nature's acrobat...

 As you've no doubt figured out from other recent posts, when not rushed to go somewhere, my spouse and I like to dawdle over breakfast coffee and enjoy the antics of the birds.

This morning we had a glorious cardinal and its mate as well as a woodpecker and a tufted titmouse at our feeders.  I wasn't quick enough to get a picture of the cardinal, but that flash of brightest red against the snow was thrilling.

What we didn't anticipate was this little acrobat who made his way over the squirrel shield and up the shepherd's crook then down to the bird food.  I guess it helps to have little bitty 'hands' and feet that can grab hold of anything.  

Interestingly, the birds didn't try to chase him away. 

snow day...

a view of our snow capped bird feeders

 Today we had snow, lots and lots of snow.  It's the first time in years that we have had a steady all day snow fall.  I think we got five inches, maybe six.  It may not seem like much in some parts of the country but here in northeast Indiana this much snow in one day is very rare.

My spouse was so excited that he went out and bought gas for his snow thrower that he hasn't used in four years.

Early in the day the birds had a feeding frenzy at our feeders.  I think they sensed a big change coming. We even had a woodpecker show up for the first time.  

The sad thing is every school age child is wondering, why now?  Why not on a school day?

Sorry guys, there will probably be school on Monday.  

tradition

 It has been my tradition for many years to put up my Christmas tree sometime during Thanksgiving weekend.  For at least 43 years it has been the same tree.  As my spouse says, I have certainly gotten my money's worth out of this tree.

I have always encouraged any children or grandchildren who were around to help with the decorating.  

Today was the day and my helpers, in addition to my spouse were one son, one granddaughter and her boyfriend (the one she says is "the one").  He is very nice so I approve. 

I read a description in a novel recently of an 'old fashioned' artificial Christmas tree, the kind where you stick the branches in the trunk one branch at a time.  When I read that description I realized they were talking about my kind of tree.  

This morning I got the tree assembled and this afternoon my helpers strung the lights.  Now I can take my time hanging ornaments.  I have many!

Happily we also had plenty of time for snacking on apple pie and playing "5 Crowns" (a vicious card game which I lost spectacularly).  This is just the way an afternoon of tree decorating should go.  The season is off to a good start.

And here's my tree, festooned with lights and waiting for the ornaments.

counting...

 Today is the day for counting our blessings

for remembering all the good in our lives

all the good people

friends and family then and now

the ones we love and the ones who loved us

all the good times

past and yet to be

HAPPY HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!

May you fall asleep counting your blessings.

sooo good....

 Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day which means that today, at least at our house was Fudge Day.  

At least twice a year, for very special occasions, like Christmas or Thanksgiving, my wonder spouse makes fudge.  And not just any old fudge.  This fudge is made from his mother's recipe with a few tweaks of his own. He makes some with nuts and some without using dark chocolate cocoa powder and many other secret ingredients.

It is delicious and extremely addictive. Remember the old ad "You can't eat just one?"  It's true.  

My primary job this morning was to clean the bowl and spoon after the fudge was poured into flat glass dishes to cool and harden.  It was a messy job but somebody had to do it.  Yummy.

I also leant a hand cleaning up a little boil over on the stove and a little sugar on the floor.  Both signs of lots of productive activity. 

Tomorrow we will pack up the fudge, as well as some ham, an apple pie and real whipped cream (our contributions to the feast) and travel 20 miles to our son's house where we will indulge unashamedly in an eating orgy.  

But we will also remember to be thankful for all the blessings in our lives.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Have a blessed day.

a last look at Egypt

 My mind is still full of memories of Egypt but I have already shared the highlights over the last several days.  This evening I want to share just a few fun/interesting facts.

Did you know that many of the ancient Pharaohs were actually fat?  It makes sense, considering that they were immensely rich and waited on hand and foot. But they were never portrayed that way.

Here they are looking typically slim and trim.

Not fun but interesting - did you know that polio was a disease that existed 3000 years ago?  I didn't get a picture of this piece but their is a bas relief carving of one Pharoah with one leg much skinnier than the other and DNA has confirmed the disease.

it is estimated that the "flight into Egypt" Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus' escape from Herod, was a journey that took three years.  And we thought that our 28 hour travel day to get home was a long trip. 

The Coptic area in old Cairo celebrates that flight into Egypt everywhere in paintings and sculptures.

A carving over a street in the old Coptic area of Cairo.

Someone asked me this week if I would go back to Egypt.  My first response was to say no.  It was a once in a life time experience.  But, on second thought, if I did go back, it would be to spend more time in Cairo.

