Athens Thursday Day 3

Mask of Agamemnon
Zeus (or Poseidon )
Boy on Horse
Bronze recovered from shipwreck

Athens-Thursday, Day 3

Today was a relatively light day: two museums and a couple of walks. Even I think I may have done too much yesterday; I was really tired and actually slept until 8:30 this morning. 

I visited the National Archaeological Museum in the morning which, as I expected, was outstanding. Unfortunately, the vase collection (about ten galleries) was closed; I was disappointed as I had prepared by visiting the Met's collection a couple of times. The sculpture collection (about twenty galleries) was fantastic. It includes more than a few bronzes (rare in NY) and marble statues from the Archaic through Roman periods. (I skipped the Cycladic period as I don't really know anything about it.) There were many original 6th-4th Century (BC of course) classical period originals but, as in NY, there were many Roman copies of Greek originals. The bronze Poseidon (or Zeus, as scholars are still arguing) is fantastic as is  the boy jockey on horse. 

At the entrance of the museum one finds Schliemann's Mycenaean Treasure including the so-called Mask of Agamemnon. If Schliemann had never heard of Troy, he would be renowned  for this discovery. 

I also visited the Benaki Museum which, like the Frick and the Isabella Gardener, is a private collection made available to the public. It has a small but beautiful Classical collection and a much larger Byzantine one that rivals  or exceeds the Byzantine Musuem collection that I saw earlier in the week.   

In the course of my museum visits, I did one of my favorite things: I mastered the Athens metro. It is quiet and clean and, unlike almost everything else in the city, is free of graffiti. 

Dinner tonight in a taverna recommended by the hotel. Back to NY tomorrow. There is much more to see in Greece and I hope to do it some day. This week, every day was hotter than the day before but still mostly tolerable. October, I think, would be the kindest month. 

Athens Day 2

Not necessarily in order.
Temple of Zeus
Temple of Hephaestus
My guide, Kelly Bourni
Ron and Parthenon
View of Acropolis from my terrace at sunset

Athens-Wednesday 2nd day

I am going to describe today beginning at the end. I a  sitting on my very large terrace looking out at the rock of the Acropolis. The view, while not as dramatic, reminds me of the view from my room in  Giza looking out at the pyramid. I have just returned from dinner at a modern Greek restaurant recommend by the hotel. I think it was the best $30 dollar meal I have ever had. Greece is perfect for vegetarians (or pretend vegetarians). I had a Greek salad; vegetarian ravioli; vegetarian mushroom risotto and a half carafe of ouzo  all for 25 Euro including tip. Another reason to recommend this wonderful hotel. 

This morning I set out on foot to the Byzantine Museum but made a detour to the Temple of Zeus that was begun in the 6th Century BC but not really completed until the 1st Century AD. It is on the plain below the Acropolis and was finished by Hadrian, clearly to compete with and complement the Parthenon. Not much of it is left but the standing columns show that it was built on a grander scale than its famous model. The columns are much higher and there is a triple colonnade on the north and south sides instead of the usual double. A few hundred meters before the Temple is an arch dedicated by the people of Athens to Hadrian for building the Temple. 

I then walked to the Byzantine and Christian Musuem about a mile or so away, passing through the National Garden and walking by the Presidential Palace and Parliament, (No demonstrations today.) The Museum was empty except for a single school group of ten year olds. I guess I did not get my fill of Byzantine art in Istanbul. The collection here is mostly late icons and artifacts from the 14th century on. Nevertheless, there were many beautiful items here and it was, for me, a very worthwhile visit. 

I then walked through Syntagma Square (the main square of Athens) and through several winding ancient streets to meet my guide, Kelly (short for Angelica) Bourni, a friend of our neighbor Peter Embericos. Kelly accompanied me through the Agora and the various sites below the Acropolis, most importantly the beautiful Temple of Hephaestus, before taking the uphill climb to the top of the Acropolis. We went in the afternoon when there is practically no crowd; it was hot but not scalding. I won't describe the Parthenon or other structures on top of the Acropolis but I will say that it remains a very inspiring place. On the way down, we stopped at the Theater of Dionysius and then I headed back to the hotel. 

