The End

As a last message on my blog, I’ll give some very sentimental thanks to everybody. I’m sorry for those who don’t like sentimental stuff, but hey, sentimental is my middle name.

I would like to thank the following people :

The Dutch :

- Amy : Where to begin? Thank you for being such a wonderful and crazy friend, and for having listened to me when I needed it. Keep on twirking, I’ll really miss ya, shorty!

- Cathelijne : Thank you for being what I call “the mother of the group”, for always being there when we needed tissues, paperclips, a flashlight, ducktape or a supportive shoulder. Elvis Is!

- Kaz : Thank you for all the funny moments we had together (if you ever fail in egyptology, which I’m sure you won’t, you should become a stand-up comedian), for trying to learn to speak in my dialect, and for sharing my obsession with bubble plastic. Jatkaffe!

- Kenny : Thank you for putting some life in the group, and by jumping and climbing all the monuments, making us feel as if we were in one great Indiana Jones movie. And for making Ilona squeek. Keep up the German imitations!

- Sandra : Thank you for your down to earth comments, which I really needed sometimes. And for your patience with all those silly twentiers. Houston, we have a plummer!

- Steffie : Thank you for being a co-founder of the Toilet Club, and for always entertaining us with your hilarious sarcastic comments, at times we least expected them. I’ll try to watch some horror movies!

The Belgians :

- Ilona : Thank you for being such a great teacher and for giving me my motivation back. The Cairosemester couldn’t have had a better leader.

- Quentin : Dear Quentin, where to begin? I could write a book filled with thanks for you. I’ll just stick to the most important one : thank you for killing all the cockroaches! Yippiekayee, motherfucker!

The South-African :

- Koos : Thank you for introducing me into the wonderful world of geocaching, and for having taught me how to say “Helaas Pindakaas” in Suid-Afrikaans. And for making me realise that not ALL mathematicians are geeks. Ongelukkig grondboontjieboter!

The blogreaders :

- Friends : Thank you for reading my blog, posting comments and having travelled with me in your thoughts. Special thanks to Eva and Isabelle, for sending cards and packages, and for simply being there!

- Family : Thank you, Evi, Bianca, Bomma and Bompa for reading my blog and having sticked with me until the end. I’ve really missed you.

- Guillaume : Thank you, for supporting me, talking to me, coming to visit me and just being there in times when I needed it. I love you.

- Mama en papa : Thank you so much for the moral and financial support, for allowing me to study this crazy subject and for showing so much interest in what I’m doing.

And finally :

Thank you, Cairo, for welcoming me, for giving me some very wonderful and very aweful experiences at the same time. You really are one of a kind. Allahu Akhbar.

Thank you, Ancient Egyptians, for all the beautiful things you left behind for posterity. Even though a lot of people don’t know anything about you, know that there is a small group of crazy Dutch and Belgian people who have seen your monuments, and who were very touched by it.

So I say goodbye to Cairo, and to my blog. Thank you, internet, it made things so much easier.

Goodbye

Since my last blog message I`ve been working on my paper all the time, and I finished it just in time today =) But the past nights have been a lot of fun as well. Monday night we all went to Aftereight again to dance, and I met with Yves, Cathelijne`s boyfriend, and Sophie, a friend of Steffie. We had a rel nice time, we saw the band Wust el Balad play again. Yesterday evening was our goodbye dinner. We ate at l`Aubergine, a nice restaurant. I had prepared little cards for everyone with thanks written on them, and I achieved my aim : I made Cathelijne and Steffie cry! Moehaha... Oh well, when afterwards they wrote some things back to me, I cried as well... And then when the inevitable goodbye came (with Kenny, Cathelijne and Steffie), we nearly all cried (not the boys of course :p)! Then this afternoon we were invited to a gardenparty by a friend from Ilona who works at the consulate of Belgium in Cairo. All the arabists from Leuven, Gent and Leiden were there as well. It was nice meeting some of them. I was there with Amy, Kaz, Sandra and Quentin. We had nice food and drinks. Now I`m sitting in Amy`s appartment typing this message, we all talk about different things, and no one wants to think about the eventual goodbye, which will probably arrive in an hour (I still have to pack). Booohooo This is not my last blog message, once I`m home I`ll write the very last message, to conclude this wonderful trip I had in the city of mosques, taxis, galabeyas and streetcats...

