Tag Archives: Egypt

May 4, 2010 · 11:46 pm

Egyptian Desserts

While we were in Egypt last month, we particularly enjoyed the desserts.  One memorable meal was at the Naguib Mahfouz Restaurant in the Cairo souk (5 al-Badestan Lane, Khan al-Khalili, 1, Cairo, Egypt). Named in honor of the only Arabic-language writer to have won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the restaurant features brass tabletops, an impressive molded ceiling, and good food. Dessert was custard with raisins, nuts, and coconut on top, served with mint tea.

The signature Cairo dessert is called Um Ali or Om Ali (“Mother of Ali”), a kind of bread pudding. Two other excellent local treats are Golash (like Baklava) and Konafa (like a firm custard with filo on the bottom and shaved onto the top). We brought home some boxes of pastries as presents after being recommended to El Abd, a downtown Cairo patisserie with an impressive selection. Despite the tempting selection of pastries, one of my favorite sweets in Egypt remains fresh dates.

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Images Copyright 2010 Katy Dickinson

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May 3, 2010 · 11:58 pm

Pharaohs, Columns, Hieroglyphs

While I was in Egypt last month, I learned that the art and religion of the Pharaohs were much more complex than I had been taught in high school and college. My impression from studying art history and religion and even from reading Elizabeth Peters’ novels featuring Amelia Peabody Emerson was that ancient Egypt’s culture was homogeneous and largely unchanging for thousands of years, with the notable exception of the reigns of Akhenaten and Hatshepsut.

We visited the following during our trip:

Museums
–Egyptian Museum (Cairo), Coptic Museum (Cairo)
–MIT Rahina Museum (Memphis)
–Cheops Boat Museum (Giza)
–Imhotep Museum (Sakkara)
–Nubian Museum (Aswan)
–Luxor Museum (Luxor)
Ancient Sites
–Giza (Pyramids and Sphynx), near Cairo
–Sakkara, Dahshur, near Cairo
–Unfinished Oblisk (Aswan Granite Quarry)
–Philae Temple (Agilkia Island – near Aswan)
–Kom Ombo Temple, Edfu Temple (on the Nile between Aswan and Luxor)
–Al-Deir Al-Bahari Temple, Valley of the Kings, Karnak, Luxor Temple (Luxor)

Just considering the three tombs we walked through in the Valley of the Kings (Queen Twosret in KV14, Thutmosis III in KV34, and Ramses III in KV11), there was a remarkable variety. The wall paintings in the tomb of Thutmosis III include hundreds of almost cartoon-like small stick figures (like an ancient book of XKCD drawings), very different from the large highly colored figurative processions painted in the other two tombs. Queen Twosret’s tomb is the deepest in the valley – in the new visitor’s center, a three dimensional translucent plastic model shows how impressively far her tomb extends into the earth – while Ramses III’s tomb is majestic but relatively short.

It was hard not to get lost in either the grandeur or the infinite detail.  Ashraf Azap, our guide, patiently coached us to notice that earlier pharaonic columns had uniform capitals (often in the shape of the papyrus plant or the head of Hathor the mother goddess), while in columns created later by the Ptolemaic dynasty, the capitals were more varied, sometimes each top being different within one temple: palm, papyrus, and lotus all providing design inspiration.  Once at Sakkara, we saw a real dog sitting in the cool shade on top of a truncated  column.

I became particularly fascinated by the variety among Hieroglyphs. Several of these ancient graphical figures became favorites. Some of the carvings are shallow (or very weathered) scratches, others are abstracted, while still others are deeply cut and much more elaborate.  Sometimes a figure faces right to left, other times the same figure faces the other way.  I noticed that in large hieroglyphs of animals, the sculptor sometimes added realistic details like individual feathers on birds. I even found a hieroglyph which irresistibly reminded me of President Barack Obama…

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Images by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher 2010 Copyright

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May 2, 2010 · 11:54 pm

Trains in Egypt

We were in Egypt from 14-25 April (much longer than planned because Iceland’s volcano canceled our flight home).  Because we are railfans (“train nuts”), we kept our eyes open for trains during our visit.  Cairo’s main rail station is below an underpass on the way to and from the airport so we saw it several times in passing but the building is covered in green tarps so not much is visible.