The Parthenon confirmed my opinion that the New Acropolis Museum is one of the finest in the world. It is built slightly off angle so as to be completely parallel to the Parthenon. I have been converted to those who believe the British should return the Elgin  Marbles. As I said yesterday, maybe a Labor Government in the next 100 years will do so.  

I did more walking today than I can remember doing in some long while.I am tired but happy.

Athens-Tuesday

I arrived in Athens at 9:30 after a 2 hr+ flight from TLV. Ava Hotel is very similar to the Senato in Rome and is terrific. I have a beautiful suite with a very large terrace that has a view of the Acropolis (not the Parthenon side but still...). The room has a kitchen and has an excellent wireless connection. I know the Grande Bretagne is the place to be in Athens but this can't be beat. 

I was quite tired so after a short walk to get oriented in the neighborhood and a a quick lunch (Greek salad and Greek crepe), I did the most touristy thing possible: the open air double-decker bus ride. That gave me a chance to sit down and see the city for an hour and a half. The only demonstration that I saw was near some government building and it was rather small. The Times travel section this past Sunday said things are improving so that must be so. 

I then went to the new Acropolis Musuem. This has to be one of the greatest "new" museums in the world. The building is beautiful and the presentations are first rate. A prime purpose of the Museum is to pressure the British to return the Elgin Marbles. The pediments, friezes, and metopes are presented as they would appear on the Parthenon but most of the metopes and pediment sculptures are plaster casts of the British Museum's originals. The Greeks have invested tens of millions of Euros to provide a home for the Elgin Marbles; maybe in another century. Some of the metopes have actually been returned from German museums --more pressure on the UK. 

The sculptures are in galleries that have floor to ceiling glass windows that look out on the Acropolis (including the Parthenon!). Just fantastic. I only spent 21/2 hours there so I will probably return.

One extremely interesting thing is the restoration of the sculptures from the "original" Parthenon that was destroyed by the Persians around 480BCE. That too was a beautiful structure. Because the Athenians saw the destroyed statuary as holy, they buried all the broken pieces in pits on the site. The pits were discovered in the late 19th century (2,500 years later) and put together. I sort of remember seeing them in the old Acropolis museum but the presentation here rivals the "new" Parthenon. 

My plan tomorrow is to go to the Acropolis itself, the ancient Agora, the theaters on the slopes of the Acropolis all with a guide. 

Jerusalem

No blog necessary... but Inbal (Laromme) continues to treat us very well.  

I arrived to the hotel at around 2 am on Friday and by 10 Adele and I were at the Israel Musuem to see the Herod Exhibit, which was great. Ehud Netzer finally found the actual tomb after twenty years of looking in the wrong place. Sadly, on the day he was organizing the museum exhibit, he fell at the Herodium site and died. 

Herod was a megalomaniac and he destroyed all the palaces and the theater on the bottom of the Herodium hill so that he could have a smooth mountain on which to place the tomb. The tomb was visible from miles around, had a conical crown (like the so-called Tomb of Absalom in Jerusalem), and had a round colonnade on a square pedestal. So it was square, topped by circle, topped by cone, with the whole thing being about 150 feet high. The tomb itself (the round part) was excavated and brought to the museum. The sarcophagus itself is quite plain and doesn't come close to the magnificent "Alexander the Great" Sarcophagus  in Istanbul. No photos allowed!

Yonatan's wedding was non-stop celebration: dinner for 100 Friday night; Kiddush lunch at the Khan Theater and the wedding in the nature preserve that presents all the  biblical plants. The wedding was romantic with bride and groom reading "love letters" to each other under the Chupah and Yonatan singing to Chana. 

