Egyptian Museum
An earlier event that I failed to write about:
The week before classes began, two fellow Americans and I decided to visit the Egyptian Museum. Since the museum has no air conditioning and the number of bus-loads of Asian tourists increases throughout the day, we decided to go as early as possible - about 9 am.
We took the shuttle over to campus, from which we just had to cross Tahrir Square. To get to the opposite side, we decided to walk around the perimeter, even though that required crossing about 4 major streets (all with about four painted lanes, which translates into about 6 or 7 lanes of actual cars). We made it across within about half an hour (without dying!) and found the entrance to the museum. We made it through the 2 security checkpoints - which I set off both times, was patted down, and could have easily smuggled almost anything past - and, only 45 minutes later than planned, we made it into the museum.
Tammy, one of the girls that I was with, decided that our first stop should be the mummy room. After a few minutes of trying to find a map of any type of the museum, she resorted to asking a young man sitting by the entrance for directions. He excitedly got up and said he would lead us up there and give us a guided tour. All of us had been to the pyramids a day or two before, so we were wary of any offer of a guided tour, despite his repeated insistence that he expected no payment. He led us upstairs to the mummy-rooms, where we discovered that there was an additional admission charge - L100 for adults, L50 for students, and L2 for Egyptians. Since neither of the girls had their student IDs with them and I wasn't that interested in the mummies, we decided that we'd pass on that for the day.
Our guide, Hussein (“Not related to the other one!”) insisted on leading us through the rest of the museum. By this point we had learned that he was an AUC student who volunteered at the museum over the summer as part of his ancient studies major, so we were less scared of him. He led us through the ancient statues, the treasures of King Tut's tomb, and artifacts from various other tombs and pyramids.
Unfortunately, much of Egypt (and this museum in particular) is wasted on me, since I start to find ancient artifacts dull after a few minutes. But I found a few objects that entertained me. A few of the relics could have passed as really cool modern art (as strange as that is).
Throughout the tour, Hussein had been telling us about the Rosetta Stone that the museum had. I thought that I remembered the British Museum having the Rosetta Stone, so I was a bit perplexed. At the end, he led us down to the lobby and showed us the Rosetta Stone, or the picture of it rather - interesting, but not the real thing.
We stopped in the courtyard for a bit and talked to Hussein. Apparently Egyptians enjoy making fun of their president almost as much as Americans enjoy making fun of Bush - though they use much more hushed tones to do so. Hussein also tried to talk us into going to Alexandria and several other historical sites with him, but we declined, since we didn't want to commit to anything at the moment. We exchanged email addresses and he led us back to campus, showing us the trick of cutting through the Metro station (which reduced the time of the trip across the square to about 5 minutes and didn't involve dodging traffic) and we caught the shuttle back to campus.
That night, after returning from my Arabic class, I came down the stairs in the dorm to find Hussein. Since none of us replied to his email that he had sent a few hours before, he decided to come by the dorms and find us. The other two from our group happened to walk through at that moment, so he talked us all into going to dinner. We walked to an Egyptian restaurant nearby that he was familiar with (some of the worst food I've had since I've been in this country) and had dinner. We managed to turn down his repeated invitations to go to Coptic Cairo with him the next day and said goodnight.
The week before classes began, two fellow Americans and I decided to visit the Egyptian Museum. Since the museum has no air conditioning and the number of bus-loads of Asian tourists increases throughout the day, we decided to go as early as possible - about 9 am.
We took the shuttle over to campus, from which we just had to cross Tahrir Square. To get to the opposite side, we decided to walk around the perimeter, even though that required crossing about 4 major streets (all with about four painted lanes, which translates into about 6 or 7 lanes of actual cars). We made it across within about half an hour (without dying!) and found the entrance to the museum. We made it through the 2 security checkpoints - which I set off both times, was patted down, and could have easily smuggled almost anything past - and, only 45 minutes later than planned, we made it into the museum.
Tammy, one of the girls that I was with, decided that our first stop should be the mummy room. After a few minutes of trying to find a map of any type of the museum, she resorted to asking a young man sitting by the entrance for directions. He excitedly got up and said he would lead us up there and give us a guided tour. All of us had been to the pyramids a day or two before, so we were wary of any offer of a guided tour, despite his repeated insistence that he expected no payment. He led us upstairs to the mummy-rooms, where we discovered that there was an additional admission charge - L100 for adults, L50 for students, and L2 for Egyptians. Since neither of the girls had their student IDs with them and I wasn't that interested in the mummies, we decided that we'd pass on that for the day.
Our guide, Hussein (“Not related to the other one!”) insisted on leading us through the rest of the museum. By this point we had learned that he was an AUC student who volunteered at the museum over the summer as part of his ancient studies major, so we were less scared of him. He led us through the ancient statues, the treasures of King Tut's tomb, and artifacts from various other tombs and pyramids.
Unfortunately, much of Egypt (and this museum in particular) is wasted on me, since I start to find ancient artifacts dull after a few minutes. But I found a few objects that entertained me. A few of the relics could have passed as really cool modern art (as strange as that is).
Throughout the tour, Hussein had been telling us about the Rosetta Stone that the museum had. I thought that I remembered the British Museum having the Rosetta Stone, so I was a bit perplexed. At the end, he led us down to the lobby and showed us the Rosetta Stone, or the picture of it rather - interesting, but not the real thing.
We stopped in the courtyard for a bit and talked to Hussein. Apparently Egyptians enjoy making fun of their president almost as much as Americans enjoy making fun of Bush - though they use much more hushed tones to do so. Hussein also tried to talk us into going to Alexandria and several other historical sites with him, but we declined, since we didn't want to commit to anything at the moment. We exchanged email addresses and he led us back to campus, showing us the trick of cutting through the Metro station (which reduced the time of the trip across the square to about 5 minutes and didn't involve dodging traffic) and we caught the shuttle back to campus.
That night, after returning from my Arabic class, I came down the stairs in the dorm to find Hussein. Since none of us replied to his email that he had sent a few hours before, he decided to come by the dorms and find us. The other two from our group happened to walk through at that moment, so he talked us all into going to dinner. We walked to an Egyptian restaurant nearby that he was familiar with (some of the worst food I've had since I've been in this country) and had dinner. We managed to turn down his repeated invitations to go to Coptic Cairo with him the next day and said goodnight.
posted by David at 11:35 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home