Talkin to Sayed

So how sweet is this, Sayed goes into Aswan to use the internet cafes to talk to me. This morning he surprised me because I thought he would wait till Friday. It was really cool to have morning coffee with him. He's really the best. And I'm not biased at all, no.
In other news I will not be able to drink green beer for St. Patrick's Day because of thesis work. I have not been posting because of thesis work. I have not been doing anything because of thesis work. Why, again, did I put myself through this?!?!?! I don't know. But I must get back to work.

Valley of the Kings

So AJ and I left work one day and bicycled to the Valley of the Kings. As you can see from the balloon picture, our digs at the Casa Italia overlooked the desert beside the VK so we were already right there in the hood. The freaky thing is that the road into the VK is uphill the entire way, but it looks like it is downhill. See the picture of me riding on the bike? It looks like I am facing downhill, right? But NO!!!! I am pedaling UPHILL. The whole place is an optical illusion. Like the laws of physics stop working there at the place where the kings were buried. And the mountains look alive.
Anyway, after leaving and riding downhill all the way, we wanted junk food. So we pedaled to a circle K (or the local equivalent) and bought chocolate and diet coke and made friends with the cashier who said his name was David Beckham :)
I took one illegal picture in one of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings, when the guard wasn't looking, so I posted it here. It is not all that great, but for an illicit photo taken on the sly from hip level while walking it's ok.

Peabody Duck March Video

Not to be confused with the Battan death march and not quite parallel universe travel, but maybe close. If you are ever in Memphis you should see this. Just so you can say you've seen it.

The Cinderella Coach -Part II

More pictures from the Cinderella coach. Our horse's name was Ben and our driver was Mary.

The Cinderella Coach -Part I

We HAD to do it. We just HAD to rent one of the fairy-tale Cinderella Pumpkin coaches for one hour downtown. It was beautiful!
We brought aboard a big bag o' beer and some blankets and all bundled in. I took way too many pictures, but I couldn't help myself.

Starbridge Festival 2007

I just got back from the first annual Starbridge Celtic Music Festival and it was totally fun! My friend Nancy (with the red hair in all the pictures) hipped me to it. She is friends with the organisers so we had rock-star parking and felt like privileged insiders. I took too many pictures, but I'll try to only post a few of the best.
These first few are from our camp site.

Cowgirl Ginger

Ginger was a gaucho on the South American pampas in a past life or two. You can tell by her expert sadlemanship.

scary ferris wheel ride

There's a part of Chicago that is sort of on the water. Maybe it's called the riverwalk, I can't remember, but it has a big ferris wheel ride that lets you see pretty far. Ginger and I had to ride it and I was forced to try to overcome my fear of heights, but I didn't do a good job and I am terrified in this picture. It had started to rain and lightening and the little airborne cannister we were in rocked on its own in the wind. The stuff of nightmares for me.

Chicago Chinatown

One part of Chicago (well, we liked it all, really) that we all enjoyed was Chinatown. We walked there from our hotel and back and it was totally worth the hike. We ate donuts and just gawked, as tourists do, at all the pretty buildings and decorations.

Yeah, we're REALLY in Chicago

I had to throw these in to prove that we are really in Chicago (but right now I can't think why anybody would want to fake that).

Field Museum

Obligatory in any history-lover's trip to Chicago is a stop at the Field Museum. Being history-lovers, we were obliged to go. Here are a few pictures from the museum and environs. Since we obviously aren't Chicago-ans, we thought that the quintessential Chicago consists of eating a street hotdog on the steps of the museum. Fortunately, they offer veggie not-dogs. Ginger and I LOVED the Africa exhibit. (For any readers familiar with Edward Said, the museum did a pretty good job of NOT "orientalizing" or re-colonizing the African continent in this exhibit, at least as far as I can tell, but I am an overprivileged honky so I might overlook something - my apologies if so). Ginger is letting the Olmec head replica wear her Auburn cap (Daddy mis-heard us and thought that we were talking about an "Old Man's head"). And I am posed with some cool-ass totem poles. The museum had quite a collection of totem poles and they were gorgeous and stern and kinda spooky.

Chicago, May 2005

In lieu of Key West commentary, allow me to chaperone you through our tour of Chicago in May 2005. It was a birthday gift for our Daddy (Pick) for his 69th birthday. We got tickets to a Cubs game and took him to Wrigley Field. While we were at it, we also dragged him on a walking tour of most of the Windy City. And, of course, our first, middle, and last stop was to get real Chicago-style deep dish pizza pie.

Key West Trip

Well, Ginger has a friend who is getting married in Key West at the end of June and I'm not gonna go. Waaaaaa! I just don't have the money and it sucks so bad to be poor, but, there ya go. Gilligan has to go to the vet at the beginning of July and I can't do both. So I decided to just do a look back at some of my recent vacations with Ginger in my upcoming blog series: Since I can't go to the Keys...