Mom and I had Shabbat lunch after the kiddush at Julie and Yaakov Schorr's home and Julie invited Fred and Paula who live across the street. (They are not related at all.) 

Paula was just recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a very big deal. 

Fred has become Chairman of the Board of Haifa University. 

On Sunday, Ben Zion Hochstein gave us a tour of Shaare Zedek Hospital, of which he is chairman. I finally saw more of it than the eye clinic (Miriam!) 

I took the tram (light rail) for its entire length from Har Herzl to some distant Jewish neighborhood on the other side of some Arab villages. It took about 45 minutes and I saw parts of the City I had never seen before. I recommend it as a tourist attraction. 

I left Israel this morning (Tuesday) on a 7 am flight, so I left the Inbal at 4 am. What fun!

Istanbul– fourth day

The Alexander sarcophagus
The mosaic from the Byzantine palace
2 Views from the terrace where I had lunch today.

Out of sequence

The Abydos posting popped up from my Egypt trip and is obviously out of sequence. Please ignore. 

Istanbul- Fourth Day

Last day in Istanbul and leaving to Israel this afternoon. 

I spent the morning in the great Istanbul Archaeological Museum. Unfortunately, the floor containing the Israel-Syria-Palestine material was closed for renovation so I didn't see the Siloam inscription from the Gihon Spring tunnel, the Gezer calendar or the inscription from the Temple. .

I did see the Alexander sarcophagus which is magnificent but was not used by Alexander the Great. It was built for and used by the Governor of Sidon appointed by Alexander and has reliefs of Alexander's adventures. I also saw the Treaty of Kadesh between Egypt and the Hittite Empire. There is a very large Troy collection but it consists of leftovers from Schlieman's Berlin collection. 

Afterwards I went to the Mosaic Museum which has the gigantic mosaic floor (mostly in fragments, except for one enormous section) from the Byzantine Palace. Breathtaking in size and beauty. The Byzantine Palace is gone without a trace except for this floor. One can only imagine...

Off to Israel

Istanbul Third Day

Today was my second and last day with Vedat, my Turkish guide. Vedat has been charming company. My day began with a visit to Haigha Sofia which was the highlight of  my Istanbul visit. I won't bore you, dear reader, with details which you can look up. Suffice it to say that the building is 1,000 years older than St Peter's in Rome but nearly matches it in size and grandeur. Even after seeing it, I still can't understand how the dome stays up in that enormous space. The Pantheon in Rome is still my favorite building but this is almost a tie. The quality of mosaics that remain varies from exceptional from the 9th century to pedestrian in the 12th. 

The early part of the afternoon was devoted to Topkapi Palace which interests me less than the Byzantine remains. Beautiful rooms, beautiful tiles, beautiful gardens, beautiful everything. But give me a good Byzantine ruin any day. I spent a short while (seemed longer) in the Grand Bazaar and then returned to the Hippodrome to look at the obelisk again; it made me homesick for Karnak from whence it came.

Tomorrow to the archaeological museum and more walking around before my evening flight to Tel Aviv. 

Proof of Life

As in Egypt, I had one photo of myself taken to prove that I have actually been to Istanbul and not just read books. ( From balcony of Haigha Sofia.)

Istanbul Day 2

Bosporus from Galata Bridge
Underground Funicular
Pedestrian Street

Istanbul, Day 2

Istanbul, Tuesday, May 21

Today was the first of two days that I am being accompanied by a guide. The guide, Vedat, was recommended to me by Karen Levy. Although I am most interested in the Byzantine and early Ottoman period in Istanbul, I spent a good part of the day on other periods. 

I started the day at Dolmabahace Palace built in the second half of the Nineteenth Century. It has the feel of a Western European palace but overdone as if the Sultan had an inferiority complex. I have been to Buckingham Palace during the summer opening hours. This Istanbul palace is built on a larger scale but it is sort of like having the White House decorated in Boro Park style. Only bigger chandeliers. I keep remembering that there is a Turkish-Hungarian connection. 

