9/11 to 12/11 : Alexandrie, Alexandra

I've been on a 3-day trip to Alexandria the past few days. Well, we slept in a hotel in Alexandria, but we actually visited places not far from the great city.
Monday we first visited Cultnat, which is a documentation department for the cultural and natural heritage of Egypt, sponsored by the ministery. They have an amazing website, where you can see some very old pictures of the monuments. We also saw an exhibition about ancient islamic astronomy (waterclocks, celestial globes, sundials,...). After Cultnat we visited Abu Mina, where there are the remains of an egyptian church, with baths and residences around it. There wasn't a single sound in Abu Mina, and I enjoyed the silence so much. It almost made me religious (If I would have stayed there any longer, I would have returned a baptised Copt)! The Cairene noise and hustle often gets me on my nerves. I never seem to have any silence in Cairo, no matter where I am. Anyway, so far for my spiritual moment :p What was really cool in Abu Mina, was what Amy did : she found in the ground an entirely intact graeco-roman bottle! What an archaeological find!!! I was so jealous! We all photografied her with it, and then she put it back where she found it (as good egyptologist we wouldn't dream of removing it from it's spot without a decent excavation going on...)

Tuesday we went to Taposiris Magna. We saw the remains of the temple of Isis, and the necropolis behind it. Everyone, except for me and Sandra, climbed on top of the pylon of the temple, woth a lot of 'eeeks' and 'hihihiiiis'. It was funny to see them wave from above. I can't stop comparing our journey in Egypt to a weird Indiana Jones movie. We even climbed into a shaft to see 2 mummies lying 10cm from us! It was amazing to see them. In the wall there was also a baby skeleton, so sad!
In the afternoon we were free in Alexandria to do what we liked. I had to choose between so many things, because I ony had time to do one thing : the catacombs, the museum, the roman theatre, the villa of the birds,... We all chose to go to the catacombs, because they are very unique. And my travel guide said they combined spookiness and kitsch... Perfect for us!
The catacombs were less big than I imagined, but it was amazing anyhow. All those tombs next to each other... It was as if walking in a different world. There was absolutely no sound, except for the lights zooming a bit. My travel guide was right : spooky and kitsch! The catacombs date from the 2nd century AD, and the greeks and romans buried in here, tried to make a combination of Roman and Egyptian art style : hilarious! Anubis in Roman armour, Isis with Greek garments, an Egyptian statue with Roman head,... Hehe, i love the Romans. The air inside the catacombs was very thin, after a while I started to breath heavily. Ilona came a bit later than us to the catacombs, and Kenny made her scream, by sneaking up on her from behind, haha! Ilona is so cute when she shrieks.
In the evening I went with Amy, Sandra and Kaz to the famous library of Alexandria. We didn't go inside, but it was impressive to see the enormous (and ugly) building. Amy was very excited, because her GPS told her a geocache was around somewhere. Let me first explain quickly the wonderful game of geocaching : people from all over the world hide little treasures (like coins or little magnets) on places close to famous monuments (like the Eiffeltower, the pyramids, etc). They then locate the treasures on a GPS system, so other people can try to find them, take them, and hide them somewhere else, for other people to find. But there is a rule : when you take the geocache, you have to make sure that nobody sees you take it. Amy is very fond of this world wide game. So at the library, her GPS said a geocache was hidden somewhere under a red box hanging above some stairs. She wanted to check it out, but a man was sitting on the stairs. So we made up a plan : I would start crying, so that Amy could pretend to take me down the stairs to have a private conversation. So we did it! The man must have thought we were crazy, especially when Amy started putting on her flashlight while comforting me with words like 'he's not worth it, men are pigs!' xD
After dinner we went shopping. I made a friend in the public toilets : a little girl started to talk to me in arabic. I didn't understand a word, until she asked : 'esmek eh?'. I remembered it meant : what's your name? I said : Brenda, wi esmek eh? She said : Hakuuuuurrr, or something like that. We then spent the next 2 minutes trying to pronounce each others names, while all the women in the waiting queue were laughing about it!
Back on the street a man yelled at me : "Welcome to Egypt! Welcome to my heart!" What a pickup line!
Then Amy, Kaz, Sandra and I went to a bar to have a pepsi, and I tried to make my Dutch friends speak the dialect of Antwerp. Kaz trying to say 'een jat kaffe' (a cup of coffee in dialect) was just hilarious. It made my belly hurt with laughter. When Amy said she thought that 'jat kaffe' sounded like a pharaoh's name, we couldn't stop anymore!

Wednesday we visited Wadi Natrun, a place full of Coptic monasteries. A monk gave us a tour round the Syrian monastery, but his english was so bad, that I only understood the words 'paradise' and 'swastika'. Then a Polish restaurator of the medieval paintings in the church gave us a tour, and then we had another tour by Karel Innemee, a dutch egyptologist specialised in the Wadi Natrun monasteries. He was very passionate about it, and it was a delight to hear him talk. Then back to Cairo to eat and sleep, because it was the Alexandria trip was pretty exhausting!

Thursday morning I worked a bit in the library, and then we had a session with Ilona. She divided the paper subjects. My subject is : Ivory deposits from the early dynastic period. I'm very happy with it!
When I went back to my appartment to depose my laptop (I was going to have a walk around Zamalek with Kaz and Sandra), I had a nasty experience with a Egyptian man on the staircase of the common hall. I don't really want to give every detail, but it had scared the hell out of me, and I went to drink something with Kaz and Sandra to calm my nerves. (Don't worry, nothing bad happened, it was just a scary experience.)
After our walk, we went to a lecture about warfare in the 18th Dynasty by Garry Shaw. It was, again, extremely interesting. At the reception a very funny man came to us. He was an egyptologist I think, because he does lectures as well, but his humour was just sooo stupid! He thought he was the funniest man on earth and looked so pleased with himself, whereas he wasn't funny at all. Cathelijne and I had to go out to burst out laughing.
Then we went to eat pizza and to talk in Amy's, Kaz's and Sandra's appartment, on their couch beneath a warm blanket that smelled like cucumbers, until we nearly fell asleep and it was time for Quentin and me to go home.