Boots in the Oven

Let's look at the Alps! In the dark. Oops.

This weekend, we're going to Umbria.  Last weekend, we went to Anzio, south of Rome.  But, the weekend before that, we went to...

Switzerland!

Wow, has it been great having Auntie in town.

When Auntie first started planning her trip to visit us, she had one request.  While she was here, she wanted to take a train through the Alps.  When she actually arrived, and we started planning the trip, it became apparent that this would be an 8-hour one-way train journey, so we were able to convince her that perhaps actually staying put in the Alps would be nice, as an alternative to showing up, tossing back a cup o' coffee, and leaving.

We chose Interlaken for our base of operations, since it's got great rail connections and is right near some of the loveliest Alpine peaks.  (Auntie wants me to tell you that Interlaken was also chosen because it looks very very pretty on Google Earth.) Off we went by train.

Train travel = picnic!

Big sweet green olives, salame milano (which was ok, but I bought waaay too much), a giant hunk of cheese we bought at the truffle festival in San Miniato (unfortunately, we forgot everything about it right after buying, except that the rind was washed in red wine to give it that color), tomatoes, oranges, and a hunk of pan forte (tuscan dense fruit and nut cake) for dessert.  Ah, and vino novello to drink, since yay!  it's that time of year.

Of course, the weather northbound through Italy was awful.  Foggy, gray, rainy, yuck.  Almost magically, upon emerging from the tunnel marking the border between Italy and Switzerland, everything cleared. 

It was getting dark already, so we only were able to take a couple of blurry pictures of encroaching Alps before losing the light.

As Auntie pointed out, it was great to be arriving in Interlaken by night - we had no idea what the countryside around the town looked like on arrival.  We were able to find our hotel without much of a problem, though - oddly enough, called the Hotel Toscana.

We had an enormous triple with CNN and MTV - which was playing American Dad in German when we arrived!  I wonder how well the humor translates.

We had a nice view of an all-but empty town.  November is too late for the summertime adventure sporters and too early for the skiiers and sledders.

The hotel had an interesting way of tracking keys - the little ones with the triangular tags were for the outside door, and you used them to pick up your much heavier room key.

Interlaken is seriously touristy - since this was low season, many restaurants were closed.  Husbear did some research and found a place serving "traditional Swiss cuisine" just around the corner from where we were staying.

I was clamoring for fondue, so I gave my full support to the plan - even after we arrived to learn the restaurant was housed in the Best Western.  Yeah.

Great interior, though - even if they were keeping it at 95 degrees in there.

We got some Swiss bread for snacking, which was different from Tuscan in that it was salted.  And very thick.  The butter was yummy, though, but that is to be expected in dairy-lusting Switzerland, a country where the most popular soft drink is 30% milk. 

And local beer, since though Switzerland is supposed to have some nice wines, we really wanted to take a break from the fruit of the vine while we were out of Italy.

It was cold outside, so we started with a couple of soups.  By the time they arrived, we had gotten so hot from the radiators in the restaurant that we were all sweating.

Auntie got a very good onion soup, which wasn't half congealed cheese like most I've had.  The broth was nice and beefy.

I got a consomme with marrow, which was nice but a little bland.  I think that's pretty common with consomme, though - not the most flavorful of broths, normally.  But I could see it being really nice as a starter on a freezing day.

The Swiss kids in my Italian class this fall couldn't stop talking about how much they missed Rostï, shredded potatoes sometimes cooked with bacon or cheese and served as a side dish with nearly everything.  So, a sausage with onion sauce and Rostï for us, please.

I'm reasonably certain this wasn't the Rostï they were missing.  Kind of like Waffle House hash browns if you don't get them scattered.  The sausage didn't have a snap to the casing, either, and the onion gravy was a little flat.  Ah, well.  Because sausages were not the most important thing about this meal.

Nope, that was taken up by....

Fondue!  Cheesy, cheesy fondue!

Melty, with a bit of a wine bite, truly awesomely delicious.  Unfortunately, only served with bread for dipping - it was really calling out for fruit, or something to break up the bready cheesy monopoly.  We dipped bits of our Rostï patty into the cheese, as well as some of the sausage.

That giant pot of cheese was fondue for 2, by the way.  All of the restaurants we saw would only do fondue for two or more.  The three of us finished perhaps just over half of the cheese, and our disappointed waitress chastised us when she came to clear the table.  "Too much cheese for you, eh?"

Yup.  We were bested by the fondue.

Calvados and conversation for dessert.  And a scoop of chocolate ice cream for Auntie, which came topped with 6 (six) blueberries.  We fought over them, desperate for some fruit or vegetable to end this cheesy sausage of a meal.

So, our first day in Switzerland, and we only managed to fit in one giant pot of bubbling cheese.  More later.

Friday, we woke up to see where exactly we had signed on for five days of fun.  I'll have to continue that later.

In real chronological time, we are leaving tomorrow for Umbria - Norcia, the town so famous for its pork products that many butchers in Italy call their stores "Norcinerie"  - and we're doing it all in a Smart Car.  The forfour, so we should hypothetically be able to fit three people and one suitcase.  Blogging on that, perhaps in December?

girlie

La Festa per Mangiare... e Ringraziare

That was me, last Thursday night, trying to explain Thanksgiving to two Japanese girls - of course, with the help of our friend Anna from Baltimore, and Auntie out of California. 

Thanksgiving is a festival for eating... and giving thanks.  And watching football.  Or playing football, depending on your family.  And perhaps, napping, and eating leftover sandwiches made of broccoli-rice casserole at two in the morning in front of the refrigerator.  Or eating an entire fried turkey as an appetizer. 

They understood perfectly when I told them that each family has their own way of celebrating, and that your way is obviously the only correct way.  Jun told us that it's exactly the same on New Year's in Japan.

Of course, being in Italy meant that putting together the traditional Thanksgiving feast would've been more than a little difficult, what with unfindable cranberries, nonexistent cream of mushroom soup, and hidden sweet potatoes.  We heard that turkeys are very difficult to locate, but we did see them in our market during our Thursday shopping time... we just bought a couple of ducks instead.  Eh, it's still poultry.

This meal was the first time I really wanted to have all of our beautiful table things, which are currently boxed up in Mandeville.

I still think we set a very nice Thanksgiving table.

Cheiko and Jun loved the exhibit of my paltry folding skills... "Ah, origami!  A bed for the forks!"