From the Palace we took a ninety minute Bosporus cruise. Circle Line, Turkish style.

Knowing that I was tired and wanted to end the day somewhat early, we skipped lunch and had a really good afternoon. We went to St. Savior in Chora ("Chora" meaning country so this is like St. Martin in the Fields.) It was even better than I remembered. Fantastic mosaics  and frescoes from the early 14th Century inside a church that is much older. The mosaics may be the high point of Byzantine art and one can see the beginnings of perspective and their direct influence on early Renaissance Italian paintings. The mosaics primarily portray the life of Mary and the miracles of Jesus. No passion scenes but a fantastic portrait of Jesus reminiscent of the dome of the Baptistry in Florence. 

I made a short visit to the seat of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate to view the Byzantine icons. The chapel is quite small and puts into perspective the loss of empire to Islam. 

I had a chance to see the Byzantine walls dating from the 4th and 5th centuries that protected the city until the conquest in 1453 when the Ottoman boats were hauled overland to attack the city from the Golden Horn side. I also saw the standing parts of the Valens aqueduct which is a stacked double arch affair.

Finally, I visited Sulemaniye Mosque, the architect Sinan's masterpiece from the 16th Century. Beautiful and beautifully proportioned inside and out.

After a short rest, I went out on my own and did my favorite activity: exploring a city on foot and public transport. I walked across the Galata Bridge which crosses the Golden Horn, took the underground funicular  to the top of the hill. (Said to be second oldest subway in the world; second to Budapest of course.)   I then walked the pedestrian street in the modern part of the city. My impression of Istanbul is quite different than from my earlier visit. I saw no poverty, people are well dressed and from the sheer numbers out on the streets in the early evening, I think they are content and in a good way. I doubt if they still envy the Greek entry into the Euro. 

No lunch or dinner today--just an ice cream and a cheese sandwich. Tomorrow- Haigha Sofia and Topkapi and a good meal, I hope.

Istanbul

Basilica Cistern
Medusa head as column base.
Obelisk
Haghia Sofia

W B Yeats

Sailing to Byzantium
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
– Those dying generations – at their song,
The salmon‐falls, the mackerel‐crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing‐masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Istanbul

Welcome back, dear readers. RoninEgypt is now RoninTurkey (but the blog address remains the same).

Sunday was a new experience for me: I was literally the last person to check in on my Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul. I arrived at JFK I thought two hours before my flight and found not a soul at the TA check-in desk. I had received an email at 2PM advising me that the 6:50 scheduled departure was delayed by an hour and that was also what the TA web site showed. Apparently this was some sort of rogue email and the departure was proceeding as originally scheduled. A TA ground person had to accompany me to the head of the TSA security line so that I could get to the gate. You all know how much time I usually leave for a flight (see Lisa's hilarious email of a few months ago) so this was like an out-of body experience for me.

The flight actually boarded on time but the plane sat on the ground for two hours. The pilot made several announcements but TA seems to have borrowed the public address system used in NY subway stations; all I could understand was the word "India."  One more thing about the flight: TA's "comfort class" (premium economy) was very good. Not today's business class with flat beds but very much like business class was 10 years ago: lots of leg room, a foot rest, and a comfortable angle of recline. Business class $6,400; comfort class $2,400. I felt virtuous and exonerated. Service was actually very good.

I found my hotel through TripAdvisor which I now swear by after our Senato experience in Rome.

The Hotel (Sultania) is very much like Senato in terms of size, cleanliness and comfort. Of course, it doesn't come close to matching the beauty of the building and there is no terrace over the Pantheon square (nor is there a fresco on the ceiling). My room is spacious with a couch and Ottoman furnishings. The hotel is in Sultanhamet, the oldest part of the City (where I wanted to be). Narrow crowded streets much like our area of Rome all lead to an ancient main thoroughfare which is restricted to pedestrians and the tram (no cars). 

