Go With the Flow

One day, I took a taxi home.

(Many a strange story has begun with that line, I imagine.)

The driver was silent throughout most of the drive, which was bizarre in itself. Then, about halfway to my house, without speaking a word, he pulled over on the side of the road next to a small tea stand. Once we’d stopped, he reached behind my seat and retrieved a small plant with a six-inch tall stalk and leaves. He held it out to me and said, “Smell.” So I smelled it. Then he said, “Hold.” So I held it. He left the car.

I sat alone for some time, staring at the unexpected foliage in my hands. When the driver returned, he had a cup of tea. He took the plant from me and stuck it into his tea cup stalk first, like a flower in a vase. “Very good,” he declared. Then we drove the rest of the way home.

View from the Front Porch

(Luxor)

Luxor from the air

Tomorrow I am saying goodbye to my husband and getting on a plane to spend 4 weeks in Luxor. I am excited and nervous. It will be 115 degrees F when I land, and stay above 85 every night! I am preparing myself for an adventure and a lot of story-telling this summer.
Last week the AUC Egyptology department took a weekend jaunt in Luxor as our end-of-the-year field-trip. It was wonderful (and wonderfully hot!) and I’m looking forward to spending the next 4 weeks with those monuments. The high-light of the trip was the hot air balloon ride over the West Bank. We left the hotel at 4:15 am and watched the sun rise as we slowly lifted off the ground. The view was breathtaking. One cannot truly understand the landscape of this sacred place until you have seen it from the air.

Postcards Are Cool

So, I think it’s time for a little expat advertising.
All expats have their favorite websites, restaurants, traditions or possessions that help them feel more “at home” in their new home, and closer to their loved ones than they are. One of my favorites is an app called Postagram. I can sit on my couch or at school and send slick, shiny postcards with a photo of my latest adventure to my friends and family thousands of miles away! The photo on the postcard even pops out into a 3×3 in photo that you can put into a little frame! They’re fun to send and fun to receive!
I got one today from two of my favorite nerds. Definitely going on the fridge! :)

The Table Fiasco Conclusion

A few days ago we thought our year long quest to purchase a table for our home had finally ended. Unfortunately, though a table and six chairs arrived at our home, we did not receive seats for those six chairs, making the chairs impossible to sit in, and the table essentially unusable.

We spent the weekend sitting on our couch and gazing longingly at the almost-embodiment of our hopes and dreams.

I called the man from the shop where we had ordered it. He apologized for the delay and explained that certain obstacles had come up. However, a man would come to our house with the seats that night at 6pm. If you’ve been paying attention, this is the third time I was told that someone would come at 6pm. At this point, I trusted him about as far as I could throw him, and I’m a scholar not an athlete.

So I told the guy that the table was useless to me without the seats, and if I didn’t get seats that night, I would be Zahlen, “very sad/upset.”

That night, four hours after 6pm, an out-of-breath man showed up at my door with a big bag of seats over his shoulder, like Santa Clause himself. I gleefully assisted him in the 10 minute process of screwing the seats to the chairs.

And so the great table fiasco finally ended. We sat upon the cushiness of our victory and sighed with joy and exaltation. Then we noticed that they hadn’t used the fabric we had ordered. In the end, we got our table, and Egypt got the last laugh.

The Table Fiasco Continues

A long stupid time ago, I posted a blog which I dubbed The Table Fiasco. In it, I told the riveting tale of my complete failure to purchase a kitchen table. I ended that blog on a positive note, but in truth the Table Fiasco has gone on for some time and Bry and I have nearly given up hope that we would ever be able to eat our meals like God intended.

Our more recent attempt to hire a carpenter to build us a table from scratch seemed ideal at first, but we soon discovered that they had accidentally given us a price much too reasonable. Disappointed but not willing to spend a small fortune, we returned home to continue eating on our couch.

After that, we found another furniture shop with the perfect table inside. Unfortunately, the shop was “closed for maintenance” and, judging by the thick layer of dust covering everything, would remain so for the foreseeable future. Our breath fogged up the glass which stood between us and our dusty dream.

After so much heartbreak, you won’t be surprised that, when Bry found a local furniture shop, I was skeptical. I suppose a heart can only be broken so many times before it becomes calloused. Despite my apprehensions, the place seemed legitimate enough, and the man inside claimed that we could pick the wood for our new table and chairs, which would then be built and delivered to our house. We crossed our fingers.

Two weeks later, I got a phone call that the table was finished and would be delivered at 6pm. We knew this meant roughly 8 or 9pm Egyptian time, so at 9pm we periodically glanced up from our homework at the door in anxious anticipation. But, 10, 11, and then midnight rolled by with no table. At 1am, the doorbell finally rang, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was dark brown, it was sturdy, it was a table. And it came with six perfect little chairs. I was so delirious with delight I almost didn’t notice the catch: none of the chairs had seats. There was no place on which to place our rumps, just a gaping hole. The delivery men responded to my exacerbated questions with a promise: we’ll be back tomorrow at 6pm with the seats for the chairs, no problem, no problem at all.

I suppose that the ironic part is that, after all this, I totally believed them. So 2 days passed, and there were still no seats in our chairs. There was literally a table and six chairs in our house, and for all practical purposes, we were still without a table.

Well played Egypt, well played.

Egyptomania #3

Last semester I was made President of the Egyptology Club at the American University in Cairo (a huge surprise!). We’ve done some fun stuff so far (a museum trip and hosting a lecturer) and this week we have a booth set up on campus. Through a friend of a friend (how anything works here in Egypt) we found a woman who would make these ankh cookies for us to sell at our booth. And we were totally blown away by their cuteness!