On our Aswan-Luxor boat trip, we saw several trains loading or carrying sugar cane, and while we were on our way to visit temples and tombs we passed over the narrow guage tracks several times. Egypt has a national railway system but we never saw a passenger train in our travels.  The guards who sit by the tracks at the road crossing were curious why we asked our driver to stop for pictures.  Once I took a photo of the camel next to the tracks, they relaxed.

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Images Copyright 2010 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher

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April 26, 2010 · 9:58 am

After Being Stranded in Egypt

John and Paul and I flew home safely yesterday after being stranded in Egypt by Iceland’s volcano eruption. We were in Doha, Qatar to visit Jessica during Paul’s Spring Break. All went well until flights through Europe were canceled due to volcanic ash. Here are some of John’s and my notes home to our wonderful neighbors, friends, and family who took care of our home and pets while we were gone:

  • 18 April:
    John and Paul and I are stuck in Cairo. All of the airports in Europe are closed by the volcano in Iceland and all USA flights from Egypt go through Europe. Paul loves the pyramids and seems determined to take photos of every hieroglyph he sees on every tomb wall. We have two people watching our house and pets in San Jose so all should be well at home. … There are now 6.8 million stranded passengers and as budget travelers, we are at the end of a long queue. It will probably take several days to get home. I appreciate your help! Cairo is wonderful. We are going back to see the Sakkara tombs and also to see Dahshur today.
  • 19 April:
    We have climbed inside of 3 pyramids – which are stinky and hot but very interesting. They don’t tell you in the guide books that people pee inside the pyramids – nasty! …Lufthansa’s regular flights start today but no word yet on how they will get those of us in the canceled flight backlog home. We are on the 17th floor of the Ramses Hilton with a Nile river view, 3 blocks from the Egyptian Museum.
  • 20 April:
    We just got back from the Lufthansa – United office here in Cairo Egypt. The first flight possibility goes out of Cairo on Saturday 4/25 (standby – not confirmed). John and Paul and I have confirmed seats on Tuesday 4/28. There does not seem to be any other way out of Cairo except through Germany, according to Lufthansa. We will keep checking back with them. Kat Carpenter and Felix Quintero are taking care of our house and pets in San Jose….It rained briefly this afternoon in Cairo – with lots of wind. We are set to take the Nile river trip and will be back in time for the first possible standby flight on Saturday. Everything is cash only – we had to call to extend our daily cash limit to pay for the cruise. We have been out collecting additional medicines – since we only brought enough for our original stay. Egyptian drugs have different names and dosages but we found a friendly English-speaking pharmacist who is helping us. There is an amazing 180 degree Nile view from our 17th floor room – lots of pollution haze but still exhilarating to stand on either of the two balconies.John and I just had a snack of Golash (like baklava) and Konafa (like a firm custard with filo on the bottom and shaved onto the top). Very tasty! Paul is happily watching Arabic TV.  All Saints Cathedral (Episcopal/Anglican) here in Cairo also sponsors a group of Sudanese refugees and they have their own shop – feels like home.
  • 24 April:
    We are now confirmed to fly Lufthansa early tomorrow morning – arriving on Sunday 4/25 around noon at SFO. Hooray – we are finally coming home!We went on a Nile river cruise – visited temples and tombs in Aswan and Luxor and just returned to Cairo. Paul has happily climbed inside of 3 pyramids (Giza, Sakkara, Dhashur) and visited 3 royal burial sites in the Valley of the Kings (Queen Tawosert in KV14, Thutmosis III in KV34, and Ramses III in KV11) . We have been to the Ben Ezra Synagogue, the Coptic Church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, and the Mohammad Ali (Alabaster Mosque) in the Citadel of Salah al-Din. We visited the Coptic Museum and saw the Nag Hammadi Library. We have visited the Egyptian Museum, Imhotep Museum, Memphis Rahina Museum, Nubian Museum, and Luxor Museum.Paul has missed a week of school but is working on a paper for Geology and a paper for English about his trip to Egypt – illustrated with photos. He has rocks to show his Geology teacher.
  • 25 April:
    We’re home! After 48 hours on the go, from Luxor to Cairo to Frankfurt to California, we landed at SFO just after noon, and got back to the house an hour ago!Everything and everyone looks fine – Tino the cat says that nobody loves him, but he is willing to shed on us anyways; Redda and Juliet (the dogs) are glad to see us – and the birds were singing their hearts out when we walked in the door! Not to mention the happy flowers and roses! Thanks again for watching over everyone!More later after we get unpacked and unjetlagged :-)Egypt was a blast, but it is good to be back home!

