Egypt

I spent two days last week in Egypt - seeing the great pyramids and the sphinx and all of the amazing artifacts in the National Egyptian Museum. It is truly amazing. Huge structures built around 5000 years ago! Articles of clothing and even branches and leaves that were buried back then and have been amazingly preserved (though I'm not sure how long they'll stick around - the museum isn't exactly state of the art). All of the pieces from King Tut's tomb that were missing from the traveling exhibition when I saw it in Philly this past summer - including the actual golden coffin, and the many layers of golden boxes which surrounded it. It's really amazing to see how much time and wealth was put into death and the afterlife, while very little was spent on life on Earth.

The highlight was probably when we went into the second pyramid. After crawling down through a long passage and back up into the center of the pyramid we arrived at the tomb room. The room has been emptied of almost all that was originally there, but the sarcophagus is still in place, so while there were no guards around, we climbed into the tomb and lay back, arms crossed mummy-style and took a mental picture (no cameras allowed inside) of being in a pretty cool (if a bit gross) spot in the world. (Good thing we waited till the night we got back to watch 'The Mummy' - otherwise fear of the cover being put on while inside and being mummified while alive might have discouraged this particular adventure. The city of Cairo is dirty and thick with pollution, but the trip is highly recommended - seeing the things in real life that we've seen in movies and heard about all our lives is a pretty amazing experience.