Bad week but cheap alterations

This week at work has been exhausting combined with a lot of nighttime events - some fun and some just work. I can say that one way this week has been good has been the availability of an on-site dry cleaning service that does alterations. Our Embassy is having a formal party next week and I ordered a bunch of dresses from Nordstrom figuring one of them would a. fit and b. be attractive. One of them was attractive but it also assumed the wearer was 6 feet tall. I was able to get the dress - which has elaborate fabric layers altered and pressed for the party for $8 and it was done in less than 24 hours.

Islamic Cairo

After the Cairo Citadel, we stopped at a couple of Cairo's must-see mosques

At the 14th century Sultan Hassan mosque we admired this, the oldest known exiting Koran reading stand, which is still in use. The wood carving and inlay were beautiful - I'm not sure if the picture does it justice.






















Here more pretty light fixtures at Sultan Hassan. (It was nearly empty of visitors)























Plastic lights and gawdy Eid decorations adorn the tomb of the important Sufi Sheikh Ali Al Rifai at Al Rifai mosque (only a century old), just next door to Sultan Hassan.



Al Rifai is also the burial spot for the last king of Egypt and (pictured here) the final shah of Iran. The shah received medical treatment at Duffy's alma mater George Washington University (just like Reagan and Cheney and Dan!). The shah's room was filled with beautiful marble panels in creams, greens, and browns. It also had an exceptionally nice Persian carpet left by his widow.

Vote for the Queen

Last summer, you had the opportunity to vote for Petra as World Wonder. Now here is your chance to vote for Queen Rania as most inspirational guest on a CNN International tv show. Deadline December 3rd.

Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha at Cairo Citadel

Day 2 brought us to Islamic Cairo. First stop was Mosque of Muhammad Ali, showing the Ottoman influence of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. It sits atop the ancient hilltop citadel and is visible from all over town.



























Behind us is the brass clock tower presented to Muhammad Ali by King Louis Philippe of France in 1845. Egypt gave France the Luxor obelisk (now standing in Place de la Concorde in Paris) in return. Egyptians are quick to say it was a raw deal: the clock stopped telling time less than a year after its installation.



The original alabaster ritual washing station.




The gorgeous interior of the mosque...




...and the smoggy view outside.

An afternoon at the Sphinx and Saqqara

Day 1. Again, us at the premiere pyramid - sphynx site before heading south to Saqqara to see the earlier prototype.



It was quite crowded on this day, but somehow we got this desolate shot.



Zoser's pyramid, the first Step Pyramid and the first pyramid of the Pyramid Age, at Saqqara. The "beginning of architecture".


Frieze of cobras at Saqqara

City + pyramid picture

Justin asked for a better city + pyramid combination shot. This is not a great picture primarily because of the haze of dust and air pollution. It was taken from the Citadel - which I will describe when I get to loading the pictures of our second day in Cairo but until then...

Our Trip to Cairo - A Morning in Giza

Our first morning in Egypt was spent at Giza the site of the three largest of the pyramids. Apparently there are over a hundred pyramids in Egypt - these at Giza are the biggest and among the oldest. Eventually the pharoahs stopped wanting pyramids because they were basically an advertisement to graverobbers "there is a lot of gold here!"

Here's me in front of the pyramid of Cheops the biggest - and you can get a sense of the size of the stone blocks by the people along side of them.

In the pyramids' prime they were covered in limestone so they were smooth rather than looking like steps


Giza is genuinely a suburb of Cairo and its one of those suburbs like Arlington or Evanston that are right next to the city so you can't tell where one begins and the other ends. In Giza however the suburb then suddenly ends and there are pyramids. While National Geographic takes pictures that make you think the pyramids are in the middle of nowhere - they aren't and this city skyline was taken from the pyramids.
The other thing about Giza that is weird is that it is spelled with a letter that in the Jordanian dialect is pronounced "J" - so as we were driving to Giza and I was reading the street signs I kept seeing "Jeeza" and wondering what that was.