The hotel is a ten minute walk to Haghia Sofia (now known as Ayasofya) which is the 6th Century Byzantine Church of Holy Wisdom, later converted to a Mosque and now a museum. My main interest this trip is to see as much as I can of Byzantine Constantinople. As usual, I have prepared a bit for the trip and think I have the historical perspective necessary to actually appreciate what little is left of pre-Ottoman Constantinople. Haghia Sofia is closed on Monday so my report will have to wait,

I visited the Basilica Cistern, a 6th Century underground reservoir that was fed by the City's two aqueduct systems. The Cistern is a cavernous vault held up by more than 300 columns (mostly Corinthian, some Doric and a couple of idiosyncratic ones including two that have Medusa heads as their base). The cistern is "romantically" lit and the hundreds of columns reminded me of the Terra Cotta Warriors in Xian--forgotten for centuries and suddenly they are here standing 1500 years later (much more in the case of the warriors). 

A ten minute walk from the Cistern brings one to what is left of the Byzantine Hippodrome. All that stands are two obelisks and part of an ancient serpentine column. One obelisk from 1500 BC was brought to Constantinople by Constantine in the 6th Century. It is in perfect shape and the hieroglyphs are beautifully clear. This is in sad contrast to "my" Obelisk in Central Park or to London's. It is red sandstone and more beautiful that the ones in Rome. the serpentine column is from the 5th Century BC (1,000 years before Constantine) and is thought to have come from Delphi. An awful lot of awful things happened in the Hippodrome (besides chariot races) including two horrendous massacres, one by a Byzantine Emperor, the other by a Sultan.  But now the Hippodrome is a peaceful park just outside the Blue Mosque. 

The Mosque takes its name from the many Iznik tiles with which the interior is faced. It was built in the early 17th century to rival Haghia Sofia and, it indeed has a beautiful dome. The Mosque's dome sits on four mammoth columns and doesn't "fly" gracefully on arches as does its more ancient rival. 

Each day since about ten days ago, I re-read William Butler Yeats' "Sailing to Byzantium."  I was never one for poetry, but I think this poem encouraged me to come to Istanbul. It famously begins, "That is no country for old men." I have been trying to really understand his meaning and the structure of the poem. In the end, I know Adele will explain it all to me. Meanwhile it speaks to me. 

Stay Tuned

There may be more

Egypt: Background to the Current Scene

Since my return from Egypt, I came to the conclusion that while seeing and appreciating the  Pharaohnic  world, I saw little and understood less of Egypt itself.  I saw a country that appeared under-resourced and with poor infrastructure that was enduring a massive political upheaval. All of my pre-departure research related to the period that ended with Augustus’ victory over Mark Antony and Cleopatra. I have tried to catch up on more current events in the past two weeks.  In addition to my general reading and obsession with Egyptian news, I read two prescient books that essentially predicted the 2011 Revolution:  Tarek Osman,  “Egypt on the Brink”  (2010) and John R. Bradely, “Inside Egypt” (2008).

The history of Egypt since the late 19^th century has been one of pendulum swings. The heirs of Mohammed Ali who founded the monarchy built a western style cosmopolitan society. Up to and including the reign of King Farouk, a constitutional monarchy was being formed and developed. Cairo and Alexandria were European polyglot cities and “liberal” capitalism was the economic order. Of course, Farouk took hedonism to bizarre levels, capitalism did not trickle down very much and ordinary Egyptians could care less about café society on the Corniche in Alexandria.

Nasser followed Farouk with a nationalist and pan-Arab agenda. Capitalism, cosmopolitan society, western culture and friendship with the West were all discarded. Out went the west and in came the Soviets. The 67 War effectively ended the nationalist/ eastern bloc project. Nasser lived three more years but Nasser’s agenda ended with the War.