Husbear put out a beautiful finger-food antipasti spread, with these beautiful dates stuffed with gorgonzola

along with raw and cooked veggies to dip in bagna cauda, a warm anchovy and oil dip that is truly delicous, though it sounds suspect (those big celery-looking things are actually cardoons, and they taste like a mild artichoke - they're hanging out at the top with radicchio di treviso)

and pecorino served with two jellies.  The brighter one is a relic from when we went to visit Dario Cecchini back in September, while the other is a wine jelly from Mercato Sant'Ambrogio up the street.

All in all, a beautiful appetizer table.  Everyone fell to happily.  It's always so much fun to eat with your fingers!  Totally delicious.  Bagna cauda is probably one of my favorite things Husbear makes, and the fact that it's very very bad for me doesn't stop me loving it.

You know those ducks I mentioned earlier?  Well, at some point Husbear's going to do a post about the pleasures of breaking down two big ducks, and all of the possiblities inherent in a whole animal, but for now... he used the duck leftover after he broke it down to make a delicious, warm and hearty duck broth that he served with a crouton spread with roasted garlic.  This made for a nice pause between the heavy antipasti and heavy main.

And oh, the mains.  Husbear really went all out for our Thanksgiving feast.  There was a large range of vegetables, for the harvest. We had home-made creamed spinach (in a prosecco cream sauce), roasted green beans, a mash of celeriac and potato (the celeriac really lightened up the potato), and ridiculously wonderful duck breasts served with a rich tart red currant/orange sauce.

On seeing the creamed spinach, Anna announced "None for you - all for ME!"  We were forced to wrestle her to the ground, but luckily everyone got their share.  (Husbear had to hold me down to let others at the red currant duck sauce.)

But, after all, what is most important about Thanksgiving?

Spending it with friends and family.

I had a lot of fun, trying to be the translatrix for discussions of politics and entertainment in the United States and Japan.  You try explaining the concept of censorship as it related to pre-war Hollywood movies after nine weeks of Italian!

This was the first time we've hosted a dinner party of any size since we've been in Florence, and it couldn't have gone better.  We had such a wonderful time.

I wish everyone could have been here to share it with us.

Hello from Italy!

The house felt empty after everyone left... waah.

We miss you all!

The next day, after two or three hours of cleaning, off to Lazio to visit Anzio, the town where my great-uncle was part of an enormous invasion in 1944.  A great trip.

girlie

Happy Thanksgiving, Americans!

Unfortunately, no time for a real post right now.  We are currently up to our elbows in duck and vegetables, wrestling with cardoons and tablecloths, and preparing for a small Thanksgiving.  We've got us two, Auntie, a girl from Baltimore, and two from Tokyo gathering around our table tonight.  So, that's at least three languages, what with the bare-bones Italian!  Should be an interesting evening.

A lot to give thanks for this year, though we wish all of our families could be here to celebrate with us.

So, posts about Switzerland and Thanksgiving and Anzio (this weekend) will hopefully be starting in the next few days, once we clear off enough room on this computer to fit all of our new Alpy pictures!

A quick view from the train up to the Jungfraujoch:

A happy Thanksgiving to all.

girlie

Eating with Auntie... in Florence!

We should be in Switzerland right now, probably chowing down on a lot of fondue and raclette and cheese in other melted forms with Auntie, but I've got a post for you to keep you up to date on italian food!

So, what have we been eating since Auntie got into town?  You've seen the truffles at the festival, but man does not live on truffles alone!  (This fact may surprise readers of the cookbook the Silver Spoon, which has a recipe for a truffle gratin which, I kid you not, is made up of layers of truffles and cheese.  Only truffles and chese. Sounds expensive.)

I'm glad you asked, though that digression was perhaps unnecessary.

Well, we of course started with....

Gelato!

We took Auntie to Vivoli, the snootiest gelateria in four counties, to try their gelato.  It's supposed to be among the best, and it is pretty good.

I think she chose her gelato by color!  Chocolate, raspberry and pistachio.

All of our gelato that day was overly sweet.  We have to get this woman to Grom!

Husbear's been cooking his way through a whole duck he bought, so we've had duck leg confit in a salad served in tasty crepes.

We also took Auntie for a tour of our local much-loved market, Sant' Ambrigio, and finally ate at the trattoria inside.

We've been curious about it for a while, so it was good to have an excuse to go!

We ordered half of the menu, it seemed, and some of the dishes were definitely better than others.  Somehow, we ended up with a table full of meat - meatballs, meat-stuffed eggplant, stewed meat with potatoes... and pappa al pomodoro, the Tuscan tomato soup thickened with bread (that's in the foreground).  We also got a dish of peas with ham, and a vegetable sformato, or pudding with bechamel sauce.  That, along with the lasagna (which was also jammed with cream), were my favorites - what's not to like about bechamel sauce?

For dinner that night, we headed up the street to Il Pizzaiuolo, a Neapolitan-style pizzeria.  It's some of the best pizza you can get here in Florence, if you have the patience to wait.  I made the reservations that day, so we weren't able to get in until 9:30.  They were packed.

We ordered an antipasta we'd had before, involving Mozzarella di Burro.  When we visited Florence last fall with Mama Bear and GQ, we had the same antipasta at this restaurant, and got really excited upon hearing the name of the cheese... thinking we'd had donkey mozzarella.

Turns out it's mozarella in the style of butter.  Not as interesting, but very tasty.  The antipasta comes with prosciutto and sliced cured sausage, along with a small bruschetta topped with tomatoes and basil.  Yum.

The cheese looks normal, but then you pull out the fork... and all hell breaks loose.

It goops everywhere!  Luckily, they serve it on a wooden tray with a moat, or there would be seriously creamy problems.

We only waited another hour or so for our pizzas.  They were really good, when they came, but kind of soupy in the middle.  Definitely knife and fork territory.

And then, of course, the truffle festival happened.  Husbear had limited cooking time this week, what with being in class working on the upcoming restaurant simulation and with us leaving for Switzerland, so he went all out for lunch on Monday.

To start, the summertime treat of prosciutto e melone.  But wait, it's November!  Hey, the cantaloupes at the market were still looking and tasting quite good, so why not?

He wrapped the melone in prosciutto casalingo, which is one of the saltiest we've tried.

This dish really depends on melons that taste like melons.  It's a delicious salty/sweet combination.

And then, the man really outdid himself with this beautiful truffled pasta, served with cavolo romano.  It's on trofie, the traditional Ligurian pasta that's become one of our favorites.

