Another day, another adventure

I'm not sure if today could be classified as an adventure or just an experience, but, either way, we fit quite a lot in again. We started the day a bit later, with breakfast at 7 and the kids starting class at 8. Class was held in the rooftop restaurant, which would have been a great idea if the high for the day weren't 106F! It was in the mid 90s for class but we all knew that it would only get worse from there. I sat in the back to take advantage of the good wireless signal and upload the first batch of 200 pictures to my Facebook. I'm working on uploading the second batch of 200 from yesterday as I type this now. I don't know when I'll get around to adding captions so that they actually make sense without me there to explain them, but I figured this was at least a start. Hopefully I can get those done later tonight after dinner.

We ordered in from Gad again for lunch today. I got a falafel sandwich (very different from the falafel served in the States) and it was delicious and filling and only cost me a pound and a half! So crazy cheap! I think that converts to something like $.25 US, which is about how much I paid for a liter and a half of water at the grocery store as well. Just wait til I get to go to the bazaar in a few days. I won't know what to do with myself and this amazing exchange rate! My mind's already churning with ideas for souvenirs and gifts for everyone. Today especially I was introduced to a few new (to me) ancient Egyptian gods that would make nice tokens for a few of you back home. The traditions around Ma'at I found especially interesting.

Which leads me to what we actually did today. We spent all of this afternoon in the Egyptian Museum. This place houses something like 100,000+ artifacts from across Egypt and it's various kingdoms and dynasties. It's fairly obvious once you're inside that this place was not built to be a museum. It was originally constructed in 1901 as storage for artifacts, not as a place for the public to view them. They just kept adding and adding and eventually it became the museum. And it's literally overflowing with stuff! There are cases upon cases of papyrus and panels of engraved hieroglyphs, rows of sarcophagi and coffins, statues, and whole tombs! I paid about $11 extra to see the Royal Mummies Hall, where I got to see Ramses II, Hetshepsut, and about a dozen other pharaohs, queens and priests. The bodies are mostly still covered in their various wrappings, but the hands, feet and heads are exposed on a majority of them. You can clearly see tendons and muscles under the skin, hair on many of the heads, as well as whether the kings kept their fingernails in good condition. Some of them even have false eyes and fillers in the cheeks to make them look more lifelike.

As much as the mummies were fascinating, the rooms dedicated to King Tut were absolutely breathtaking. Almost every single item was made of and covered in gold! And everything, aside from a few small wooden items and some fabrics, is in immaculate condition, with only minor losses here and there. I think it took me staring into the face of Tut's burial mask for it to sink in that I'm really here! The thing is solid gold and inlaid with lapis lazuli and turquoise and colored glass and only a few pieces are missing or damaged. It's an absolutely amazing thing to see. They have almost all of the contents of the tomb there as well as the chambers of the tomb itself. The tomb and coffins are like Russian nesting dolls, with three separate rooms of the tomb nestled inside one another and three golden coffins. They even have a pristine linen curtain that was hanging inside the door of the first tomb. Amazing! And don't even get me started on the jewelry! Ohmygosh! I could talk about that for hours, easily. Sadly, I don't have hours as it's time for dinner on the rooftop again. Thankfully there's a nice artificial breeze up here and it's starting to darken and cool off. It's only supposed to be like 92F tomorrow, so we're all relieved to hear that.

And, before I forget/Dad kills me, I have a few links for my photos thus far. This isn't all of them, but it's most. I have yet to add captions or anything, but I should get to that before bed tonight so that the images make a little more sense. You can click here for day one and part of day two and here for the rest of day two. Someone be sure to send me an email or text if those don't work. We weren't allowed cameras in the museum today, so there aren't really any pictures from day three just yet. We might be going for a walk to see the Opera House after dinner, so I may or may not have another dozen or so to share before bed. We'll see!