The pendulum swung again with Sadat/Mubarak who brought back a tilt toward the West and ended Soviet influence. Egypt became the lynch-pin of American strategy to secure the oil routes and maintain stability in the middle-east and this strategy held for forty years. During this time, however, the Egyptian ruling class failed to obtain legitimacy from the population, developed crony capitalism to a fine art, and ruled through a police state.  Corruption and inefficiency were the key highlights of everyday life for the vast majority of the population. The upper echelon consisting of military related personnel and Mubarak cronies (and relatives) did not allow for political maturity at a time when social and technological changes were rampant.

During the forty years of Sadat/Mubarak, the only effective counter to the government was the Muslim Brotherhood. The pendulum has now swung again. The MB will soon be in charge. There is a broad sense in the west that the military will not give up its power and will work with the MB. I am not convinced that this will have a long run. I think it more likely that, with patience,  the MB will insist on a Turkish style government with the military subservient to  civilian rule.  I think the pendulum will swing away from the West but there will be quite a bit of leeway for expression and diversity (within limits). I do not believe there will be a direct military challenge to Israel but tensions will no  doubt increase. I do not believe the pan-Arab project will be reborn; I think Egypt will focus on its own borders. The liberal 25% will be in opposition and will hope for the failure of the ruling MB. I believe the government will put an end to the anti-Americanism surrounding the NGO mess and will look to reinvigorate foreign direct investment. 

Out of Egypt (With apologies to Andre Aciman)

Some random thoughts and comments on what I observed that I did not wish to publish  from Egypt.

Bear in mind, please, that I had personal interactions only with out local tour guide, a “liberal” woman of about 35, two or three Egyptian  men who worked for the American tour operator, and a physician who treated me for a minor problem. Of course, I interacted with hotel staff and about 5,000 street merchandise hawkers but I had no conversations with them.

Tahrir Square

. We went to the Egyptian Museum on the morning of a scheduled “million man march.” We were in and out of the Museum before the demonstration began. The Museum is right next to the former headquarters of the Democratic (Mubarak’s) party. The building has been utterly destroyed by fire and just the hulk stands there. This is really the center of Cairo, next to the Museum and fancy hotels. I think people are satisfied to keep the ruin there as a symbol of the “ancien regime.” Traffic that day into central Cairo was horrible but maybe it is horrible every day. There were Egyptian flags everywhere, sort of the way it was in NY after 9/11. I was told that pre-Revolution no one would have thought to fly a flag.

Traffic and security. I didn’t see traffic lights anywhere in Cairo or Giza (the Cairo suburb in which the Pyramids are located) and certainly none in the other cities. There were accidents and arguments all over the place. Crazy.

The approach into and out of Cairo airport is very similar to Ben Gurion. Modern and lovely with the same kind of security set up; only in Cairo no one stops the cars. There were no soldiers visible in Cairo airport. In fact, the only soldiers I ever saw were in Aswan at the airport and by the High Dam. Cairo airport is really like BG, a modern terminal with much more capacity than seems to be needed. The “modern” part ends abruptly as soon as you go out the door, just as it does in TA with the confusion with Sherutim and buses. In Cairo, the confusion is slightly more pronounced and it really helps to have someone wait for you. In fact, the tour operator always has at least two people waiting: one to get me through and one to drive the van.

The police are sort of under siege after the protests and particularly after the “soccer massacre,” so three was not much police presence in Cairo. From Luxor going north, there were many police “check points” which consist of booths alongside the road manned by one or two uniformed police who didn’t stop anyone at all.

I arrived in Cairo around midnight and the ride to Giza was over an hour. The road first went through  a quite lovely area with office buildings and high-rise apartments. The road and the neighborhood both deteriorated after about 30 minutes. The streets were full of people and street markets were open and crowded everywhere.

