How is it already February?!

I don't know about anyone else but I simply cannot wrap my head around the fact that it's February. I'm pretty confident last week was Christmas, but I suppose part of that wishful thinking is because it's February... and it's still cold, dark and slightly snowy... but there's no shiny Christmas lights to distract me from this fact. Ah well...

Christmas on this side of the pond was really lovely. We were taken in by my friend Beth's family and left sufficiently stuffed with good cheer and wonderful food. Christmas in England is really very similar to Christmas in the US, but of course you add in a trip to the local pub and Christmas crackers. OK, we all went to the pub because it was Beth's dad's birthday, but there were a ton of other people there as well having a Christmas pint. The Christmas crackers is a tradition I first experienced with Drew's family in Canada but you cannot have Christmas...or any office Christmas party apparently... without Christmas crackers. Why?? Because they contain silly paper hats that you get to wear throughout the evening and adults wearing silly paper hats is amusing... even more so after the aforementioned Christmas pint! 

Yay for Christmas drinks!

Christmas dinner carnage with Beth and Damian

After Christmas (and a Boxing Day trip to see the last Hobbit film) we waddled ourselves back to Cambridge to settle down for a long winter's nap... or so I thought. My dear husband however had other plans. He had planned a super secret trip to Rome for my 30th birthday which we left for on December 28th! I could post endless pictures from this amazing trip, but I'll try to narrow it down to a couple highlights. Over five days we managed to walk pretty much the entirety of the seven hills with stops at the Villa Borghese, Vatican City, the Forum and Colosseum, and some incredibly yummy restaurants along the way. I also got two extra birthday presents when my friends Liz and Jeff showed up to celebrate with me! And to those of you who sent your well wishes, wrote in my ginormous birthday card, and were there in spirit... thank you!! I am one lucky girl and I can't wait to see what the next decade has in store.

Overall it was a really amazing Christmas, birthday and New Year... so while I realize it is February, can you really blame me for wanting to turn back the clock a couple months?

One of my favorite Bernini sculptures... Apollo and Daphne

An ancient necropolis discovered under a parking lot at the Vatican, because where else would you find an ancient necropolis?

Yay birthday trip! 

Forum Romanum

I don't remember why I took a picture of this thing... I guess it's important?

One of the angels on the bridge leading to Castel Sant'Angelo

Very cool to see

How would you end your last day in Rome? By climbing to the top of the dome at St. Peter's of course!

Cows in the mist

After seeing all of the photos, FB posts and news stories of how horrible the weather is back home in the US, it seems very surreal to be writing this from England where the weather is still very much fall-like. There are still lots of leaves on the trees, some even in festive reds and yellows, stubbornly pushing off winter. While it is gradually getting colder and windier in Cambridge, it's still in the low 50s during the day. One drastic difference is the level of humidity here, which makes things seem much colder and damper than they actually are. I'm sure I'll grow to grumble more about this in the coming months and years, but for now I'm just amazed at the drastic change in climate that a little thing like the Atlantic Ocean can cause.

There have been some absolutely beautiful fall days in Cambridge though, and thankfully a couple of them fell on weekends when Drew and I were able to get out and enjoy the scenery. This included walking through King's College Chapel... I use this term loosely because as you can see from it's size it's not exactly what springs to mind when someone refers to a College chapel. It is breathtakingly beautiful on a sunny day when all the colors of the stained glass bounce off the walls and ceiling.

Punters on the River Cam with Clare College in the background

King's College Chapel

The altar which just happens to have a painting by Rubens above it.... you know, like most chapels do

I'll just let the ceiling speak for itself...

King's College also happens to be on my normal walk to and from the Archaeology Department and is home to two of my favorite new friends : ) I usually catch them in the middle of their breakfast as I walk past during the week, but on the weekends they're a little more laid back. They're also pretty hard to spot in the morning mist, but once that burns off you can appreciate them for their all their adorable fuzziness. May I introduce, the King's cows... *insert fanfare of trumpets here*

Drew and I have managed to get out of Cambridge a little bit as well, including a couple trips in to London. The most recent visit was to see the poppies at the Tower of London. I've posted some pictures of this on my Facebook page, but for those of you who are not on Facebook, or familiar with the installation, I'll include some more details here. This exhibit entitled, Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, was installed as a commemoration of the anniversary of the First World War. The ceramic poppies were made by hand and then placed one by one in the moat surrounding the Tower of London. In total, there were 888,246 poppies, one for each British military fatality during the war. If you wanted to read more about it, here's a link to the Tower's page: Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red  The installation was incredibly moving and has been the subject of a lot of attention over here. My pictures do not do justice to the magnitude of the exhibit or the emotion of coming face to face with the tragic loss of life in World War I, but at least I have them to share with those who weren't able to see it in person. 

