Sunday, Oct 30th, 2011-Day 5 of trip

We woke up at 6 am and were excited to start our day in Turkey. We ate breakfast and went back to our cabin to wait till it was time to meet with our excursion. Bill read the ticket wrong. He thought it was at 9:15 when it was really at 8:15. When we discovered the error, we hurriedly ran out of the ship to the buses and tried to find our bus. The tour group guide said it had left. We asked if there was another tour we could go with. There was except it cost another 160.00 dollars. We took it and found that instead of our original 100 people bus tour we missed, we were now with a small mini van of 13 people. That is why it cost more because of the amt of people. More of a private tour with a sack lunch from the ship. So we paid the difference and went with the van. The guide would point out the different sites in Turkey as we drove to Ephesus Where Paul preached the gospel and to the Virgin Mary's home where she lived with John.

Just taking pictures of the architecture in Izmir, Turkey as we drove through the city to Ephesus.

  Turkey was beautiful and very clean, Bill and I were impressed with this country.  

This is a picture of the Coliseum .

picture of Izmir, Turkey as we were driving through the City.

Monday-Oct 31st, Day 6 of trip

Today we slept in till 10 a.m. We were tired and it was nice just to take it easy.  We got up and went to the gym. Then we had a nice lunch and  layed outside to get some good old sun.  We were by the basket ball side of the ship and we watched a bunch of guys play soccer.  There was one guy we met from Argentina who was playing.  He reminded us of a guy named Elias we knew in Argentina.  He was cocky but a good soccer player.
Then we walked and ran the track around the ship for some more exercise.  We went to the cabin around 4:30 p.m and showered and then made arrangements for our excursion in Rome.  We then had dinner at "Tempanyankis"  where they cook the Chinese food in front of you on a huge grill.  We sat with  6 other people, the cooks would throw up their utensils and play music with them while they cooked, and flip food into their high hats.  It was very entertaining and the food was delicious.  I had lobster and shrimp.  Bill had filet Mignon and shrimp.  The meal came with rice and soup.  After dinner we winded down and went to bed since we have a big day tomorrow in Egypt.

Our last stop was at the papyrus institute then we drove back to the ship it was a 3 hr trip. Today was a long 12 hr day into Cairo Egypt , but well worth it.

This is our tour guide holding the papyrus plant.  The plant is cut and soaked in water for several days until it is soft and pliable to make the paper.

Soaking the plant in water.

This guy works at the Papyrus institute were they sell Egyptian writings and pictures on Papyrus paper that they make.  He is showing the plant in more detail and how they take the plant to make the paper.

They use special tools to make the plant thin after it has soaked.

Then they pound it flat with a mallet like this one.

they roll it out thin and weave it together

and it looks like this.  You can see the pictures in the background to see what the finished products look like.  It is very expensive because the process takes so long.  We bought a picture representing a marriage in Egyptian, then we got a small Cartouch picture with it.  They wrote the Egyptian symbols of all our family members on our picture and the Cartouch helps us to decipher what the letters mean.  It is fun to have.  When we were at the pyramids the vendors where trying to sell us pictures like these for cheap and they said it was real papyrus, instead it was banana leaves which are fake looking papyrus.  They do this because they think tourists do not know what they are buying.  We were told not to buy from these vendors because it is fake.

Nov 1st, 2011, tues, Day #7

This is the Nile River taken from the tour bus.  We did not stop anywhere to get a good picture. We were on our way to the Papyrus Institute.

Nile river with Egypt in the background.

Ramsses the 2nd. In Memphis is one of the oldest cities in the ancient world.



The tour provided a very wonderful lunch for us at a hotel then we headed to the Memphis museum to see the statue of Ramsses 2nd.



outside the museum where the statue of Ramsses lays.



An Obolisk



Cartouch



We were told when you see a statue with the left foot in a forward position, that means that the ruler was living at the time the statue was built.  Most of the statues we have seen were built after the passing of the ruler.




One of the several temples in Memphis was dedicated to the goddess Hathor, was built in the reign of Ramsses the 2nd.




Every place we visited had Egyptian vendors trying to push there souvenirs on the tourists.  We were told that this is the only income these people have is to sell to tourists.  There was one more ship coming in when we left then they have 9 months of no tourism.  It is hard to make a living and people are very poor.  I felt bad not to help them out by buying something.  The tour guide cautioned us not to encourage it, because once you did they would never leave you along after that.



This is the Catacomps one of many in Egypt.  The idea here is you would lower the corpse down this well three stories deep.  There are openings where they would use a pulley to place the corpses on a level and then place in a catacomp (similar to honey comb that bees make) small niches where the dead were placed.  The family would hold a feast or celebration in a designated room where the body would be laid to rest.  They would eat and celebrate together.




 



Burial niches, They would lay bodies in these niches.




 


stairway to upper levels of the catacomps



Dining area for the Family of dead, Family feasts honoring the dead.



tomb statue

They have alot of animals in their tomb carvings.



tomb carvings-having to do with the Jackel (which is their god)disembowling the dead.




tomb doorway arch



SAQQAR-late afternoon



Across the court of the Pyramid complex of Djoser (Zoser)  (2667-2648 BC) ,the first king of the 3rd dynasty, standsTHE STEP PYRAMID , close to modern day Cairo. It is believed to be created by one man named Imhotep, He has been called Doctor, Sage, Architect, Astronomer and High Priest. During an excavation in 1924 a pedestal of a statue of Djoser was found.  the statue can be seen in Cairo's Museum. This complex represents the first major work of stone.





 



This is our tour guide in the blue scarf, she is explaining about the corridors and Eygptian writings on the stones and some history behing the "Djoser Complex"



Eygptian writings.




 



The Mortuary Complex of Djoser
A series of corridors and tomb chambers were dug.  Some scholars believe that this tomb was intended for a member of Djoser's family, but not for him.



Sphinx guardian of the horizon



giving the sphinzx a "knuckle sandwich"





A BIG FAT KISS!!!





The Great Sphinx is a national symbol of Egypt, both ancient and modern.  It is an antiquity whose image has stirred the imagination of poets, scholars, adventureres and tourists for centuries.  It was the first colossal piece of sculpture in ancient Egypt, it measures 57 m long d 20 m hight, it is the image of the king who unites human nature with divine and leoine power. The sphinx represents deity with the body of a lion and human head.  Arabs call it "Abu Hol-the father of terror".  The royal head on the lions body symbolizes power and might controlled by the intelligence of the pharoh.  The head dress was a particular way of folding the scarf that was exclussive to Egytian kings.  The sphinx does not have a nose there are many theories, some think that Napoleon's soldiers destroyed it, some say that an Arab historian el Makrizi in AD 1436 damaged it to show people it was just a stone statue, and not a sacred object.  In 150-137 B.C a thousand years after its construction, the desert sand covered the Sphinx.  Then Tuthmosis 1V the great-great grand father of Tutankhamen cleared the sand from the statue.  During the period of Ramesses 2nd (1300 B.C) The statue was again covered with sand.  Marcus Aurelius (160 A.D) carried out new restoration work, the sands again took over the statue except for the head.  Than a famous Arab historian Al-Makrizi who lived in the 11th century  was interested in the sphinx and said there were secret cavitys in the monument which hid a cup that had belonged to Solomon the son of David.  In 1789 scientists of Napoleonic expeditions excavated the monument.



The sphinx with the pyramids of Giza in the background.  They are much closer  in distance than anyone would imagine.