Paper pains

Blaah! The fun is really over. This paper I'm writing is taking so much time, and I find it hard to write it in so little time, since I'm used to have like weeks and weeks to write a 10-page paper, but now I have to do it in a couple of days. Ah well, It'll probably work out fine. As usual (and that sounds arrogant, I'm sorry!).

The moments I'm not writing, I'm usually filling up with Amy, watching the series True Blood. It's an amazing series about vampires! I know, not my favourite creatures, but True Blood is just amazingly funny and horrible at the same time. I'm addicted. Check it out on Wikipedia.

Yesterday afternoon I've been with Amy and Quentin to the museum, because on Monday we have to give a little presentation about our paper subject, next to the objects in the Museum (mine are right at the entrance : little ivory human and animal figurines from Early-Dynastic period, so cute!). I was looking at my figurines and drawing them, when suddenly 2 French tourists came to see what I was doing. Since I was taking notes in English, they must have thought I couldn't understand French, because they said (in French of course) : "Ah, these figurines are clearly made of wood! And painted over with white paint! There's no doubt about that, very interesting!" Now, I don't mind people making mistakes (I make them all the time, and it is understandable they thought the figurines were made of wood, they had cracks), but I couldn't stand their arrogant way of saying how "clear" it was, "no doubt". Even we, students in egyptology and not tourists, don't even do that, if we haven't seen the objects before and are not sure. So I couldn't retain myself. I said, in my best French : "Excuse me, they are not made of wood, but of ivory. That's why they are in a special exhibition.". They looked at me and thanked me, and then went off.
Call me cruel or a tourist teaser, but I was stressed out by my paper :p! I promise I'll never do it again.

Aftereight and Kashkoul murders

Monday night we all went to a club in Cairo, called Aftereight. Ilona had invited us there to have a dancing night (I know, our teacher took us dancing, hehe). It was a very relaxing evening (which we needed after all the working stress). First we saw a band playing life, called Wust el-Balad. Their music was a mixture of Arab and Latin music, with Jazz influences. It was one of the best life performances I've seen in my life. I'll go to Diwan tomorrow to try to find their CD. Then we danced the night away on some Arab pop music, which was so funny to do. Especially because we white people were nearly the only people in the club dancing! Apparently Egyptians come to a dancing club to talk, not to dance.

Then I slept at Amy's place, because it was too late for me to go home by myself (Quentin left before me).

The next days I spent working on my kashkoul, together with Amy and Quentin, while watching an episode of Xena, the Warrior Princess every now and then. Amy nearly got killed by her kashkoul, she hated it so much.
Right now I'm sitting in the library with Amy, Quentin and Kenny. I've just finished my kashkoul (ILHAMDULILLAH), so I can finally really start writing for my paper (which I have to finish by the end of this week, so it'll be a paper marathon, bouhou :'(

Until I've got something interesting to say!

Shocked

Oh dear. I've been working in the library all day with Amy, Quentin, Cathelijne and Steffie. Suddenly Ilona came in and told us some sad news. Kent Weeks (which is a well known Egyptologist, I've already read some articles by him), lives with his wife on a boat in the Nile. A couple of days ago, they had a party, and his wife bumped her head and fell off the boat. That night she was found by the Egyptian police, drowned in the Nile.
It was such terrible news. We've never seen Kent Weeks, but we were all very shocked and sad about it.
I just felt like sharing this with you. I wish Kent Weeks all the strength in the world and our condoleances.

Middle-Egypt trip : Pictures, Part 3

Middle-Egypt trip : Pictures, Part 2