This is where the poppies first started to appear in August. Over the summer, more and more poppies were placed until they eventually spread throughout the entire moat.

Of course traveling through London wouldn't be complete without seeing some of the touristy sites, so here is the requisite photo of Big Ben and one of the London Eye. Consider this your first reminder that you too could see these things if you organize a trip to visit us! 

Cambridge in the fall

Hello everyone!

I'm sorry that there's been such an incredibly long delay between posts (and yes, I realize I never got around to Part 2 of my Agatha Christie story). Fortunately, I am now in a country with wonderfully fast internet, no power cuts and very different scenery, so I will be able to share more of my new adventures with you.

I am now officially set up in Cambridge and after being here for two weeks I feel like I'm starting to get a hang of the place. Last week was incredibly busy as it was the first official week of term. I had department orientations, College orientations, formal receptions, my official matriculation, and lots of other running around to do. I do feel like I've made good progress in getting set up in a new country... phone: check, bank account: check, figuring out how to order online groceries: check.... I know, that last one floored me too. I can't explain how amazing it is to pick out all your groceries online, pick a convenient time for you, and a lovely person shows up to deliver said groceries at your specified time. Presto! For someone without a means of transportation beside their own two feet, it is truly life changing.

Some of my fellow students waiting to get lined up for the Matriculation photo

Me in my Harry Potter robes! 

I don't want to overwhelm you all (or myself) with too much in this first post, so I thought I would fill you in a bit on my College. Yes, I'm going to the University of Cambridge, but within that University are 31 Colleges which operate completely autonomously. Without trying to be patronizing... think of Cambridge as Hogwarts and each of the Colleges as the different Houses (don't worry I didn't get sorted into Slytherin). I am one of the newest members of Girton College. A really beautiful place that was founded in 1869 as the first women's residential college in the UK. I have to say I'm really proud of the fact that I'm part of a College that played such an important role in women's rights, both educationally and socially. I'm also a huge fan of the fact that I'm finally part of an educational group that has colors other than blue and gold! I'm not saying that I don't love those colors but a little variety is always nice. Girton's colors are green and red (yay Christmas!).

Girton actually has two sites in Cambridge. The main college, which is located about 2 miles out of the center of Cambridge (because the female students had to be far enough away from the male students when it first started!) and a newer section called Wolfson Court, which primarily serves as the hub for graduate students. While Wolfson Court leaves a bit to be desired architecturally speaking... one of the first conversations I had with a fellow student included him comparing the aesthetics of Wolfson Court to a nursing home... the main site is absolutely beautiful! It also boasts an indoor swimming pool, a duck pond, orchards that students are welcome to use whenever they like, and endless amounts of green space to have a picnic in or just relax.

I think I'll end there for now, but there's much more to come!

Girton's main gate. The building was designed by Alfred Waterhouse and I love the red brick

A beautiful courtyard in the middle of Girton

A is for Aswan, Agatha and Abu Simbel (Part 1)

Happy New Year Everyone! While 2013 was a rather crazy, stressful year, the last 6 months were pretty great... so here's to keeping that trend going in 2014!

As a Christmas/birthday/New Years present to ourselves, Drew and I decided to get out of Luxor for a few days and head down to Aswan. I think people who have traveled through Egypt will agree with me when I say that Aswan is truly one of the most beautiful places in the country. Clean air, beautiful water swirling around the Nile cataracts and picturesque temples floating on islands. The High Dam is not so picturesque but never mind that part.

As a fitting end to our wedding year, Drew and I decided to splurge and stay at the Old Cataract Hotel. This hotel is legendary in Egypt and the likes of Winston Churchill, Agatha Christie and more government dignitaries than I can count have stayed here. Drew and I spent a large amount of time sitting outside on the terrace of the hotel (especially at sunset) and on the balcony of our room which had a beautiful view overlooking the temple on Elephantine Island.