South of Aswan, the monuments are pretty empty as the only sensible way to approach them is by boat on Lake Nasser. There was security in each monument that consisted of either a young soldier with an Uzi (pretty sure it really was an Uzi) or a  middle aged “tourist policeman” with  a handgun. In these cases, the security guy would walk around with our group. On certain days our group was accompanied by a tough looking young soldier type with an Uzi (seemed very Israeli).

We had one troublesome encounter. At Hatshepsut’s Temple, the AIA arranged a viewing of part of the temple that is generally closed to the public. (In fact, this tour was called “Hidden Treasures” because we had access to several sites that are usually closed including the interior of the step pyramid and several off-limit tombs.) Anyway at Hatshepsut’s Temple, a group of clearly religious young men vehemently objected to our having access while they were excluded. Tensions were high, particularly since this was the precise location of the massacre of the Swiss and German tourists ten or so years ago. Several of our group were perfectly happy to pass on the visit, but the guide and accompanying archaeologist were determined to bring us in. The temple guards (not police or soldiers, just unarmed guards) stood their ground and we went in without incident and when we came out the young men were gone. I think we were all happy to get back on the bus. I am sure we seemed to be the last vestige of colonialism,  and maybe we were.

Women and Liberalism: The vast majority of women have their hair covered with head scarves in Cairo. Outside of Cairo, virtually every woman had her hair covered. Our guide does not cover her hair. She professes to be religious and says her mother and sister do cover their hair but that she says she can be a believer and modern at the same time. Her husband is a hotel manager who spends part of every week at Sharm el Sheikh. She and her husband lived in the US for several years while he worked at a hotel in Florida.

She said she had not previously been involved in politics but joined the women’s march and identifies with the sign she saw that said: “I want to live to see another president.” She supports Mubarak being put on trial and believes he should be punished (executed?). She believes the real cause of the revolution was the fear of the military that Gamal Mubarak (the son) would be put in charge and that the military actually supported and maybe fomented the revolution. She seems to believe that conspiracies lie behind everything in Egypt; she may be correct.

Anyway, she both fears and admires the Muslin Brotherhood. She fears that they may impose their values  regardless of what they say and admires their courage for their steadfastness during the Mubarak years. She says if the environment becomes too religious or repressive she will emigrate ( to Norway, not sure what the connection is but she probably has a relative there.)

Interestingly, the doctor I met, absolutely without my asking, said he cares only about his family and not about politics. He said if things get bad, he will move to Germany and that he has secured German citizenship. The Egyptian Gazette (an English language newspaper)) reported on the continuing brain drain to Canada and elsewhere. I think elsewhere means the USA.

Our "liberal" guide and our American church-going West Point Graduate tour operator ( a  really nice man who seems perfectly sensible) both believe that the NGO's and their personnel were doing inapproriate things including paying demonstrators. Al Jazeera reports (with incredulity) that some generals seem to believe that the NGOs were a cats paw for a US invasion! Am I nuts or is everyone else? It seems to me that this will work out pretty quickly not because of fear of loss of US military  aid but for fear of not getting an IMF loan, without which the country is likely to collapse. In any event, the military "government" is salami slicing itself out of existence and the Muslim Brotherhood (which really paid demonstrators) is not worked up on the NGO issue.

Soccer Massacre. The reaction of the few locals I spoke with is confused, naïve and contradictory. They blame the government for repression and they also want the government to impose order. I can see where this is going. The speaker of the Parliament, a Muslim Brotherhood  guy, said the military should resign and the MB should form a government. That government would then  have “legitimacy” and so could end the protests “with whatever means are necessary.” The liberals (not more than 25% of the parliament and badly fragmented) have said they will not join any coalition government so they will be in the victim category. Sounds French and Russian.

Tourism. Hotels were not more than 25% full. The most common languages heard in Luxor were German and Russian. No other Americans a few English folks. Many of the people in my group were blithely unaware of developments while we were there and were deliberately not communicating with relatives back home who were worrying.