Here is Dan in my attempt at the NatGeo shot where we and the pyramids are near nothing. In fact we were surrounded by hundreds of tourists - most of them from Europe but some from Asia and America too.

A Month in Pictures - First Stop Back to Israel

For the last month it seems like we have spent more weekends away than we have spent at home. This weekend we are not traveling and are very hopeful that some movies from netflix arrive (our mail is uneven sometimes mail arrive in 4 days and just as often in 14).

Last month one of our trips - mentioned somewhere earlier was to Israel for 36 hours of history, Mexican food, French food and the beach.

First stop: Jerusalem and a church (that isn't very old) dedicated to the Lord's Prayer. All around the garden and in the hallways is the Lord's Prayer in dozens of languages. Here is Dan with Norwegian. We followed a Spanish tour group inside and then confused the guy at the ticket counter by speaking Arabic. The Christians in Jerusalem are Palestinians who speak Arabic.

Our second stop was not far away and was a scenic overlook on the Mount of Olives. The white boxes are stone Jewish graves. The goldened domed building houses the rock where Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac. This is the most famous building in Jerusalem although somewhere Dan and I met a Jerusalemite who said that the city of Jerusalem felt like it needed a symbol like the Sydney Opera House that said "Jerusalem" (apparently besides the Dome of the Rock or the Western Wall or the Church of the Holy Sepulchre) and so a very modern bridge is under construction.


While stuck in traffic we saw a car brand "Megan"

While Jerusalem has all of the history, our real destination was Tel Aviv and a walk on the beach. One of the beaches had set up these cool glowing pyramids (presumably to tempt you to rent their beach chairs and sit at their beach rather than any of the others).

"Behind the Ministry of Finance"

I have lamented before about the lack of addresses in Jordan. When one is invited to a party one is usually given a map with landmarks and no street names – we happen to live near a bank and mosque which helps people find us.

I was assigned this week to develop my department’s guest list for an upcoming party and was asked to provide addresses. I started gathering names and realized that in our office’s online shared address book – we don’t record addresses. As I looked at my collection of business cards, I saw that Jordanian business cards rarely have an address and even then only have a PO Box although very few things of importance (and this includes party invitations) are sent via the mail. The lone exceptions were the business cards I had for companies in the shipping business who must contend daily with the lack of addresses. In true Jordanian style as I started filling in the address field of the guest list some of my addresses were “above the fast food restaurants near the Kempinski hotel” and “behind the Ministry of Finance.” For some places, like the Ministry of Finance I just wrote “Ministry of Finance” which I am sure the drivers (who will deliver the invitations) know – because otherwise how would they deliver things to offices that are behind the Ministry of Finance.

My absentee ballot arrived

My absentee ballot arrived today. Earlier today, I had read an article in the WSJ that talked about the growing use of absentee ballots and how it means that there isn't voting day but voting month.

I discovered one of the great things about absentee ballots - Google! Normally, on election day if there is a race I am not following - I vote by party or I will vote for the female candidate. But Google and my absentee ballot means I can research some candidates. For instance, in New Jersey, Jeff Boss is on my ballot as both a presidential and senatorial candidate. Under party, it lists "Boss for Senate" - I have no strong opinions about Sen. Lautenberg or his Republican opponent Dick Zimmer - so this is a vote where I might vote for the Libertarian (Mr. Jason Scheurer) or maybe the guy whose party is the "Boss for Senate Party." But now with Google, I am able to discover that Mr. Boss seems very opinionated about NSA and I am not sure I share his concerns. I fear Mr. Boss has possibly lost my vote.

On his website, he does ask me to tell 10 friends and for them to tell 10 friends. I have now told 10 people - the rest is up to you.

Now before you write that all people who run for president outside of the two party-system are crazy, I want to note that my friend Andrew was a candidate for President in 2004 and he is not crazy.

Now, I am researching Mr. Gary Stein of the "Rock the Boat" party ... another good name but alas no website, which makes me question how seriously he is taking his campaign.