23 to 26/11 : illness and paradise

Good meurning!
The Fayum trip was awesome and terrible at the same time. I'll give a day to day account :
23/11 I woke up, very excited and happy to go to the Fayum. I went to the bathroom, and I fell ill again. Not as hard as a couple of weeks ago, but still... I decided I wouldn't be bullied around by these stupid bacteria, so I took a whole bunch of immodium and motilium, and off we went on adventure !
The bus had to stop twice for me... Haven't got any pleasant memories about the first 2 hours in the bus.
Then we arrived in Deir el-Naqlun. I felt nauseous. Kaz stepped out of the bus and dissapeared into the toilets. Then, Mr "I never get ill in Egypt" Muijlwijk came out again, and fainted. We both felt terrible, and we decided to stay and rest in the bus, while the others visited the hermitages in the Naqlun-mountains. Then we went to Hawara, and the bus had to stop twice for Kaz.
In Hawara we both got out to see the pyramid of Amenemhat III, the necropolis around it. But then Kaz was very ill again, so he went back to the bus. I stayed, but I didn't make it to the famous Labyrinth, because i felt like fainting. I didn't miss much though, the famous Labyrinth was just a pile of stones.
We stayed in a hotel at Medinet el-Fayum. I felt a bit better when we arrived there, so I went with the others to a pharmacy for Kaz, to get him the same medicines I had used a couple of weeks ago. I also brought him some rice to eat, and Flopsy (a blue little bunny my friend Isabelle sent me in her fun packet).
The I went to bed at 8:30 pm, and slept until 7:30 the next morning!

24/11 I felt a bit better, but still weak, for having eaten so little. Kaz felt better as well, but very drowsy because of the antibiotics (which you can get here in any pharmacy without prescription). We went by bus to Narmouthis. On our way we had an adventure : the bus was driving between 2 canals on a small patch of land. I was sitting on the right side, and when i looked down, I saw that the bus was driving only 2 cm from the side of the road! For 5 agonizing minutes I feared for my life. Then I realised to see the humour in it, so I put on some adventurous music (Pirates of the Carribean) and tried to relax. Kaz slept through it all.
Narmouthis was a great place. The Greek city was extremely well preserved, with a temple, dromos, houses, Roman villa, etc. My Graeco-Roman heart was pounding heavily. I rested a bit and went back to the bus a bit earlier than the rest, because my presentation was coming closer and I still felt weak and trembling. Then we went the same dangerous way back, and Mohamed, the driver, was under the impression that he could drive faster now, since we didn't have any accident before. Ilona squeeked a lot. Then we arrived at Dionysias, the town where I had to give a presentation. It was a bit dissapointing. I had expected that the Roman fort, bathhouse and houses were still intact, but there were just piles of unrecognisable stones. The temple was pretty cool, though. Completely intact, with a lot of tiny rooms and windy stairs, and a beautiful relief of Sobek and a Ptolemaic king. My presentation went well, I think. I wasn't nervous, and I didn't faint, which was quite incredible!
Then we drove to Tunis, a small pottery village, and we spent the rest of the evening in Paradise! We stayed in some huts, made of wood and reed and mud, and the surroundings were very idyllic! The Fayum is such a green place. We talked all evening, hitting each other every now and then to kill the million mosquitoes that tried to sting us. I learned a great new dutch word : potloodventer (salesman of pencils). It doesn't really mean a man selling pencils, but it means an exhibitionist. I was a bit confused, because I didn't know the word and I thought that Kenny was telling a story about a pencil salesman near the woods!

25/11 : I felt completely cured the next morning, despite my lack of sleep, because of the local minaret at 5 o'clock yelling Allahu Akhbar for half an hour!
We left early to go to Karanis. Everyone was tired of the trip, so Karanis was a bit too much. It was mostly a talk about prehistoric pottery, which frankly doesn't interest me that much, and a tour around the Graeco-Roman remains. I like the Romans and the Greeks, but 3 days in a row was a bit too much. We are egyptologists after all, and we were craving for some pharaonic remains. On top of that, Amy felt weak and Kenny nearly fainted! Even Kenny, whom I always thought was the toughest of us all! We were all just very tired and warm I think.
Then we went back to Cairo, and I spent the evening with Quentin, Amy and Koos, watching the Pixar film Up and the film Small Soldiers, while eating chocolate ice cream and Rotato chips.

Today I'm just in the library working and typing, and I'm really nervous, because Guillaume is coming this evening with Egypt Air, and I can't wait to see him!