And don't worry, it's an egg white sauce, not all cream!

Ohmygod, truffles are so crazy.  And that cavolo romano was delicious, too - and so pretty!  Nerd alert - I've always thought it looked kind of like a fractal.  A jewelry store near here uses this vegetable, along with eggplant, in their display window, and it makes me want to paint a room green and purple.

And, you will note the everything's-better-with-an-egg theorem being tested here.  Still haven't found an exception.

Food post over!  Back to your daily routines.  We return from Switzerland late Monday night, so lots of alps after that, if we don't get rained out!

girlie

da Rocco, inside Mercato Sant'Ambrogio.  Lunch only.

il Pizzaiuolo, Via de' Macci 113 r, 055 241171.  Reservations highly recommended, if not essential.

The San Miniato Truffle Shuffle

Oops!  I mean truffle festival.  Briefly misspoke, there.

It's white truffle time!  Tuber Magnatum Pico, to be exact, but tartufo bianco to the Italians.  It's the time of year for half of Tuscany, and almost all of the Piedmont, to turn into little else than middle-men for truffles, getting them from the ground to your face.

Not only that, but the time is NOW for vini nuovi and olii nuovi - the first, newly fermented wines from the grapes picked two months ago, the second from olives picked, oh, maybe last week.

San Miniato is a small town between here and Pisa that for a couple of weeks once a year turns into truffle capital, Italy.  The town itself barely merits a paragraph in our guidebooks, but it is lovely and worth a visit.  The three of us (Auntie included!) took the train there last Sunday on the advice of the student affairs coordinator in Husbear's school.

It was a bit of a pain in the ass figuring out how to get from the train station to San Miniato Alto.  I got told off in Italian by an angry taxi driver, who I rousted from lunch with his family before I discovered that there was a shuttle bus to the piazza just under the town.

This is what we saw immediately upon arrival.  The same crafts booths that are normally all over Florence, though there was a nice addition of some sort of steamed anise cookie machine.  Figuring "this can't be all" we walked up a hill into the town.

The view was typical Tuscan autumn hill town lovely.  I can't believe I can describe this as "typical."

When we made it up to the top of the town, we discovered that in fact the ENTIRE TOWN was in on the festival - like when we went to Boccaccesca, but San Miniato's a lot bigger than Certaldo!  There were also booths from other Slow Food towns in Italy - we were happy to see Positano represented, along with many others.

We found some sort of little outdoor food court with a menu composed almost entirely of truffles, and just beyond a giant tent.  Filled with truffles.  You wouldn't believe the smell.  I think my sweater still reeks of truffles, which is better than the diesel it usually smells like in town.

The tent was also home to vino and olio, too, so the truffles don't get lonely.

But the thing that had brought these people out in what, judging from their winter coats, was the FRIGID WINTER was really the truffles.  (Actually, the temperature hit 70 that day.  I have yet to figure out why the Italians bundle up so much.  Maybe November = show off new winter clothes, even if it's hot out?)

The more striking specimens were laid out almost like jewelry.  Would you wear this on a chain?

Huge piles of truffles were everywhere, just sitting out.  We looked at them reverently, but soon became a little blasé about the whole thing.  Hard not to, when they're everywhere!

The prices brought us back down to life, though.  Yes, they're quite a bit lower than they are at home.  No, that doesn't mean they're cheap.  The numbers on the bags under these specimens are their prices.  In euros, not Egyptian pounds.

This is the place Husbear bought his truffles for home-cooking. 

Many of the people selling truffles also had products made with truffles, from the ubiquitous truffle oil or jarred truffles through truffled butter, truffle jam, and truffle liquor.  The truffled sausages and truffled chocolate turned out to be housed elsewhere.

Husbear tried this truffled grappa, but decided that if the label hadn't said "tartufo" he would never have guessed they were included.

We did leave the tent, stinking of truffles, after a little while.  After all, there was a whole town full of booths waiting for us!

We didn't make it very far, though, before finding a wine-tasting tent.  Since she's not a drinker, Auntie took some pictures while we disappeared into the tent for a moment.

The sommeliers serving in this tent actually had those silver bowls on long necklaces!  The tent got jammed quickly.

Ha!  You got spotted, Husbear!  That giant camera really isn't good for stealth.

There was a very pretty overlook right outside of the wine tasting tent, so we escaped the crowds to stand there.  That tent seemed crowded at the time, but it was nothing compared to what we'd see later!

You could see the crowds starting to gather below, as more and more booths and shops opened giving out tastes of this and that.

This was the highest part of the town, so we walked down some stairs to the booths we saw just below.  That was where we found sausages, of the truffled and untruffled variety.  This butcher (macellaio) was hacking chunks off of that enormous soppresata you see wrapped under his hand.  It looked good (flavored with citrus, according to him) but we didn't buy any.  Oops - that would have been good snacking for the ride to Switzerland tomorrow!

What we did end up buying was chocolates from this local guy.  He had chocolate cell phones and a giant chocolate tower, made to look like the one topping San Miniato.  I was admiring his chocolates, the most interesting of which were stuffed with truffles or olive oil.  Really good - the truffles actually tasted like truffle, and the olive oil is a smooth creamy inside that is just like concentrated olive oil!

Unfortunately, only this blurry picture.  I'll have to get a picture or two of the chocolates before we eat them.  The diamante are filled with truffle, while the ones below are the olive oil variety.

At this point, Auntie elected to hang out and people-watch near the chocolate and sausages while we walked down a little ways into town to scope out the scene.

We found piquant wine-soaked goat cheese from a town outside of Rome, which we bought, and ceramic plates, and olive oil and vegetables, everything brought in from all over Italy.  The spread was amazing.

But, well, it was getting on towards dinner, so we returned to collect Auntie and to check out the open-air food court back at the top of the hill.  Husbear and I split up to attack two different booths and purchase dinner.  The procedure was straightforward - order, get a number, when that number's called, some portion of your order is ready.  My number had to be called four separate times, since I overordered a bit on the food.

I found necci for the table, those chestnut-flour pancakes.  Earlier in the day, they were available stuffed with lardo, that delicious cured pig fat, but those were gone and I had to make do with ricotta.

It was delicious, even though it wasn't stuffed with truffles.

The first thing ready from Husbear's order was fried egg with truffle.  Egg and truffle are a classic combo, and when you add Auntie, WELL.