This was the night scene from the balcony of our hotel room where we stayed for the first four nights of our trip.  The traffic over the bridge only eased up for about one hour at 5:00am.  The constant beeping of horns is the music of Cairo.

Ahmed Waasfat was our most faithful and gracious and patient guide through our entire trip.  Viking always provides the very best.

sharing Egypt

 On Monday afternoons my spouse and I each tutor a third grade boy as part of the Fort Wayne Community Schools Study Connections program.  This afternoon we went prepared with souvenirs to share with the entire group (9 students) and stories to tell about our trip.  It was our first time back to tutoring since our vacation. 

The students and their tutors were greatly entertained with my spouse's explanation of what it feels like to ride a camel and impressed that we had gone on a balloon ride.  One of the little girls in the group said her grandparents are from Egypt and are coming to visit. They all seemed to really like the souvenirs we gave them.  

After the group discussion my student and I discussed things more fully.  I was astonished that he has heard of Anthony and Cleopatra and he was quite impressed that I had been in a play about them.  It turns out that they are studying the history of Rome, Greece and Egypt right now.  He was fascinated by a little chart of hieroglyphics and spent some time drawing his name in a cartouche In the ancient Egyptian style.  

All in all a delightful finale to our Egyptian adventure.

I will show him this picture of the cartouche of Queen Nefertiri (not Nefertiti, a different one) next week.

the GEM

 Just a week before we went to Egypt, the grand opening of the GEM, the Grand Egyptian Museum, was held.  We were lucky enough to spend almost an entire day at the museum during our time in Cairo.  

In the museum they have nearly all of the treasures discovered in the tomb of King Tut.  King Tut, rightly Pharoah Tutankhamun, became a Pharoah at age nine and died at 19, of illness, not murder as was once believed.  He is remembered more for what he left behind than for what he accomplished in life.  His tomb was the only one found that had never been robbed, so it gave archaeologists the best idea of how lavish the burials had been. Here's a sampling of what was found there:

This is one of several gold plated coffins in which his mummy was entombed. One inside the other like Russian dolls.

This is the side of one of four large sarcophaguses in which the coffin was contained, again one inside the next. Each box was covered in gold.

Some of the figures (servants for the afterlife) found in the tomb, made of gold and precious stones.

This is our guide, Ahmed, who really deserves mention in this saga.  He was with us from our first day in Cairo through the entire trip.  Like all of the guides we encountered he was an Egyptologist which means he had at least a bachelors level degree in Egyptian history.  We learned so much from him.  He had a boundless enthusiasm for all things Egyptian.  

This is a view of some architectural details of the GEM.

Another of the gold covered sarcophaguses.

Abu Simbel

 One of the monuments that was absolutely on my list to see was the giant figures at Abu Simbel.  When I was in college and studying art history we learned about the ancient monuments that were being threatened by the construction of the Aswan High Dam (which we also got to see).  To save the two temples from being covered by water they were moved piece by piece and reassembled on an artificial hill high above the reservoir. 

I don't remember who the four figures represent but the small figure nearest the camera is my wonder spouse who helped me over the rough spots and made it possible for me to visit all these sites.

The cartouche of Queen Nefertari.  The giant temples were commissioned by Ramses II to honor his queen and himself.

the valley of the kings

 One of the most amazing sites we visited in Egypt was the "Valley of the Kings," a wide, long area of desert containing King Tut's tomb, and the Mortuary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, the only female pharaoh. In addition to these and several other royal tombs, they have excavated an entire village of workers homes.  The contents left behind in these homes indicated that the workers who built many of the fabulous monuments were certainly not slaves but well paid skilled artisans.  Comparable, in my mind, to the builders of the great cathedrals of Europe.  

This is Hatshepsut's funerary temple, three stories high and lavishly decorated inside and out.

Two paintings from the walls of King Tut's tomb.  His mummy was there but all of the lavish wealth with which he was buried is now in the fabulous new museum in Cairo.  The brand new GEM, Grand Egyptian Museum, deserves a page of it's own and I will write about it in detail tomorrow.

King Tut became pharaoh at the age of nine and died when he was nineteen, of illness not murder as was once believed.  

the city of Cairo..

 I decided to break away from ancient history this evening and give you an idea of what modern Cairo is like.  

First, the traffic is unbelievable.  The constant beeping of horns is the music of Cairo, as buses, cars, motorcycles (carrying up to five people) donkey drawn carts and pedestrians share the streets of Cairo.  Lane markings are evidently just for decoration.  Vehicles of all descriptions and ages change lanes, or better yet create their own lane, drive the wrong way on one way streets, and generally disregard any and every traffic law as casually as you or I would flip on a turn signal (which they never do).  The one control are massive speed bumps placed randomly that do slow down the flow of traffic, at least temporarily. 

