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Published: August 8th 2007
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Getting our bearings in a city of 18 million With our late night arrival, there’s no way we’ll get out of our beds early in the morning. The first thing on my mind is laundry, and I am ecstatic to see that Tita Marie has an American washer and dryer in the apartment. In fact, it’s one of the reasons they took the apartment in the first place. Score. Who thought I’d ever be happy about laundry? I only have three days in Cairo before I jet off to Orlando for my radiology conference, so I have to make the most of it. But with all the activity in London, it was really only on the flight to Cairo that I read the guidebook and figured out the must-sees. To keep it simple, all I want to do is go to the Egyptian Museum and to Giza for the pyramids. I also want to eat Egyptian falafel, called taamiya, which is made with fava beans instead of chickpeas. I had a taste of it in an Egyptian restaurant in San Francisco and am dying for Leroy to try it. It’s a pretty short list and very doable. An early lunch is
Egyptian Museum
Unfortunately, cameras were not allowed in the building. our first activity, and Tita Marie takes us to Swiss Chalet. Khaled, the driver, navigates the insane streets of Cairo, where it’s not unusual for cars to go in the wrong direction in a roundabout because they don’t want to go the 300 degrees around the circle and would rather travel the 60 degree arc in head-on traffic. Manila is beat, and I didn’t think that would be possible. Swiss Chalet serves up Italian and Swiss cuisine, and the lentil soup is sublime. We both order lamb dishes - shoulder for Lee and chops for me - while meat-eating Tita Marie goes with beef. It is our first lunch with her, and we will soon learn that she is a bit of a germ phobe. It proves to be useful in a place like Cairo, where traveler’s diarrhea is almost inevitable. She warns us against poultry because there is avian fly still lurking about, and she is adamant that we not defer to our street-eating whims. She will get us the taamiya and other Egyptian dishes, but from clean sources. A bottle of Egyptian red wine accompanies lunch, but we determine it to be too sour, although improved by aeration.
Tita Marie has been in Cairo for about 10 months, but their previous station in Rome for six years means that red wine like this will simply not make the cut. A kindred spirit, I see.
King Tut is the man After a brief rest, Khaled (the driver) takes us through pre-weekend traffic to the Egyptian Museum, where the star of the show is King Tutankhamen. But I am also psyched to see Ramhotep and Nofret, Ramses, and Cheops (Khufu). The Eyewitness guidebook we have has pictures, and these distant figures of 9th grade art history are now right in front of me. Unfortunately, they won’t even let us bring our camera into the building; they turned as away at security and made us check it into a pink building near the ticket office. I remember little of the historical context or artistic value of each piece, but I do remember the importance of the deities and why the pharaohs built tombs and encased within them everything they would need in the afterlife. I also recall that I’m not a big fan of the god Anubis, the jackal-headed deity of embalming. For those who saw Ben Stiller’s Night at
Pinay Ako!
Representing da 'ppines in Cairo the Museum, it was the figure of Anubis that those two giant guards of the mummy took on. Our goal is to get through the museum in one hour - just the highlights. Since it is a simple two-story building, it’s not hard. Every corner is jam packed with objects, most are not labeled. Only the important pieces get a paragraph description in Arabic, French, and English. I’m glad that Egypt’s prize historical and artistic objects are in their rightful place in the country, but I do wish they would invest in this museum. Most visitors hire a guide at the entrance who takes them through and explains the pieces. I join English or Spanish groups at my leisure, but I think the museum should make the information available to all without the need for a guide who you have to pay and give baksheesh (tip).
The Amara gallery, with its less stylized and more realistic depictions of the human form is beautiful. But we must get to Tut. All the other visitors must be thinking the same thing. The portion of the museum devoted to him is quite significant, and there you can see his sarcophagus, his many
coffins, the alabaster canopic box that held his four viscera (liver, intestines, lungs, heart), each of them in their own Tut-like coffins. Like Russian dolls, everything was encased in another object. The canopic box was within at least five gilt boxes. His treasures were there - everything from jewelry to schwabti (figurines of servants to do his labor in the afterlife), a gold chair with a beautiful painting, down to bouquets of flora from thousands of years ago. Of course, King Tut’s death mask was the most beautiful thing there - his face looking through from a very distant past, in gold and blue. If ever the King Tut exhibit travels again, you all must see it. We leave the museum disappointed at not seeing the Royal Mummies, but we didn’t want to foot another £E 20 ($1 = 5.6 Egyptian pounds) after having paid £E 25 for the museum entrance. Besides, we only had a few minutes before Khaled was due to pick us up.
Seoul BBQ in the Maadi After picking Tito Armando up from work and hanging out at home blogging and sipping on chianti, we head to Seoul BBQ for dinner. It is one of
Sakara Gold, Egpytian Beer
Me and Tito Armando toast to Egypt at Seoul, Korean BBQ. their favorite restaurants in Maadi, the town where they live, and the Egyptian woman who runs the front is married to the Korean man cooking in the back. Tita Marie is friends with them. Leroy gets assigned cooking duty, although we all chip in so we can cook and eat. Sashimi, bulgogi, pork, and all the panchan… delicious! They also told us their stories - how they met, why they left the Philippines, where the U.N. has sent them (Amman, Jordan then Gaza then Rome then Cairo). We finish off with coffee at Green Mill, but this turns out to be our downfall. Lee and I end up wide awake until 3am, which means another late start tomorrow.
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Mandell
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Hey
Leroy....great speaking with you this weekend...hang in there cousin....love you, can't wait to see both of you guys next month....RUN HARD!!!