At that point, the food started coming fast and heavy.  Pizza bianca con tartufi, a big oily dough circle topped with truffles.  Tagliolini con tartufi - that truffled pasta you see on the table.  Under the plate of eggs is a serving of fried fried fried polenta topped with a truffle sauce, while Auntie's holding fried flatbread with truffle sausage.

Not the most balanced meal, but here you have it:

Topped off with a nice plastic cup of vin brûlée (which turned out to be warm mulled wine), we had no complaints.

When we finished eating, we realized we had just enough time to catch the shuttle bus back to the train station to catch the 7:44 Florence train.  So, goodbye to San Miniato!

We got on the bus we had been told was going to the station... only to find out at the bottom of the hill that it didn't.  So, we walked probably a mile or more down a deserted suburban street towards the train station.  We did end up being in plenty of time for the train, so all's well that ends well, right?

Tomorrow we're going to Switzerland!  It will be our first time there, so we're pretty excited.  We'll be staying in Interlaken.  Hopefully, lots of pretty pictures from that, sometime next week after our return!

girlie

Our Last Days in Cairo

Last Egypt post!  (Well, I'm thinking about one showing off all of the license plates - they use actual Arabic numbers, instead of the numbers we use that we call Arabic numbers.)

Our night train arrived in Cairo four hours late, and the man sent to meet us seemed awfully relieved at our arrival.

Things went totally smoothly at the hotel, and we quickly jumped a cab back to Islamic Cairo.  We were wanting to wander a bit in the markets, pick up a couple of gifties, see more of crazy Cairo...

We started out with more fatirs, the pancakes which were our favorite Cairene eats.  Egyptian Pancakes Houssen it is!

They aren't pancakes, of course, or pizzas, like the menu implies.  They're fatirs, that Egyptian treat with the flaky pastry crust, but I think the menu was translated to help us white folks feel a bit more at ease...

We tried to order the "meat" pancake, but they were out.  (of meat?) So, we got the "Eastern Hot Dog" and egg options.

These weren't nearly as good as the other ones we had at the restaurant near the Nile, but they sufficed. 

We also ordered a dessert fatir, listed on the menu as "sugar and cream". 

Or Karo and cheese... sort of the same thing.  SO SWEET. 

Bellies once more filled, off into the souk we went.  You could easily spend months in this part of Cairo; there are so many mosques and madrasas to visit, never mind all of the stores jammed with silver, cloth, and household goods.  Most of these spill out into the street - and where the shops themselves aren't in the street, enterprising folks have set up booths.

And, don't forget the extremely forward sales techniques - nobody actually grabbed my arm to drag me into a store, but it came very close!

You could even feel the craziness with half of the shops closed for Ramadan and Eid.

I was giving thanks for dryness underfoot.  Apparently, burst water mains are really common in this area.  Look at this picture, and imagine what it would be like if the ground was covered in water.

After making a couple of purchases, we stopped for a drink and sheesha at el Fishawy, an establishment that's been open for 200 years.  Every day, according to our guidebook.

We got a bench seat quickly and ordered some tea and a shisha.  I have no idea why the only kind we were able to order, anywhere, was apple - good thing we like apples?

The mint tea was quite nice, with actual mint leaves in the glass.

Since the sheesha pipe lasted us a really really long time (apparently, we're very slow smokers), we were able to order another round of drinks.  I had a delicious mango juice that actually tasted just like mangoes, and Husbear ordered a sahleb.  We saw a lot of people enjoying the drink, which is milk thickened with orchid root!  It's served warm and SWEET SWEET with a topping of nuts and raisins.

We eventually relinquished our people-watching perch to go do a little more shopping. 

We even tried our hands at a little bargaining, and felt pretty good when we were able to drop prices by half.  I'm sure Mama Bear could have gotten them down another half.

There were mosques all over the place, but we didn't have the time needed to make a more in-depth study of the area.

Since it was getting late and we were feeling dusty and shopped out, we grabbed another taxi back to the New Palace. 

It was getting on towards time to figure out dinner, and I have to say that after only five days we were really tired of Egyptian food, or at least the kind we found in restaurants!  Fatirs were nice and all, but we had heard of a Korean restaurant in a hotel near the river.

Before you judge us, please realize that we haven't been out for Asian food since we left Austin, with the unfortunate exception of one horrific Chinese place here in town.  We had a serious jonesing going on!

But, I mean really, Korean food in Cairo?  What were we thinking?  It was about as good as can be expected.

We ended up back at the Nile Hilton.  Again.  I'm not sure how that kept happening.

This time was a little different, though, because there was a wedding going on!  You could hear it from outside of the hotel - drums and wind instruments and yelling and dancing and clapping.

We stayed at the Nile Hilton for a little while, enjoying some more of the Alexandrian Cru des Ptolomees wine and one last sheesha.  We then walked home through almost deserted streets back to our hotel, passing a building under construction on the way.  Here in the historic areas of Europe, when a building is under construction, it is usually covered with a screen with a painting of what the building would look like if it wasn't currently covered by a large sheet.

In Egypt?

Rugs.

The next morning, we struck some poses for the mirror in our hotel room, because, you know, why not?

Then, we said goodbye to the hotel...

And then, a short taxi ride, and a squabble over the line for luggage x-rays, we said goodbye to Egypt.

I'm not sure if it's a testament to the foreign-ness of Egypt or that we've been in Italy for several months now, but coming back to Italy felt comfortable.  Not like home, by any stretch of the imagination, but familiar.

It was wonderful to go to Egypt, but to be honest, I had a real sense of relief stepping onto the plane home.  Egypt highlighted for me that there are some places that, no matter how much I try, I'll never blend in.  It's a good lesson.

So, that's it on Egypt.  Next, we went to a truffle festival in San Miniato last weekend with Auntie!  Also, we went to an "international market" before leaving for Egypt that turned out to be full of delicious German sausages and Dutch pancakes. 

And - omg omg - on Thursday, we are leaving for five days in Switzerland!  Interlaken, to be more precise.  Woot!

girlie

Look at the Glory of the Ancient

Our second day in Luxor started early.  Well, again, early Egyptian style - which meant that we were told in no uncertain terms to be in the lobby, ready to go, no later than 7... and we left at 7:30 for our trip to the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens.

Our guide was a lovely Luxor native named Rihanna.

She may have been pretty, but she was also a stern taskmistress!  Continuous threats to punish us if we lagged behind were punctuated by pop quizzes to see if we had been paying attention to her information.

I thought she was GREAT.  Sometimes I appreciate a dictatorial bent in a tour guide.

