Day 3-The Egyptian Museum

Hello All-

Happy Holy Day. Here in Egypt, the work week is Sun-Thursday with Friday observed as the Holy Day (kind of like Sundays but there is still lots of commerce). There are churches here that have Sunday services and I wonder how well attended they are…will have to see. There is at least one Catholic and one “community church” within a few blocks of us. The only difference I can see in my neighborhood is that the nightly call to prayer goes on like forever on the loudspeaker. It is like the whole service is booming into the apartment. Kind of neat. Friday is also garbage pickup day for our building and our Boaab (kind of like a doorman/maintenance man/security detail) went round and knocked on the door requesting our trash. It isn’t like Raleigh where we generated uncharitable amounts. Until I know where I can get something, I am not throwing out a single carton. I might need that for Arabic translation or something…..

Day 3 was a busy one …. We all made it up before 11 today (woohoo) and I think we are probably well on our way to jetlag recovery. The day started slow and a tiny bit sad. I think Aedan is a little homesick. He asked to write to Franklin. Here is what he said: “Hi Franklin! It is way hotter here than Raleigh. The pool is warm. Love Aedan.” When I asked Aedan to tell Franklin one fun thing we did, he just shrugged. When I asked him how he was feeling, he just replied, “Egyptians don’t like Americans” (parroting a certain family friend who reflected his concern for us most inappropriately in front of the kids). When I pointed out several people in particular that had been nice to us, he replied that they carried guns so that they could shoot us. Oh goodness…how to explain a militaristic state to a 5 year old???

Anyway, an hour and 50zillion versions of “let’s keep an open mind” and “we are the world” later, we head out in the heat….It takes HOURS it seems to get out of the house. Most of the problem is the money. Egypt is a “cash economy” and everyone keeps their money in the proverbial sock drawer. Hardly anyone takes plastic. This is a big change for us but a welcome one when I saw the pile of US receipts I have yet to enter into Quicken. The problem with cash, however, is keeping track of it…especially when you can’t read the numbers too well. Even though Egypt is a safe country, I never think it a good idea to flash cash and even 20LE (about $4US) is a lot of money to most Egyptians…so the question is, how many pockets can you utilize and remember how much money is in each. For example, a taxi wants 5LE, right front pocket, museum is 100LE, Ashley’s purse second pocket, etc etc. Needless to say, the kids put on their shoes and stand there with eyerolls wondering when their parents will get it together. Virginia has decided to use the “downtime” to pack and repack her bunnies in the Barbie backpack that her cousin Kirra gave her. She doesn’t want to leave them behind “when we move to our new home”. I wanted to tell her that we were home but couldn’t quite do it as we are still lobbying the university for an apt slightly closer to Aedan’s school and Joe’s busstop. There is little chance of a move but the chance is still there. So we drag the bunnies everywhere. At least it isn’t her ratty blanket “bebo” although she still asks about it all the time when we are out of the house (where is bebo? Will we get bebo when we get back? Is Steinem sleeping on Bebo Etc etc)….

I managed to break Aedan’s anti-Egypt funk by insisting that he call the cab for us. It is really fun to hail a cab in Cairo. You just walk to the street and yell “TAX (insert the name of where you are going here)” So Aedan yelled “TAX-Egyptian Museum”. One appeared right away out of nowhere (wizard magic). Another funny thing about Egyptian taxis…you tell them what you want the fare to be. If you are in the ballpark, they may haggle with you and then take you. If you are too low, they will just zoom off without a word. Trying to get them to reveal the true price is impossible. The upside is that you can get a really good fare if you know what you are doing. The downside, we don’t know what we are doing. Luckily, my mom friend-Maria gave me some ideas on basic prices so we wouldn’t get horrifically ripped-off.

