Gaudete In Domino

It is hard to believe that we are five weeks into this experience.  Time is flying by.  I am working to slow down a little for the next week or two.  I have been a bit under the weather with a cough.  That seems to be subsiding so I am looking forward to being back up to full strength. This week we had classes on Paul's Letter to the Romans and Understanding Pope Francis.  On Thursday night we had the option to hear Amy-Jill Levine, a Jewish scholar, talk about the parables as heard by Jewish ears.  Fascinating and thought-provoking.  We walked to the talk and then I walked part way back and joined some of the group at a restaurant for dinner.  We went to Ai Pompiere (the firemen) which was a favorite special spot when I was a student.  Great to be back. Walked by this beauty on the way home.  Love the monuments (Colosseum) lighted at night Friday we went to see three churches that have paintings by Caravaggio.  I re...

Our last two days in Egypt went very quickly.  Fortunately, after all we had seen and done they were also relatively light. We awoke early for our trip back to Cairo.  The distance is great enough that a bus is not practical so we flew, once again.  And again, we arrived before we could reasonably go to our hotel. We toured a mosque and then had some time in the bazaar.  I was not in the mood so I, and a few others, sat in a coffee shop and watched the world go by.  In fact, vendors came up to us in the coffee shop to sell their wares.  I said it was like being a pasha with folks coming to us rather than us having to go to them. We then transferred to our hotel, the Conrad Cairo.  It is part of the Hilton chain and was quite comfortable,  It is on the Nile and I had a nice view from my room.  We had a free afternoon which I used to try to update the blog but was frustrated by the way my ipad interacted with the blog....

After our day at the temples we went to the Valley of the Kings.  It was exciting.  This is where you find many of the tombs of the great kings.  Not all were buried in pyramids but, in fact, the pyramid shape remained important.  One of the mountains in this area is shaped kind of like a pyramid which is why this place was chosen. In fact, there is a valley of the Kings, a valley of the Queens and a valley in which nobles and others were buried.  We went to the Valley of the Kings and to the workers graves.  Our guide pointed out that the tombs of the workers are often more beautiful than those of the nobles and royalty because they were made for themselves and they lavished special attention on them. There are a lot of undiscovered tombs.  And the hills in that area are honeycombed with tombs.  We saw lots of tomb entrances as we drove along.  Of course, almost all the tombs were looted at one point or another.  In fact, King Tut's...

The Temple of Luxor was the temple for the "harem" of the god Amun.  Each year there was a festival in which the statue of the god was brought to the temple of Luxor so he could "visit" his wives.  The statue itself was not really large.  So many of the statues are big and impressive that it is easy to think that they were all that way.  In this case, the processional statue was just a couple feet high.  It was processed from Karnak and taken by barge to the Temple of Luxor.  Again, at Luxor we have several kings and queens contributing to the building of the Temple over the years.  On the front of the temple is this relief of the king doing battle against his enemies. Not the best picture but you can see some of the coloration on the walls. The hypostyle hall of the Temple of Luxor.  Compare it to the one at Karnak. Some little baboon gods holding up an obelisk in front of the temple. Some colossal statues in the ...

One of the things I learned on my trip was that the main goal of ancient Egyptians was to insure eternal life.  For the kings and the nobility much time and effort was spent preparing their tombs and for their funeral rituals.  It was important to get most everything done during one's lifetime as once one died there were only 70 days of funeral rituals to make any final touches.  In fact, many tombs are unfinished if the person died suddenly or lived only a short life or reign. The two temples we saw, the Temple of Karnak and the Temple of Luxor were designed to honor the god Amun.  The Temple of Luxor was the temple of his "harem." Many of the temples are actually funerary temples.  This meant that they were designed to be used once for the funeral rites of the king or queen.  Sometimes they were used for additional funerals but that was not always the case and they were not necessarily intended to be used multiple times.  They also served as the ...

After the first few days spent in Cairo we went to Luxor.  In many ways I liked Luxor the most.  Cairo is a big city with lots of traffic.  I found it a bit tiring.  Luxor is smaller and more compact which made it easier to get around.  Not that our days were any shorter but it was less time in the bus. We had an early morning flight so had to leave the hotel very early.  Since we would not be returning to the same hotel we needed to get everything packed up.  Some folks stored one of their suitcases at the hotel to make traveling for the next couple days easier.  The flight was quick and smooth.  When we arrived at Luxor we collected our bags and made our way to the bus.  Since it was still mid-morning the hotel would not be available for several hours. We spent the morning sailing in a felucca in the Nile.  They are the same type of boat the ancient Egyptians used.  It was a beautiful morning and I really enjoyed the ex...