We crossed a bridge crowned with an enormous photo of a waving Hosni Mubarak - whose grinning face can be found all over Egypt. 

Our first stop was at the Colossi of Memnon, so named by the Greeks (who were wrong about the provenance of the giants).  Off to the side, a young boy was grazing his donkeys. 

We only had a few minutes at the colossi, but that was absolutely fine since we had an awful lot to see and not much time to do it in. 

It was interesting to me to see how there are villages right in the midst of all of these ancient tombs.  In the time of the Pharaohs, the west bank of the Nile was reserved for the dead - because that's where the sun went to die at the end of each day.  Now, it's home to whole towns of people that make the alabaster tchochkes sold all over Egypt, or rent donkeys to tourists.  The Egyptian government has been trying to move these people since King Farouk's day, but they've had no luck and have occassionally met with violent resistance.

And yes, some of them make a living through tomb-robbing.  Old traditions die hard.

Next came the Temple of Hatshepsut, which was unfortunately the site of the Luxor Massacre in 1997.  I was aware of the killings before visiting, but I hadn't known this temple was the site.

Hatshepsut was the only woman to ever rule ancient Egypt as Pharaoh.  Her monuments can be found in the Valley of the Kings, though her nephew Tuthmosis III made a real effort to destroy any evidence that she had existed.  The temple survived because even Tuthmosis III didn't think it was a good idea to tear down a building dedicated to the wrathful gods of Egypt.

There is a large relief in the temple depicting an expedition Hatshepsut undertook to Punt (perhaps Somalia?).  She brought back myrrh trees and planted them in front of this building 3500 years ago.

For obvious reasons relating to what I'm sure was an uphill battle, getting the ancient Egyptians to accept a woman in charge, Hatshepsut had herself rendered as a man.  The statues of her have bared breasts, like the men.

Along with the usual glaringly white European tourists were a large number of Egyptians.  We took a couple of pictures of their styles of dress.  These women really cut quite a figure, with the perfectly coordinated headscarves and jewelry!  I wish I looked this put together on a regular day.

Soon enough, we had to leave Hatshepsut's temple to head to the Valley of the Kings.  We made one of the obligatory quick stopoffs so endemic on Egyptian tours - this one at an alabaster workshop.

Again, though, the demo was actually very interesting!  We saw examples of the process, from beginning to end.  The man in the above photo was using this hand-cranked machine to hollow out a hole in a chunk of alabaster in the process of becoming a vase.  It sounded like nails on chalkboard - all the hairs on my arms have gone on end thinking about it!

We did end up purchasing a couple of alabaster items, so it was worth their while.  We tried our hands at bargaining, and got the price down substantially - but they wouldn't move below a certain price, instead throwing in various other items "free".

Sorry for holding the rest of the group up a little with our haggling!

Next, on to the tombs in the Valley of the Kings.  62 separate tombs have been found officially, with the latest being just a couple of years ago.  The setting is desolate desert - but not so desolate, now that it's filled with tourists.  We heard an Englishwoman reminiscing about visiting many years prior, when the only option for getting to and around the tombs was on camelback.

The desert wasn't white, like the Negev, but it still had that sort of empty beauty.  Looking up brought men and children into view, climbing the hills all around the tombs.

The ticket you buy at the entrance gets you into three of the open tombs.  If you want to tour Tutenkhamun's, you have to buy an extra ticket for 70 LE, about $12.  We opted against this, since we had already seen his treasures in the Egyptian museum and we heard his tomb is rather small and unimpressive.  After all, he only ruled for a few years.  Makes you wonder what was buried with Ramses II and Seti, who ruled for lifetimes!

Going into the tomb of Ramses IV, Husbear asked me to pass him the camera.  Taking pictures, even without flash, is strictly verboten in the tombs, but I passed it to him...

He got a couple of amazing pictures of the inside of the tombs.

And then the camera was confiscated by a man in a galabiyyah.  I freaked out that he wouldn't give it back, but he did when we left.  Husbear didn't take amy more pictures in tombs.

(Later, we saw a guy in a different tomb confiscate a Japanese tourist's camera.   The tourist opened his wallet, and the guy took what he wanted and gave back the camera.  Another time that we failed to understand baksheesh in time.)

A couple of people in our group wanted to see Tutankhamun's tomb, so we waited outside for them.  Husbear walked up to the entrance to see how much was visible, and got yelled at - another guy, demanding 5 LE (illegally) for the privilege of looking at the outside of an open hole in the ground.

We were lucky enough also to go to the Valley of the Queens, where we saw Queen Teti's tomb and the tomb of Amunhirkhepshef (what do you guys think of that for the name of our first child?), a son of Ramses III who died in battle at the age of 9.  (!) In the corner of Amunhirkhepshef's tomb is a tiny skeleton, apparently a fetus spontaneously aborted by his mother when she heard of the death of her son.  Macabre, huh?

We then headed back to town, where I went to the hotel to wash off all of the desert dust and take a little nap, while Husbear left in search of food.  He found a very different noodle machine - different from the ones he used at the Italian restaurant in Austin!

The noodles were extruded onto this revolving griddle, which cooked them a tad and then scraped them off onto a plate. 

He picked up kofta (like shishkebob), taamiyah/felafel, some tahini (sesame paste) and a little salad of tomatoes and cucumbers.  I liked the kofta a lot - it had a really good grilled flavor, and wasn't too dry.  The taamiyah, again, was pretty greasy and undersalted, but was good in a pita.

When we arrived in Luxor, Gomal gave us the option ("decide now!") of taking a fellucca, one of the traditional Egyptian sailboats that ply the waters of the Nile.  As far as we saw, they are now used only for tourists, and our boat captain told us that they usually take out only one group a day, for two or three hours right around sunset.

The three-hour trip we took was very relaxing.  Our captain was great, laughing and joking with us and trying out English riddles.  He even brewed us karkade, the hibiscus tea, which was delicious as always.

It did feel a bit strange to be on a boat, on a river, and not be able to comfortably wear a bathing suit.  Or drink a beer.

We had a little stowaway.  He didn't bother us, so we let him hang out until he decided to take a plunge off the side of the boat. (I asked Muhammed, our boat captian, if this tiny Nile monitor lizard was his. He looked at me, "That crocodile?  No, that is certainly not my crocodile." I think he liked him though. -L. Pants)

It was wonderful to see the lives of the people along the Nile.  Children splashed each other, water buffalo grazed, men fished off of tiny boats. 

