At the beginning of this month we enjoyed a field trip to the site of Tell el-Amarna.  Tell el-Amarna is the site where King Akhenaton of the 18th Dynasty founded his famous city of Akhetaton.  Akhetaton was a planned city revolving around Akhenaton’s cult of the sun disk, the god Aton.

The primary purpose of this visit was for us to explore the private tombs found in the northern and southern cliff faces at the site.  I took over 300 pictures throughout these tombs, so I hope you all enjoy them. (more…)

Better late than never, or late as usual in my case…  A little over a month ago some of the family got together to eat some fondue and drink some delicious wine in celebration of my Grandpa’s 80th birthday.  It was fun, and delicious. (more…)

After the recent demise of the original server, I realized that I had some pictures that were long due to be posted up.  So here are a bunch of pictures that I took throughout the last semester.

Enjoy! (more…)

Merry Christmas to everybody! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday.By the way, I was not drunk when we decorated our tree, it just came out that way… That’s Egypt for you!

Enjoy! (more…)

Well, I have just completed my last final for the Fall semester. I am officially now one semester further educated. Hopefully all my grades will reflect this new found knowledge. Now I am going to relax, turn my brain off, and do nothing over the next 2 months. Hooray for me!

The latest battles that I have been undertaking, (that would be moving and trying to get DSL again), have now been completed. It was pretty touch and go for quite a while there, but the battles have been won. We are completely moved out of our old place, turned in the keys and all, and pretty much all moved into our new place. Also, the DSL finally started working this morning, only took 1 week of fighting this time…. So all the battles have been won at this point, but if I know anything about Egypt, it’s that this war is still far from over…

Today was fun…. I decided to go to the DSL company’s office and demand a refund for their laziness. You would think such an errand wouldn’t be too difficult to accomplish. Well in Egypt it is. I had a friend drop me off after my classes with a binder and 4 books in my possession. After waiting for 20 minutes and arguing with the guy for another 10, I discovered that I cannot even accomplish anything at this office. Apparently, all refunds are handled at an office on the other side of town. So after accomplishing nothing, I decided to head on home. Before stopping a taxi, I reach into my pocket to find that I only have a half a pound. I then proceeded to walk 3 blocks to the nearest ATM to withdraw some cash. This still should not be too big a deal. Well that ATM did not work, nor did any other ATM I could find for over a kilometer. Keep in mind, I am carrying a binder and 4 not so compact books with me. Also, of course, as soon as I do finally find a functioning ATM, and get into a taxi, I pass about 908 ATMs on the way home….

So after arriving home, we decided to have another go at seeing the crazy old lady’s cheap apartment. And off we go again. About 2 hours and 7 or 8 people later, we finally get into this apartment…. Let’s just say there was a reason it was so cheap….

Today we attempted to locate a place to live that doesn’t make a box under a bridge appealing… It was an adventure, as with anything in this crazy place. We began by meeting with this guy to show us a place that appears that the Easter Bunny, in all his pastel glory, was slaughtered in a fun-house… After that, we saw another really nice place, but they were wanting a small fortune for it. We then saw a place that looked like it should have been condemned a few years prior. All along this journey, we collected more and more people. By the end of this quest, we were heading to see the final place, driving down the road with three people in the back, and three in front of this tiny little car. The final addition to our posse, the owner of the apartment we were venturing to view, was a crazy old lady. This final apartment, all I can say about it, is that it had a very nice door. We spent a good 10-15 minutes staring at this door, while the crazy old lady searched her person for the key with complete failure….

We do plan on finding a place to live by the end of this month, but I just felt you should all feel lucky that finding apartments in the states is nothing like this!

Enjoy!

Halloween in Egypt is nothing like it is in the states. It was so very disappointing to walk down the street and find nobody dressed up. However, it was so fun to confuse the locals by walking around all day as a pirate. To top it off, due to the lack to participation in the coolest holiday ever, I have secured myself a legacy at AUC. I will now forever be known as that guy that came to school dressed as a pirate….Enjoy! (more…)

While sitting in a coffee shop here in Cairo, I realized I haven’t really spoken with any of my friends and family in quite a long time. So I figured, now would be as good a time as any to give everyone a quick update on the past few months of my life.
Unfortunately, I am still fighting with the DSL companies here in order to get my internet access set up. They tell me that I will be online by Sunday, but I’m not holding my breath seeing as they consistently fail to follow-thru with their proposed plans.
Other than the constant fighting about getting internet access, not much else has been going on. Lately, all I have really been doing is going to school, studying, occasionally have some coffee with friends, but nothing too special to speak of. Anyways, I’m basically just rambling at this point, so I will return to my homework, and will look forward to your emails in the future.

Enjoy!