We head into what Joe calls the “rat-trap stinkbomb…can you believe this car is still running” to the famous Egyptian museum. While Joe is waiting in line for the tickets (almost always it is the man that does these sorts of manly buying things), I ask around about a tour guide. We got a great one! An Egyptology graduate from a 4 year university spent almost 2 hours one-on-one with us. The kids adored him. I haven’t learned as much in the books over the course of my lifetime as I learned from him in 2 hours. Lesson learned: A guide is a must. There are almost no signs in the Egypt museum. You wouldn’t want to listen to one of those audio-guides either…there is no air-con and it is too durn hot in there for anything. Still, we bore the heat and saw the most amazing sites. The kids (especially Virginia) loved hearing about the mummification process. We saw the famous sarcophagus (and gold and blue head thingee) from King Tut. We saw all kinds of stuff from Ramses II and Queen Hapshepsut (Virginia insisted on spending equal time discussing the queens…I was so proud of her!). I really can’t describe the experience. It was all really awesome. The preservation is amazing. I mean, the museum is essentially half as nice as the Raleigh Art Museum and still, the artifacts are right there…you can touch them. The Ancient Egyptians were really good at the mummification thing. There were still remnants of ancient organs (Virginia: “ewww” Aedan: “awesome…I want to see them again!”) and a mummy-dog that looked almost lifelike. Aedan loved reading the hieroglyphics which are pretty easy to understand with a primer. Then Virginia had to go to the bathroom. This was a dreaded moment for us because there really are no such things as public restrooms in Cairo. There was something in the museum but we paid dearly for it…about $1 for someone to show us to it who then followed us around the museum until our guide Naref told him off in Arabic. It was embarrassing and I am going to insist she go before we leave the house from now on. Anyway, bathroom aside, the museum was really really neat. This is a must do for those of you coming to visit!

When we could stand the heat no more, we bid Naref goodbye and went to hail a taxi home. Joe and I were carrying both kids by this time so there was no running up and yelling “TAX”. Some guy tried to charge us 50LE to get to the nearest Starbucks-halfway home and twice as much as we paid for the entire trip up to the museum. I was proud of us that we walked away. I mean, it was only $5 too much but still, he was trying to rip me off and I told him so. After I had my say, he looked pityingly at Joe who just smiled (with pride, I would like to think…ha ha). Uppidy woman!

It wasn’t long (like less than a minute) before I found another taxi that agreed to our reasonable price. He dropped us off right at the oasis (Starbucks)! Unfortunately, the Starbucks will open tomorrow (“God Willing”). I wanted to tell him that if God was a merciful God, then He was definitely willing since I hadn’t had a proper chai latte in 5 days! I didn’t do this….one uppidy remark per day is my limit and never anything having to do with religion J

We did find another café and happily munched on some paninis, brownies, and lesser-chai. Then, like a beacon in the darkness, we found a supermarket! A real one! With real stuff in it! With prices listed on the items! All in one shop! We got some much-needed supplies there and I feel confident that our family will have something to eat in the coming week. What a relief!

We returned home by a third taxi. All in all, our day cost us $63 (not including groceries but including dinner). Not bad for a big day out for a family of 4. Still, we worried that we should maybe put together a budget since we have so much “easy” cash and a lot of time to spend it in. The great news is that the university actually gave us some “settling in money” to buy things like a washer/dryer, TV, iron, toaster, etc. We figure that we already have a washer and if we don’t buy anything else, we can definitely travel on the cheap a bit before school starts. We are still considering a TV. I don’t know. We think that our Wii will be popular enough that we could find someone who would have a TV and want to play with us. We do have our video screens so we can technically play Wii…It is just an adjustment to play Guitar Hero on a 5 inch screen. J What do you think? Invest in a TV or bag it and travel more?

Well that is our day. Tomorrow we hope to see the pyramids at Giza. The kids are itching to see them and we can’t wait (other than the unbearable heat this time of year). If we do go, we’ll be sure to post a few pics. Oh and one final random remark…..quite a few Egyptians has mistaken Joe for a Spaniard (like from Spain) and have tried to engage him in Spanish. I am not sure what he makes of the rest of us (probably doesn’t notice us) but this provides us all with a good laugh. Ole!

Love,

Ashley