He even let us steer for a while (it may have been necessary, since he comprised the crew of one).  It was just as easy as it looks in these pictures.

I had a moment where I couldn't believe we were actually sailing.  In a boat.  On the Nile!  It snapped me out of some of the dissappointment I'd been feeling.  In a lot of ways, Egypt was what I'd been expecting - millenia of history against a modern backdrop, money fighting poverty, religious differences right at the forefront...

I just hadn't expected to feel SO out of my element.  Italian culture shock was nothing compared to this.

But this took my breath away.  We made it to Egypt.

Going back to Luxor we were reminded once more of the prevalence of American culture - at least the McDonald's related portions.

I haven't mentioned the nature of Egyptian security.  In most places, including our hotel in Luxor, tourists were allowed to just walk straight through security - while Egyptians were stopped and frisked and had their things turned inside out.

To be honest, it was a strange feeling that sort of added to the whole "old raj" feeling we experienced in Egypt.  Tourists were treated very differently than the Egyptians.  I'm still processing the feeling, but I know it wasn't pleasurable.

We left for the train station just before 8 to catch our 8:15 train.  I was concerned about not having enough time...

While we waited, on our platform, a crowd of young boys from Aswan surrounded Husbear and practiced their English on him, until a police officer came and shooed them off.

Our 8:15 train arrived at 9:00.  Sharp.

I felt like the train had a certain Eastern Bloc feel to it, but I found a plaque in the hallway giving the address of the company that built it - in West Germany.  Guess I was a little off on the provenance.

Next - our last day in Cairo (unless I just can't handle it anymore and stick in a post about something else.)

In other news - the house has lately been enriched by one Auntie, freshly arrived from Californ-i-ay!  Hi to her! 

(and WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, mostly, to the midterm election results.  Wow.  Look what happens when we leave!  My Italian conversation teacher thanked me yesterday... for the vote for liberty.)

girlie

Wanna see Luxor and Karnak?

Our NIGHT TRAIN from Cairo to Luxor was quiet and uneventful.  Apparently, this wasn't always the case, as even now tourists are only allowed to take a limited number of trains through the Nile Valley due to past terrorist activity.

They even fed us, though I have to say that this train food brought institutionalized commuter grub to a new low.  Oy.

We were supposed to be arriving in Luxor at around 6 AM, but luckily that estimate was off by three hours.  This allowed us to watch towns in the Nile Valley pass by as they woke from their Ramadan celebrations.

In Luxor, our train was met by a representative from the agency - his name was Gomal, but he called himself Friday - and we were taken to the Queen Valley hotel.  The hotel was entirely wonderful, with nice beds and a TV.  The TV got BBC World, which was a special treat since our TV here in Florence doesn't get any channels in English.

We had six hours to kill until we had to meet in the lobby for our trip to Karnak and Luxor Temples.  Husbear took his camera for a quick walk around town to get his bearings and learned that there were even fewer tourists wandering around by themselves in Luxor than there were in Cairo.

He met a cute kid on his walk who was willing to pose for a picture...

on the condition he could borrow Husbear's camera to snap this wonderful photo of his friends.

Luxor is much, much smaller than Cairo, and traditional modes of locomotion were more evident than they were in the capital.

Many of the shops were closed, it being Ramadan and all.  Many of the shops had "No Hassle Here!" signs, trying to draw in tourists tired of the hard sell.  Usually, the proprietors didn't heed their own signs...

Husbear was in need of a haircut, but unfortunately these guys were closed.  (Don't kids do this EVERYWHERE?)

Of course, Husbear soon started missing his lovely wife (who was completely maxed out on BBC World by this time), so he came back to the hotel to gather me.

And to change his bandages!  This was the first view I got of the thumb, which luckily appeared to be healing nicely.  (Since this, Husbear has had the stitches removed.  He still has several weeks of bandages ahead of him, but overall everything is knitting up well.)

After we rebandaged him, sawing through the new bandages with a vegetable knife begged from the bar, we left to get a little lunch before our tour.

We walked through the mostly closed souk (market) on our way to the main road.  We were sort of on the lookout for dried hibiscus flowers, because in Egypt they use them to make tea.  The best are supposed to be from the southern part of the country, around Luxor and Aswan, and we did find a guy who carried them in his tiny spice market.  A little bit of bargaining later, we were richer by one bag of hibiscus flowers (karkade) and a little bag of cardamom pods.

The owner, Ibrahim, absolutely insisted that we come into his shop and sit for a cup of karkade tea.  Once we understood what he was getting at, we were only to happy to oblige.  While we were sitting, enjoying our tea, Ibrahim took off and returned a moment later with a large sheesha.

He invited Husbear and me to join him in smoking the molasses-soaked tobacco.  I'm not a big fan of the harsher traditional sheesha, but I was fortunate enough to have an out, since smoking isn't ladylike in Egypt.  Husbear happily joined Ibrahim on the floor.

We had next to no Arabic, and Ibrahim had the same amount of English, but we had a great time.

However, time was running short for us to eat and get back to the hotel, so we extricated ourselves as politely as we could and walked over to the main road to locate some eats.

Husbear spotted a kushari restaurant, so he grabbed a serving to go in a plastic tub, but I was more interested in what this guy was selling on the street in front of the restaurant.

The kofta, on the left, was calling me, so I got a little bit of that in a sandwich with vegetables for, I think, 1 Egyptian pound.  Twenty cents.

It was good, but it made me crave a tasty Vietnamese sandwich.  Gotta make it to Southest Asia.

We also stopped at another street stand to get a taamiyyah - Egyptian felafel.  This kid had a little gadget for forming the patties.  He filled a little reservoir at the end, then depressed a small plunger and dropped a chickpea patty into the hot oil.

You have to love this packaging.  It's probably this kid's homework assignment.

Back to our hotel we went, now with full bellies.  Our group gathered just after 3 -  well, more like 3:30 - and the 15 or so of us piled into a couple of large vans for the short trip up the river to the Temple at Karnak, just north of town.

The Temple at Karnak is actually a giant complex that takes up 100 acres.  It's sort of a jumble belonging to different pharaohs, and the work stretched out over 1300 YEARS. 

The first thing you see upon entering is this long line of ram-headed sphinxes.

Around the ram-headed sphinxes are statues to Ramses the Second, who can be found all over Egypt with one favored sister-wife (or daughter-wife!) after another reaching up to knee-level.