Things I missed about California while in Egypt:

  • Drinkable tap water
  • Crosswalks and gaps between cars on the street, street signs and lights that are not just decorative
  • Being able to enter a building or historic site without a bag scan and questions by heavily armed guards
  • A telephone system I understand
  • Fresh fish
  • A wide variety of national and ethnic foods
  • Not having to pay tips (baksheesh) for everything
  • Peet’s coffee

Things I learned to love in Egypt:

  • Fresh dates
  • Tomb wall carvings and paintings of animals and daily life in ancient times
  • Donkeys and Camels and Horses on city streets
  • Om Ali and other Egyptian deserts
  • Bargaining in markets and shops
  • Hearing the Islamic call to prayer singing out across the city and knowing what time it is

John and Paul and Jessica and I took about 6,000 photos – check back to see them soon…

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November 28, 2007 · 5:38 pm

50 new SEED participants selected today

Selection Process Complete!

This morning, we selected the 50 participants in the Sun Engineering Enrichment and Development (SEED) mentoring program for the Worldwide Established Staff, January – July 2008 term. SEED received a total of 104 SEED applications, unfortunately more than the program can accommodate. Even after sorting out the twenty who were ineligible (mostly because they were too junior or their applications were not complete), today’s selection was very difficult. This group of applicants was
remarkably senior, well regarded, accomplished and particularly diverse geographically.

SEED recently ran a special term for staff in Beijing, Bangalore, Prague, and St. Petersburg, so there were fewer applicants this term from those locations. Nonetheless, this new group promises to offer a broad and valuable range of cultural
viewpoints. With so many superb candidates, we could not limit our choices to just
the 40 we had intended to accept! Next step: the term’s 15-name Mentor Wish Lists from the newly selected participants are due on 7 December.

Term Scope

SEED’s four basic General Selection Criteria are:

    1. All Participants are in Engineering.
    2. Only regular Sun employees may participate.
    3. Superior annual performance ratings are preferred.
    4. Manager support is required.

In addition, there are two specific selection criteria for Established Staff:

    1. Hold a senior position: they must be at a Principal job level or above.
    2. Have been with Sun for two or more years as of the term start month.
      That is, this term’s applicants must have been hired before 2006.

Participant Information Summary

Location of Participants

 

    • 1 Australia, 2%
    • 1 Belgium, 2%
    • 3 China, 6%
    • 1 Czech Republic, 2%
    • 2 France, 4%
    • 1 Germany, 2%
    • 2 India, 4%
    • 1 Ireland, 2%
    • 1 Japan, 2%
    • 1 Norway, 2%
    • 1 Russia, 2%
    • 1 Switzerland, 2%
    • 34 USA, 68%
      • 5 Central USA, 10%
      • 7 Eastern USA, 14%
      • 22 Western USA, 44%

Division of Participants

 

    • 2 CTO/Sun Labs, 4%
    • 6 Microelectronics, 12%
    • 5 Sales (Global Sales and Services), 10%
    • 11 Services (Global Sales and Services), 22%
    • 19 Software Group, 38%
    • 1 Storage Group, 2%
    • 5 Systems Group, 10%
    • 1 Worldwide Operations, 2%

Gender of Participants

    • 9 Female, 18%
    • 41 Male, 82%

11 Managers, 22% (the rest are individual contributors)

10 Previously Applied to SEED, 20% (the rest are 1st time applicants)

Countries of origin for participants in this term include: Australia, Belgium, Canada,
China, Czech Republic, Egypt, England, France, Germany, India, Israel, Japan,
Korea, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Romania, Russia,
Spain, Switzerland, and the USA

More information on the SEED Engineering mentoring program is available at

http://research.sun.com/SEED/

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