As I said in my blog, Philae is on an island and we got there in a 100 year old (so it seemed) rowboat with an outboard motor piloted by a kid who was no more than nine. He had to start the motor by cranking it with a piece of clothesline. We all noticed that another group of tourists-German- were in a spanking new boat captained by a grown-up and all the Germans wore life vests. Our Lake Nasser cruise boat was lovely but there never was a safety drill and this was less than a month after the Italian cruise boat incident. So no police, no regulation and nobody gives a damn. While we were in Egypt, three German tourists drowned in a sightseeing submarine off the Sinai coast. That didn’t stop several of our group from going up in a hot air balloon to view Luxor. I hope the guy controlling the balloon was more than 9 years old.

Roads and River. The north-south roads going out of Luxor stink and there does not seem to be any commercial river traffic at all. The land along the River is fertile (it is now irrigated and fertilized since the Nile no longer inundates). I saw fifty miles of sugar cane but the cane is moved principally by camel and donkey cart. There seem to be resources but no infrastructure.

Gasoline lines. Service stations either have no gas or have gigantic lines. We had to change buses every day because the driver couldn’t fill up. No explanation given but my theory is that this relates to the subsidies. Gasoline is heavily subsidized by the government and this is primarily a middle and upper class benefit. The government can’t afford the subsidy but is probably afraid to take it away so I bet the government is controlling its outlay by limiting the supply rather than adjusting the price. That is my guess.

Local color. As we drove out of Luxor we saw hundreds (maybe thousands) of kids in the villages. Everyone of them smiled and waved at the bus. Some of my fellow travelers said they saw a few grownups making hostile gestures but I only saw smiling kids and friendly adults. I cannot begin to describe the hawkers who approach any and all visitors to any temple or site or street or airport. Everyone wants money and some are straight-forward saying “I want money.” Usually the hawker is trying to sell you some useless item but you cannot shake these people off your tail. It is the same story in retail stores. If they would just let you look they would sell more. I never felt unsafe just totally hassled. It would be exhausting to do this trip without a group and professional tour operator who immunizes you just a bit.

The most common site in Egypt.  Every street corner and almost every building is plastered with colorful campaign posters usually of smiling men wearing ties. Occasionally  there is a poster of  a sheikh or imam and very rarely of a female. I wonder what the streets looked like before Mubarak’s fall; certainly less colorful.

The second most common site. Half built buildings and apartment houses. Various explanations were given. The building is not on the tax roll until completed; a guy builds a new floor for his son who will marry one day but not yet; cheap financing; corruption; who knows what. There seemed to me to be more incomplete buildings than complete ones. I sort of remember the same thing in Turkey fifteen years ago.

Random thoughts. I got a great sense of satisfaction at the Aswan  High Dam. All that is left of Nasser is the Lake and all that is left of the Soviet Union is the Friendship Monument. Thus always to tyrants!

Shabbat in Luxor. I had the weirdest feeling that I was the only person in Luxor, perhaps in Egypt, who heard the Muzzein on Friday night and celebrated Shabbat. This in the land of Maimonides and the hundred thousand Jews who were forced out just in our lifetime.

The future. I am not buying stock in Egypt any time soon.

What I saw. I absolutely am thrilled that I took this trip. It met or exceeded my expectations. It put everything I read and studied into a real context. But… I saw nothing of Egypt and the  ancient sites are somewhere between a great museum and Disneyland. It happens that I love both museums and Disneyland so I am ok with that. Contrast this with Rome, which is also Disneyland but is a living breathing place. The ancientness ( I know there isn’t such a word) of Egypt and the sophistication of so much of what is there is unparalleled anywhere else. Inshallah, I would go back in less exciting times.

I need to think more on the New Kingdom and the Exodus story. Aknathen, a true mon-theist is part of this puzzle as is abrupt change of policies and capitals and building projects and the introduction of chariots and horses. I am not turning into a Bible literalist but the “foundation” story does appear to have some foundation.

Farewell, dear Reader.

Look carefully at this fertility god in Karnak

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