Then, when you keep going, you suddenly find yourself in the midst of an immense forest of columns.  I've never felt so short and so insignificant.  The columns actually cover an area of 6000 square meters, which is enough to contain both St. Peter's and St. Paul's.  Yow.  Hard to conceive.

The tops of most of the columns are fashioned like papyrus flowers at various points during their life cycle.  Above, closed papyrus buds, and below, open papyrus flowers.

You can even see little bits of color, here and there.

Queen Hatshepsut, whose temple we went to the next day in the Valley of the Kings, had an obelisk and several reliefs here at Karnak, until her nephew came along and tried to remove her from the historical record.  (Egyptians at that time apparently weren't all about having a woman in charge.) 

Hatshepsut's nephew, Tuthmosis III, covered her obelisk here with a wall and had her cartouches (renderings of her name) chiseled out of the reliefs.  The end result is that her obelisk is remarkably preserved and retains some of the original color of the Aswan rose granite.

And, just to show that I'm a culturally insensitive jackass whose lack of understanding of ancient Egyptian culture (though I spent like half of my childhood at Chicago's Oriental Institute) can be directly attributed to Steve Martin's brilliant "King Tut":

Our much-too-short time at Karnak was soon over.  The least lovable thing about being part of a tour group; everyone has to leave at the same time.

This tour did offer us the wonderful opportunity to see Luxor Temple at night, though.  The Temple of Luxor is basically right smack in the middle of town, and there's actually a mosque sitting on top of a chunk of the ruins.  Apparently the townspeople wouldn't let archaeologists tear down the mosque to get to the ancient Egyptian ruins.

The approach, at almost-night, was unforgettably dramatic.

If you've been to Paris, and you're thinking, "Hey - that obelisk looks awfully familiar!", well, that's because its twin is in the Place de la Concorde.  Our guide told us that the French were offered the second obelisk as well, but getting the first one back to France was such an unholy pain that they declined the offer.  In return, the Egyptians were given that clock at the Citadel that has never worked.

The colossi, like so much that we saw, are of Rameses II.

Being there at night somehow made the temple seem even more alien and inaccessible. 

The reliefs in the temple, some of which were left by Alexander the Great, showed up really well under the lighting.  This one depicts offerings being made.

It must have taken months to do this raised relief style, which really did and does look a lot nicer than the sunken reliefs.  Lasted longer, too.

Here's another example for you:

These are the closed papyrus flower columns.  The whole temple was just heart-stopping by night; definitely a highlight.  And to think before we went to Egypt, we had no plans to go to Luxor!

A few more ramseses, in case you were feeling like you needed them.

We were running back out of the site, trying to meet up with the rest of our group before they ditched us, when this group of girls came up to me and started speaking animatedly, one of them waving a camera.  I figured they wanted me to take a picture of them, so I reached for the camera - the girl gave it up, reluctantly, and I took a picture.  As I walked back to hand them their camera, they started tugging at my arms and maneuvering me into their group; they wanted me to be in a picture with them! 

I smiled for the picture, then thinking I was done, started to walk away - nothing doing.  The girl who was taking the picture wanted to be in it with me, so she rotated in while another girl rotated out.  I think I ended up being in five or six of their pictures, and I really have no idea why!  Perhaps to show how those strange Anglo-Saxons dress during their leisure time?

But, well, now we have this awesomely strange picture.

And... that was our too-short trip to Luxor and Karnak!  Next, the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens.  And, I'ma gonna have to get cracking, since auntie arrives on... :gasp: Thursday!  She's been packed since August, though, so I think she's ready to be here.

girlie

Cairo: The Citadel, Hanging Church, and Egyptian Museum

Our second day in Cairo, we were lucky enough to have another Echo Travel bus (same as the previous day's), with a driver but no guide.  This was fine, since we were only going to be seeing the Citadel (a large hill overlooking the city, with Mohammed Ali's Mosque), the Hanging Church, and the Egyptian Museum.  Yasir, our guide for the Pyramids, had been OK - but not really that much more informative than my book.  We were ready to go it alone.

Cairo apparently has more police officers than any other world capital.  (Not that they appear to be doing very much about the disgusting sexual assaults that took place in Cairo last week during Eid.  This, however, is not the blog for discussing such things... if you're interested, check out these Egyptian bloggers: Alaa, Sandmonkey, and Mechanical Crowds.)

Whew!  Back to vacation happiness...

The main attraction at the Citadel is the Mosque of Mohammed Ali.

Considering the enormously long sweep of history in Egypt, this mosque isn't old at all - it was built between 1824 and 1848, though apparently the domes had to be reconstructed during the 1930s.

It is a nice building, though the level of filth on the outside was astounding - I guess it shouldn't have been.  Again, the pollution.

As we approached the gates, I was preoccupied with the fact that my shoes would have to come off and forgot to get my wrap out of my bag and put it around my shoulders.  This is how I found myself enveloped by an enormous green tie-front robe.

Comfortable and keeps the young flesh covered!  Great.

The ablutions fountain, in the center of the mosque's courtyard, is very pretty.  Nobody was using it while we were there, since the only people entering the mosque were tourists.

The courtyard also holds a large baroque clock, given to Egypt by France upon reciept of the obelisk from the temple at Luxor which now stands in the Place de la Concorde in Paris.  It doesn't work and never has. Those wily French.

The interior of the mosque was cavernous, and perhaps a little bit of a disappointment after seeing the churches of Europe.  The constellation of light bulbs was striking, though it seems like they would need to be changed almost continuously.  In fact, there was a large scaffold up on one corner for just that purpose.

The decorations were very different than those found in a church, because of the Muslim injunction against any depictions of people or animals.  This led to a lot of flowery script as decoration, but Arabic is a very pretty language to look at.

Groups of tourists sat on the floor, shoes in laps, nodding intently at their guides, a few unfortunates in green robes.

After a little more poking around I relinquished the robe and returned my shoes to my feet.  We then went to quickly view the cells dating from the Citadel's use as a prison - one housed Anwar Sadat during World War Two.  Currently, they're "under restoration" and none are open, though we did look in through the slats to see piles of garbage.

The view is one of the highlights of a trip to the Citadel.  Apparently, on clear days (rarer and rarer) you can see the Pyramids.  We mainly saw more smog, though the minarets of the mosques all over the city looked so different to our Western eyes.

The Police Museum was mildly diverting.  There were lurid stories of famous serial killers, including a couple from Alexandria who killed something like 30 girls for their jewelry.  This was alongside stories of assasinations, mostly by people belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood.  Sadat's was conspicuously absent.