One of the things we observed as we were driven around Cairo were many unfinished apartment buildings.  It was not unusual to see buildings with ground floor businesses, then one or two floors of finished looking walls (having windows and balconies).  Above or between these finished levels were totally unfinished levels with no windows or other enclosures.

We learned, during one of our talks on the ship, that young men in Cairo live with their parents until they are married. But they do go ahead and buy an unfinished apartment.  Really, really unfinished. Outside walls, some interior divisions, but no windows, flooring or any other finishing.  There's not a lot of concern about rain damage.  When the young man "feels the spark" (our guide's term) and decides to get married he can honestly tell his future father-in-law that he owns an apartment.  Once they are officially engaged, his fiancee goes to work selecting flooring, light fixtures, kitchen cabinets, furniture and anything else she thinks they need.  By the time they get married everything is ready.  They do not live together before they are married. 

If they should happen to get divorced, the wife keeps the apartment. The children, if there are any stay with her.  Women get married at about age 29, men about 33 or older.  Women often do keep working in their careers but it's their choice once they are married.  There is a substantial dowery involved, contributed to by both sides of the family.  

A view of the lobby ceiling of the hotel we stayed in for our last night in Egypt.  One of Cairo's finest.

Notice the stream of traffic on the bridge at the left side of the picture, now imagine everyone of those cars beeping non stop. Happily, when we closed our window it did block out the sound. This picture was taken from the balcony of our 8th floor room in the hotel we stayed in for our first four nights in Egypt. 

Pyramids...

 It will come as no surprise to learn that the largest items on my bucket list while in Egypt were the pyramids.  They did not disappoint.  Larger than I ever imagined, they rose majestically from the desert sands, where they have been standing since approximately 1000 years before the time of Moses.  

At the site of the pyramids Paul took a camel ride. I took pictures.

The Sphinx was a surprise.  Much larger than I anticipated.

Imagine them originally covered in polished limestone. 

The step pyramid, the earliest attempt at a huge tomb, has always intrigued me.

The best picture I could get of all three.  If you're guessing that it was HOT and sunny you are right.  It was easy to accept that we were in the Sahara desert.

Home again, home again....

 After a 28 hour day of flying from Cairo to Heathrow to Chicago to Fort Wayne we arrived home at 12:10am this morning. It is great to be home but we did have a wonderful trip.  

Visiting Egypt was an amazing once-in-a-lifetime experience, and Viking is definitely the way to travel.  Over the next week I will share some of our favorite experiences, not necessarily in chronological order.

First, the balloon ride: we had to be up and out by 4:00am for this excursion. Let me mention here that a tour of Egypt is not for wimps.  Lots and lots of historic temples and tombs reached by long walks in hot weather, but we did it!

a view of a temple  from the air...

One of the balloons nearest to ours. Each balloon carried 28 people and there were at least 50 launched that morning. 

going dark...

 My wonder spouse and I are embarking tomorrow on our great adventure.  We are going to spend two weeks in Egypt.  During that time I probably won't be blogging regularly, but, when I can, I will send pictures.

I'll start with this one.  This is my trusty suitcase that I will be using for my checked luggage.  It has travelled with me to five continents.  Africa will be the sixth.  You might say it has a 'checkered' past (pun intended).

 Here it is, my navy, teal and white checked suitcase, fully packed and weighing in at 38.6 pounds.  Picture this beauty riding around on an airport carousel and I think you will understand why I like it.  It is truly one of a kind.  I have never seen another one like it anywhere. 

Happy trails to us....

PS My wonder spouse's suitcase is charcoal gray but it's ok.  We always know that when mine comes through, his can't be far behind. 

credit card woes...

 One of the less fun things about getting ready to travel is contacting credit card companies.  One card was easy, they don't care where we're going, we can use their card anywhere without letting them know in advance.  

I've spent more time than I want to admit trying to get my second card approved.  I want to take one visa card and one master card.  I figure that should cover all my credit card needs.  Our BP visa card was the easy one. 

I happen to have two master cards, neither one of which seems to have a good system for dealing with travel requests.  The last one put me on hold until a real live person could talk to me after the machine couldn't understand the word travel, and then hung up on me.  

It's late and I'm tired so I will try again tomorrow, maybe.  Or maybe I'll just take my chances, and if the card doesn't work I'll tell myself that I really didn't need pyramid, sphinx, and King Tut Christmas tree ornaments and magnets.