The view from the terrace at the Old Cataract where Agatha Christie would sit and write Death on the Nile. It also makes an appearance as a setting in the novel and parts of the movie were filmed here as well.

Drew was in such a good mood he even had a pomegranate mojito!

The view across to Elephantine Island

 

Aside from the awesome hotel, another reason for our trip to Aswan was to see Abu Simbel, the last major Egyptian monument that I had not checked off my list. It's about a 3 hour drive through the desert from Aswan to Abu Simbel but SO worth it. The site contains two temples, one for Ramesses II and one for Nefertari, and they were two of the temples saved by UNESCO in the 1960s from the rising waters of the Nile because of the High Dam. For those of you who have seen the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum in NYC, that temple was a gift to the US for their role in assisting with the relocation of several monuments during this time frame, including Abu Simbel. Had it not been gifted and relocated it would now be sitting somewhere at the bottom of Lake Nasser.

I won't bore you with a long Egyptological diatribe about the temples but they were constructed by Ramesses II during his extremely long reign. The temples sit near what would have been the southern border of ancient Egypt with the kingdom of Nubia and were constructed in part as a modern day equivalent of "Hey, look what I can do!" Today they're equally as impressive as both an ancient monument and a testimony to what people from around the world can do when they all decide to cooperate with each other.

The temples now overlook Lake Nasser, which is really pretty but also a very sad reminder of all the Nubian monuments that are submerged underneath it

I finally made it! 

Ramesses fall down, go boom...

 

Ramesses' favorite queen, Nefertari

While Nefertari's temple is much smaller than Ramesses' temple, I actually liked it better. The carvings were much better, in my opinion, and it was impressive without being overdone. 

This is the best image I could find to give perspective of where the temples were originally located and where they were relocated to. The mountains that the temples now sit in are completely artificial and hollow on the inside.

Stay tuned for the next installation of this blog post to hear about my birthday in the Agatha Christie suite and our New Years Eve celebration!

International Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!! I you are all enjoying a wonderful holiday season with family and friends : ) Celebrating Christmas in another country is always difficult for me as I would rather be home surrounded by loved ones and yes, even snow, but Drew and I did our best to make the most of the holiday in Luxor.

Drew was very nice and had kept the small Christmas tree that we had bought in Cairo a few years ago, which we were able to find some new decorations for, in addition to our awesome Egyptian snowman! He comes complete with a desert color scheme and sparkly galabeya (a traditional outfit for most of the men in Luxor… minus the sparkles).

In addition to our decorations, we were even able to find snow in a grocery store. Yes, you read correctly. You never know what you're going to come across in grocery stores in Luxor… it's sort of like a treasure hunt to see what goodies you can find hidden on the shelves. A jar of peanut butter here, a container of cream cheese there, OR a can of Funny Snow! Drew and I decided that we had to have two cans of Funny Snow and after buying it we promptly rushed home to try it out on our roommate's doors : ) Now we assumed that this snow in a can would be just like the stuff you can get in the US. You shake it, spray on windows until it looks suitably snow covered, repeat. So we set about spraying snow to our hearts content until…. sniff, sniff, sniff…. sniff, sniff, sniff…. why does this snow smell like roses?? Turns out that Funny Snow is in fact nothing more than aerated soap and sadly it dissolves into a rose-scented film in about 30 seconds. But we had a great time playing with it none the less.

As for the Christmas celebration itself, we had quite the international holiday. Christmas Eve was spent at the Marsam Hotel, which is owned by Klaus and Claudia… the same lovely people form the camel trek. They invited us to celebrate a German Christmas with them, which was absolutely lovely! Claudia completely out did herself with decorating thanks to LOTS of imported decorations that had been transported from Germany by their son. The food was absolutely phenomenal as well! The entire staff at the hotel went all out in preparing dishes and even made fruit and vegetable sculptures! The highlight of the dinner though was Klaus' sheep, which had come from his own flock and was soaked in three bottles of red wine before being slow-cooked in the over for 6 hours. Melt-in-your-mouth does not even begin to describe how delicious it was. And in case 3 bottles of wine in the cooking process wasn't enough, there was a delicious red wine sauce to pour over the meat. Needless to say we left there very well fed and very thankful to have had the opportunity to share Christmas with them.

The dinner table had this awesome veggie sculpture

And the dessert table had so many different kinds of carved fruit I lost count

Abd-allah and Drew getting in to the Christmas spirit!

