Having "Me" Time

Happy Thanksgiving! :)  Today, most families in the US will probably have Turkey for dinner together with family and friends.  The start of the festive season, it also marks the end of yet another busy year full of developments and happenings.   What better day to mark the end of my posts on Egypt.  Today, I end my journey to Egypt with the final resting place for most of Egypt's great treasures: The Egyptian Museum. After thousands of years of history, the final resting place for most of the Egyptian treasures is not located in the Valley of the Kings, nor inside Great Pyramids.  Instead, their final resting place is inside the Egyptian Museum or somewhere in a box in its basement.  First opened in 1863 my guidebook tells me that the museum had to move twice before settling at its current building in which it has been housed since 1902.  Even then, it is still not large enough to accomodate all ...

The Great Pyramids of Giza prove to be closer to Cairo than I had ever imagined.  The Pyramids loom over your head as you head down a busy road filled with houses and people going about their business.  The roundabout is crazy and hectic with cars honking, cars crashing into one another before going on to their final destination.  Then amidst all this madness, the Great Pyramids suddenly appear before you as if it were just another construction.  An extremely large and over-powering one though. I get off the car and look up at the Great Pyramid.  It is indeed far bigger than I could have ever imagined.  Stones used to build this is said to weigh on average 2.5 tonnes with some stones at the base said to weigh as much as 15 tonnes.  The pyramid is perfectly symmetrical yet it was built over 5,000 years ago.  The ancient Egyptians had understood geometry since times past.  Fascinating.  I rub its rocks and am dumbfounded a...

Before we enter the land of the ancient egyptians, we visit the Citadel which was home to Egypt's rulers for almost 700 years beginning in 1176.   I must say it's definitely one of the largest Citadels  I've ever been to.  It's so big, it's like a little city all within itself with mosques, gardens, houses, and other buildings.  Up high on the hill, it rises above Islamic Islam as a reminder of ancient power and glory.  So great was it's empire back then. The main destination is most definitely the Mohammad Ali Mosque .  When I first hear its name, a grin flashes my face as it reminds me of the boxer, but then I remember that Mohammad Ali was the name of the founder of modern Egypt.  He had brough Egypt recognition after being part of the Ottoman empire.   It's an enormous mosque.  There is a large central dome and several other small ones. Two minarets rise out into the sky.  By the entrance, I am shown a beautiful ...

A little over a decade since I first started planning my trip to Egypt, I finally made it.  I was at long last in the land of the great pyramids, where great pharaohs had ruled Egypt for thousands of years.  I was finally in the land of the mummies and hieroglyphics.  A land where mysteries abound.  Of course my first destination was Cairo: the capital of Egypt. I landed at Cairo Airport and was instantly struck at the amount of people everywhere.  It's a small airport, so once off the airplane you just walk into the terminal building, watch your plane roll by and see a dozen tour groups waiting to go through immigration.  It was crazy.  Though busy and crowded with people like Japan, it was busy in a totally different sense.  Crowds of people stood around in anything but a line.  Tour leaders with dozens of passports in hand would somehow get to that window without havng to wait and then 'poof' his people would be through.  I realized...

An hour ago I watched Obama's speech in India in which he recognized India as the world's largest democracy and stated how they must work together with the US for with power comes great responsibility.  He also welcomed India to one day gaining a permanent seat on the United Nations' Security Council.   I find it fascinating for it comes at a time when China is gaining it's place in the world arena and with shifts of power, the US must find a strategic partner.   This is a story that sounds familiar and one that has been with us since the evolution of humankind.  Great civilizations have risen and fall, empires have been built and destroyed, great men have lived and died.  It's not new.  It just comes in different forms.  This is also the story of Egypt, a civilization that once existed over 3000 years ago and one whose remains still astound us to this day. I've always had a fascination for Egypt since my ...