was there thousands of years ago making an offering to the gods or glorifying my leader.

valley of the kings and temple of hapshepsut were dead, dead, dead. nothing grew, there was scorching sun, and lots of sand and rock. it was blearily oppressive. you could disctinctly see on both sides of the nile the deliniation between where there was and was not water.

leaving these places of death we returned back, turned in the bikes showered and laid around for 4 hours recovering from this mighty adventure. then we went out for dinner at surprise surprise a koshari joint. not bad and then walked around. i bought some stuff at the fair trade shop, which i was very happy to see, and then we tried to find the church in which we were going to go to easter mass for. we walked out to the catholic church which was not the one we were planning on going to and was therefore closed. greg was not feeling well so him and ahmed went back to the hostel. i found the church it was the holy family latin catholic church in luxor and had church. it was a pretty neat service, with the normal procession that is done on easter but it was in french, arabic, and english, but mostly french.

then i called home to some family to wish happy easter after church and walked along the corniche (road along the nile) at 1130 at night it was peaceful quiet and mercifully free of touts trying to get me to go on a carriage ride or felucca to banana island. (i will never forget that phrase). we slept ate breakfast the same delicious thing again and then returned home on the day train.

the best drink i had in luxor was aseer asub. it is a juice made from pressing the liquid out of sugar cane, naturally delicious (no pun intended). it quenches the thirst and is green.

the one thing i didn't like about how the run the trains here is that they allow more eople on then there are seats. i understand why they do it (i think), my guess is because you can buy a cheap ticket but not reserve a seat and just hope you find an empty one, which is good for people with less money but it means that often many people i saw children men women and old men and women forced to sit or stand behind the seats at the end of each car. and nobody would let me give them my seat (especially to the older women). my roommate was able to but i wasn't, frustrating, because i didn't have the language skills to tell them except to point to them and say you and then point to my seat and say chair here. and my roommate as a good hospitable egyptian i was not insistent on my behalf to get them off the floor and into my seat.

i returned home got to my 1.5 hour english class 45 minutes late, of which they were still there (one of the others led a discussion for me) i was so happy that this happened and very grateful. we talked of piecharts, priorites, and emotions. the emotions were the hardest to explain in english to a group with a limited english vocabulary but they are bright and got it.

this weekend was also notable for the fact that i finished and read most of ernest hemingway's for whome the bell tolls. it was the first of his that i read and was very good. i like his style of writing and the way he creates the imagery in the book. i became heavily invested in the characters and couldn't stop reading for about six hours or so on the train.

long enough, today i am 21 and ready to become a man. i will celebrate by having a beer with my coteacher after class, watching jericho, doing hw, and talking to my brother (the only one of my brothers and parens in maryland at the moment) it should be great. low key and relaxing, just the way i like.

peace