Since we had a guy follow us around pointing out the cases, we were obliged to give him baksheesh - the Egyptian tip that makes their economy go around.  We never really did get the hang of tipping Egyptian-style; sometimes we would offer it to guides, who would then appear rather insulted; other times, we woudn't offer and would be asked "Was I a good driver?" or "Baksheesh, please?"  Maybe in another four or five weeks we would have gotten the hang of their tipping system.

Baksheesh is necessary since the average Egyptian salary is the equivalent of $90 a month, or 500 LE (Egyptian pounds).

Finished with the police museum, we wandered over to the area of the Citadel that's still military to see the exhibit of tanks from the Arab-Israeli Wars.  We got this picture for Dad.  Quick, what kind of tank is this?

Our time at the Citadel at an end, we went back out to the parking lot to find our driver, who took us to the Coptic area of town to see the Hanging Church.

The macabre name actually refers to the fact that the church seems to hang in the air, having been built on an old water gate.  Unfortunately, we couldn't find a good view to corroborate this, though a glass panel in the floor does show the lack of foundations.

This church dates back at least to the 7th century CE, though it is possible that it was originally founded in the 4th century as a chapel for Roman soldiers.

Though Egypt is about 90% Muslim, there is a Coptic Christian minority.  I didn't know very much about them, and I still don't, but I can tell you that they have their own Pope and are independent from the Vatican.  Also, their bible is apparently a hundred years older than the Latin bible, and they date their calendar from 284 CE (when Diocletian, an emperor they accuse of killing 144,000 Christians, took the Roman throne).

The outdoor breezeway leading from the street-level entrance to the church is lined with mosaics, including this lovely specimen.

The inside of the church really spoke to me, despite the fact that it was full of tour groups.  It's a dark, enclosed cocoon of a space.

The wooden screens placed around the church were a sight for eyes underwhelmed by the mosque earlier in the day.  They date from the 13th century.

Their pulpit is interesting - unfortunately, it was wrapped in plastic for restoration while we were there, but it has 13 pillars, which represent Jesus and the 12 disciples.  One pillar is black, for Judas, and one is gray, for Thomas.

After finishing up at the Hanging Church, we still had a little time before our driver was to return, so we walked down the block to the Church of St. George.  It's the seat of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria.  Sounds impressive, right?

It's round, because it's built on an old Roman gateway tower.  Not sure why both of these churches were fashioned on strange Roman foundations, but there you are...

The interior of this church is heavy, but not in an oppressive sense.  Very Greek or Russian Orthodox.  Also not very old, though - built in 1904 after a fire gutted the original, which dated from the 10th century.

Unfortunately, that was all the time we had for the Coptic area of Cairo.  We weren't able to make it to the Coptic Museum, which is supposed to be a terrific repository of Coptic art.

But - that was because we had to book it over to the museum of Egyptian Antiquities!

Just to give you a Plan 9 from Outer Space sense of temporal uncertainty, here's the only good shot we have of the outside - taken at night.

Back to daylight!

The Egyptians are very conscientious about allowing cameras into the Egyptian Museum.  They X-ray all bags and, if they think they spot a camera, they hand-search.  Of course, they found Husbear's big daddy camera, but the little one made it through...

Not that we took a lot of pictures.

I've never seen a museum as stuffed as the Egyptian Museum... according to my book, there are 136,000 exhibits, along with a further 40,000 crated in the basement.  Just about every available inch is covered with sarcophagi, mummies, canopic jars, ceremonial staffs, sculpture, funerary barques, mosaics, painted floors, steles, triads, jewelry, sphinxes, reliefs, heads, colossi, thrones, chests...

It is completely overwhelming... and because of Ramadan, it was closing in 90 minutes.

We had a quick decision to make.

Tutankhamun it is!

The exhibition of the treasures taken from the tomb of Tutankhamun takes up almost two wings of the museum.  And it was one of the smaller tombs in the Valley of the Kings!  As Husbear said, upon viewing his accoutrements, he really did ensure immortality for himself, in a way.  After all, almost 3400 YEARS after his death, here were all these people looking at his things and saying his name.

We took a probably illegal picture of his funerary mask, a masterpiece which beggars description.

Soon enough, we were unceremoniously ejected from the museum, along with our fellow tourists.  We did get a picture of the lotus and papyrus pond on our way out - symbols of Upper and Lower Egypt, respectively.  The lotus plants in this fountain (surrounding the papyrus) , are the blue lotus, which the ancient Egyptians used as a drug.  They dipped it in their wine, but today nobody is sure of the exact effects it had.

Since we hadn't known the museum was closing at 2:45, we had asked our driver to return at 4, which left us with exactly the wrong amount of time to do anything.  So, we took the path of least resistance, walked to the nearby Nile Hilton, and ordered a shwarma.  At least we knew they would be open, an assumption we couldn't make about the rest of the restaurants in Cairo, what with it being Ramadan.

We even had a bite of a semolina-based Egyptian dessert, which was very very sweet and not half bad.

Slightly more full, we walked over to our agreed meeting point only to find out that the road was closed.  We stood at the place we thought would be most likely for our driver to find us, but after a half hour we gave up and paid double the actual cost of a taxi to get back to our hotel.  For $2, it was worth it.

By that point, we only had a couple of hours until our night train (NIGHT TRAIN!) to Luxor, so we dropped our daypack and went out to have an actual dinner prior to leaving.  Husbear wanted to check out a kushari place, so off we went.

The place he wanted to go, off of Sharia Champollion, is well-nigh impossible to miss.

Abou Tarek was completely slammed, likely because we were eating very soon after sunset with all the fasting Cairenes.

I was the only woman inside not in a head-scarf.

Kushari is sort of the food of the people, in Egypt.  It's several different kinds of pasta, with lentils, a hearty tomato sauce, and fried onions and garlic on top.  You doctor it to your liking with a vinegar sauce and a hot sauce.  These were 3 LE each, or about 60 cents.  Very stick to your ribs, though not a particular taste sensation, really.  (I thought it was tasty.  -L. Pants)

After dinner, we returned to the hotel, where a gentleman named Saheed took us and our bags to Rameses Station and installed us on our... NIGHT TRAIN!

Another busy day down the tubes.  Next - wandering Luxor, Luxor Temple, and Karnak!  And Husbear's thumb comes out from under wraps.

girlie