Our Christmas Day dinner was spent with our roommate, Abd-allah, at a British tea room on the east bank of Luxor. It was his first Christmas celebration and he was a very good sport about getting into the spirit of things. Chris, the owner of the restaurant, prepared a full roast turkey dinner which was super yummy, but I have to say I think the highlight of the evening was the traditional Egyptian band that was brought in as entertainment. In addition to being an excellent cook, Chris is also an excellent belly dancer…. I am not.

So there you go, for those of you wondering how you celebrate Christmas in a non-Christian country, now you know : ) In the end the important things about Christmas can be found regardless of what country you're in: good friends, good food and good memories… and that's what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown.

Merry Christmas!!

Camels and Campari

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving Everyone!! I hope yours was full of family, friends and wonderful food… and maybe some football : ) Never fear I did get to celebrate Thanksgiving in Luxor and even had a turkey dinner that I think you will agree looks very similar to what we would eat back in the US of A… OK maybe minus the kebab. Our Egyptian colleagues were very upset however that this was not like a typical Egyptian feast/major party, i.e. there was no music and belly dancers after dinner. Maybe this could be a new tradition??

The great part about this Thanksgiving is that I got to celebrate it with Drew and our colleagues at Chicago House. What is a Chicago House you ask? It's the mission dig house for the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute. They've had a continual presence here in Luxor recording the sites since the 1920s. I'm sure Howard Carter had lunch at Chicago House at some point in his career, as did MANY other famous Egyptologists. It really is like stepping back into colonial Egypt. There's a beautiful open courtyard where we had appetizers and cocktails, then dinner in an enormous dining room… wing would be a better way to describe it…. and then pie and coffee in front of their massive fireplace. I understand it hasn't been lit in quite some time, but I did manage to snag it as the backdrop for an ARCE staff photo. (This is only a few of us btw.)

From L to R: Drew, me, our boss, John; our lead conservator, Khadiga; 3 of our archaeologists: Saad, Sayed and Mohamed Hatem; and the ARCE office manager, Adel

There is no such thing as Black Friday shopping in Egypt, so Drew and I opted to have a very lazy day recovering from the week and preparing for a big Saturday adventure… my first camel trek!! Before I bombard you with pictures, I have to admit prior to coming to Luxor and meeting the lovely people who took us on the camel trek, I did not like camels… I did not like them at all… I did not like them Sam I Am. The only camels I had experience with were at the pyramids and they were the dirtiest, smelliest, meanest looking things you'd ever want to come across. I am now proud to say that I have been reformed and am no longer a member of the camel haters club. This is all in thanks to Klaus and Claudia, our lovely hosts on our adventure. Klaus has loved camels since he was a little boy and living in Egypt on and off for the past 30 years has afforded him the opportunity to collect his own gaggle of camels. He is really something like a 'camel whisperer' and you can tell that the camels wouldn't have any other owner.

In any event, my camel for the day's expedition was Krum, while Drew got to ride the gigantic, stallion who Klaus refers to as "Big White". 

Krum is very good at posing for pictures I found out

Big White getting ready for the journey

After loading up the camels with snacks, drinks and blankets, we headed out into the desert for a nice walk. It was only about half an hour out but that was more than enough for someone was not used to sitting on a camel! We rode out to one of Klaus and Claudia's favorite spots to watch the sunset and started setting up camp. Now for those of you who are not familiar with camels (and Drew and I certainly are not) we were in for quite a surprise once we unloaded everything off our four-legged friends backs. Turns out that camels LOVE to roll around in the sand of the desert… at times it looked like they were trying to make sand angels. There's no way I could very well describe what it looks like to watch a camel kicking its spindly legs all over the place as it plays in the desert, but hopefully the pictures will give you a better visual…

Camel play time!

When they're all done rolling around to their heart's content, they end up looking like this…

Since the camels were enjoying themselves so much, it seemed only fair that the adults should have some fun. So we set out a picnic of chips and Campari and then discovered that Klaus had brought along a boule (bocce) set! For the record, playing bocce in the desert is exactly what you would expect it to be… insane! 

The small dark brown blob in the middle of all the silver balls is what we were supposed to aiming for…riiiiight

It was a great end to a Thanksgiving weekend with wonderful new friends… both of the human and camel variety. 

Me, Claudia and Claus