All went well and I decided that today would be the day that I tried to find the laundromat. I did wait till 11:45 so that the fog on the highway would lift. 3 tunnels and 2 exits on the autostrada and I was able to follow the directions that the chambermaid had given me. I found what she was talking about - but it was a dry cleaners not a laundromat. I was very sad - but not without hope. Next door was the British Institute - where they give English lessons. I went in and asked if they spoke English - but of course. The head came out because she was English and could communicate better.
I explained my problem. This wasn't a problem for her - she has a machine. But in the spirit of womanhood pulling together, she went on line and searched for one. I had the card for another, but it was in the center of town where everything has been destroyed and didn't have a phone # that could possibly have reached them in a different location. She found one that was at a shopping mall. (Hooray - a 2fer!) She gave sketchy directions and I was off. I couldn't find it, but had passed a huge post office, so went back to mail my postcards and ask for more directions. Since I was much closer, they gave me directions that fixed my mistake and this time I was successful. (I also found a bigger mall next door, which I can explore another day.)
The self service laundromat was right inside the door where I entered. 2 machines were empty, so while I was reading the instructions, the lady that runs it (along with tailoring) came out of her office and walked me through the whole procedure. I chose to wash with the coldest water 35c because that would be the shortest/cheapest wash. I tend to choose cold anyway, because there is less chance of permanent damage. She showed me that I had 37 minutes to wait, so I went and explored the rest of the mall. It had a dept. store, supermarket, housewares market, several clothing stores, children's shops and a small cafeteria and a place that did drinks, coffee and sandwiches. I did really check out the sewing shop that had some yarn - none that I was interested in and the ladies room.
Back to the wash and into the dryer. The lady's husband came out to help me with that. I chose medium and it went in 6 minute cycles - so I sat and read my kindle and restarted it for the next time. The second time I took out the dry stuff and consolidated the things that just needed a little more and then the power went off in the whole mall. Oh dear, Oh dirty words! I folded up my dry stuff while waiting and then read some more. Finally after 20 minutes the power came back on and I quickly started the last drying. SUCCESS.
Since it was now 3 pm, I decided to head for home. Retraced my route (I thought) but when I went through a long tunnel, knew I had made a mistake. Luckily, at the end of the tunnel there were a lot of good road signs - one directing me back through the tunnel to the autostrada. With no more excitement, I made it home to start this blog.
Now for the Egypt adventures. The best part of the trip for Chuck may be that he doesn't have to carry any suitcases. When we got to the airport in Amman, the luggage was unloaded, everyone checked to make sure that their's was there, and then it was moved for us. When we arrived in Cairo, the bags are taken off the belt and again we all checked and they moved it out to the bus. The first night in Cairo we stayed at a hotel really near the airport. We are only in Cairo 1 night at this end of the trip, so we didn't go too far. It was quite late when we got there, so after meeting Passant our new guide and getting our room key, Chuck & I decided to just go to bed.
Passant is a lovely young woman, and an extremely knowledgeable guide. She has a degree in Egyptology, so there were a lot of sort of technical things about the hieroglyphics that she could explain and of course she really knew about the history.
The first day in Cairo, we met the rest of our group and toured the Cairo museum. It is filled with stuff, stuff and more stuff. Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures. This was a recurring theme in Egypt. There were a lot of places where pics were forbidden. At the museum, they even forbid cameras. Another good thing about the tour was that we could leave anything that we wanted on the bus, so we didn't have to lug lots of things with us.
We did have a little excitement - two of our members got lost. They turned the wrong way coming out of the ladies room and then really couldn't find us. Passant told us to stay in a section and she went and found them. This was the only time that people got lost or were late back to a meeting place on the whole trip!
The most fabulous thing at this museum is the King Tut exhibit. If you were fortunate enough to see it when it traveled to the states, you still missed a great deal. The best part was that it wasn't crowded, so it was possible to really see the things.
After the museum, we went for lunch (there was Valet parking at this restaurant - because Cairo is really crowded and parking would be a problem.) Guess what? The food is Egypt is just like the food in Jordan.
Then we had a little ride through the city and back to the airport to fly to Luxor.
Our hotel was right on the Nile and had an inner courtyard that had restaurants around it and a "folkloric" show in the center every night.
We still haven't figured out where the girls in little girl pink dresses and the giant pink bunny dancing came in, but it was good for a laugh.
Our first day in Luxor was "Experience a day in the Life of Egypt". Here is Passant escorting us to the ferry boat that would take us across the Nile.
Normally, the tour goes to an elementary school, but this was the holiday so we missed it. I know that Maggi and I were disappointed and I think that some of the rest of the people were too.
We went to a Handicrafts school and showroom. A woman from Turkey runs it with her husband. She has taught the women in the village to do bead-work and embroidery that they can do at home. This is for sale at the shop and they are starting up an on-line store. The things are really lovely and it is a good source of income for these families. Every class has been filled to overflowing and she trains students to be teachers of others.
A beaded purse:
The workers:
Next we went to a rural farm. I have a feeling that this is very much the way that people have lived for hundreds of years. The family was transfered to this area when the dam was built. We sat in an outside area and were served tea and bread. The bread was freshly baked in an outside oven (much like the pueblo indians of NM.)
Our host told us about his family and their life. He had made the pilgrimage to Mecca with his mother, so on the wall was drawn the black building and the boat (which is how they got there.)
He showed us their fields and irrigation system:
Inside the house he demonstrated spinning and grinding corn. I took a turn at the corn grinding and it takes a very very very long time to grind enough for the bread!
The animals live in building attached to the house and they are brought in through the living room at night.
We had a group picture out by the camels: The little girl in the center is our host's daughter. She had on a really cute lace dress and tights that were just like Branwen's (my 4 year old granddaughter.)
After lunch we went back to our hotel for a rest. (The Egypt part of the tour seemed to be arranged this way - stuff in the morning, rest in the afternoon, stuff in the evening.)
We arrived at the Temple of Karnak in the late afternoon and then were there for when they turned on the lights. We got to see it both ways which was really interesting.
There is an alley of Sphinx that runs between the Temple of Karnak and the Luxor Temple. They are still excavating it.
Daylight
Night
We stopped at a Papyrus shop where we had a demonstration of how the paper is made (I found some growing in my neighborhood - I may demonstrate for the kids when they study Egypt.)
They had a lot of really nice looking things - but nothing that I needed or wanted, until I discovered that they had bookmarks with the hieroglyphic alphabet and that they would write a name phonetically on the back. Gifts for Calder and Branwen.
That evening we had dinner at the hotel with our welcoming drink. We could also watch the "floor show".
No comments:
Post a Comment