The Fall of Esther

Oh so long ago, March 2009 to be exact, my good friends from Middlesex Erin and Jessie came out to the Inland Empire to visit. We did many things, we went to the San Diego Zoo, Las Vegas, Drag Queen Bingo, but the most significant event we experienced together was the death of my very first car, Esther.

The oh so fatefull event began the night before when we were driving home from LA. There was a loud bump noise and from then on Esther's engine sounded like it was popping corn. Not much sooner after that the oil light came on. Not thinking much of it we filled Esther up with more oil the next day and headed out to the Griffith Observatory. She didn't sound too good going up the hill to the main parking lot but we got there and walked around and took some pictures:






Then it was time to get back into Esther. The popcorn noise was loud, I mean people were looking at the car loud. We got her down the mountain and pulled into the first gas station we saw. The mechanics face said it all, Esther was not driving off of this lot.

To make sure everyone understands the occasion let me give a brief history of this Saturn SL2. Bought in 1998 by Meryl and Harold Fosse(i.e. Mom and Dad), Esther served Meryl well for her long commute from NJ to the Bronx. Esther was the car that I took my driving test in and once Meryl decided to purchase another Saturn, Esther became mine. She survived a road trip across the country with my parents and all of my stuff. She made it to 198,000 miles. She was an awesome car.




Saying good bye to my car.


I am so thankful that these two were here!


The very nice tow truck guy. He towed us the 30-odd miles back to Claremont AND put up with us playing name that tune. Thank you AAA.





Good bye Esther!

I wound up having to sell Esther for $200.00. It was a sad day indeed. This car had a lot of memories for me and my family. It will be missed.

How am I getting around now you may ask? The answer is worthy of an entirely different blog post and I swear it won't take me 6 months to post it!

The Diploma Came in the Mail Today

Swine Flu

I swear this conversation actually happened:
Me: (to person leaving the office) Feel better. Hope you don't catch the swine flu.
Other Person: I think it's called Mexican flu now.
Me: I think that's only in Israel because they don't want the Jewish population to think they can't get the flu just because they don't eat/raise pigs.
Other Person: Well, I still call it Mexican flu. I just feel bad for the pigs getting the blame.
Me: What about the Mexicans?
(Silence)

Passover

Ok I have to admit it...it was pretty cool to be at a Passover Seder and talk about how I saw the sun rise on Mount Sinai.

The Last Egypt Blog

I know I know I took forever but that's what happens when school starts up, my time on the computer is spent coding and wikapedia-ing, not blogging. But here goes:

So I think where I left off we had been to the Valley of the Kings. The next day we went and saw the Karnak Temple which is bigger than Luxor temple, but also was way more crowded. The only interesting thing that happened was that Cabby thought it would be a good idea to try to get a pencil rubbing of a hieroglyphic. Out of nowhere comes a ministry of tourism officer who tells her no. She obliges, but he follows us around for the rest of time, just to make sure. After leaving the temple we hopped back onto a plane to Cairo. Once back in Cairo, Cabby, Jessica, and I wondered the streets and found some local markets where we stocked up on some fruits and sweets before we left in the morning. I think that was my favorite night out of the whole trip, we weren't in a huge group snapping pictures. In fact the locals were asking to take pictures with us!

The next day we began our very long trek to Mount Sinai. An added bonus is that Mount Sinai is actually on the continent of Asia. So I went to Africa and Asia in two weeks, not bad. Once we got to the lovely hotel we were staying at we all kind of crashed. We were beginning our hike up Mount Sinai at 2am so we all had dinner and tried to take naps. Unfortunately whatever I had for dinner didn't agree with me and I was up at 2am running to the bathroom and debating whether I should do the hike or not. Well for one thing I still hadn't ridden a camel and for another my motto is go big or go home so I threw some puke bags in my pocket, swallowed some Amodium and got on the bus to begin the longest day, ever. We got to the base of the mountain and we got paired off with our camels. Because I wasn't feeling very well and because the camel wranglers were yelling at us there are no pictures of us on the camels. But I can tell you that for me it was amazing. I fit better on a camel than I think I do a horse and my camel fit my personality. We booked it to the front of the line and then we slowed down and blocked the trail so that no one could pass. I had no control and I thought it was hilarious.

I just have this picture in my head of how it looked: Camels lined up walking up the mountain, people hiking up with flashlights that were really needed because the moon was so bright, and dry mountainous regions as far as the eye can see. You can't forget the amazing stars either. We were on the camels for about an hour and something about the outdoors and the new experience made my sickness disappear for the time being.

After being let off by the camels we waited for a group to catch up to begin the ascent of the rest of the mount. The rest of the hike consisted of 750 steps. But they weren't really steps, they were more like rock slabs balanced on one another. It took a good long time to get up them but once we did we hunkered down to wait for the sunrise.

And this is the part that most people tell me to leave out: it wasn't all that worth it. The sunrise was great I admit but I could have seen the same thing on the beach on the east coast. The one thing that I thought was cool were the random groups of people who were praying and chanting. I guess what I mean to say is for a pilgramage it's awesome, for a hike...not so much.

After the sun rose and we filled our cameras with many a pictures we begun our hike down. It took forever. About 2 and half hours to be exact. And the Professor was none to happy to see our leader when we got down because we were a half hour late. Without any rest we headed into the monastery of St. Katherine, which is at the base of Mount Sinai. Honestly I was so tired I don't remember much about it.

At about mid-afternoon we piled back on the bus and began our final trek to the Red Sea. The final place we visited was the monastery of St. Paul at the Red Sea. It was a fun monastery and it was within those divine walls that a declaration was passed. A monk was showing us around and at this point we were all kind of tired and loopy so we were joking around with the good-natured monk. After the tour we sat and had tea with him. He came up to me and asked me my name. I told him and he told me that I was funny. Funny! That's practically from the mouth of God that I Elyse Lynn Fosse is hilariously funny! Clearly this was my pilgramage.

After saying good bye to the monk with the fantastic sense of humor we plopped ourselves down at the resort we were staying. I laid on the beach at the Red Sea for an entire day, I even enjoyed a pizza and beer there. Then at 2am we begun our trek into Cairo and our flights home.

It was an amazing two weeks and I think this blogs shows just how much we did. I was glad to come home and not have to worry about drinking the water or accidently dipping my toothbrush in the faucet but I truly enjoyed Egypt. The people I met were welcoming and the educational vacation was interesting.

Now it's back to homework and job searching, but more on that later.

Valley of the Kings

Today we went across the Nile to the otherside of Luxor where the tombs are. Our first stop was the Valley of the Kings. So far they've uncovered about 50 tombs and it is believed that hundreds still remain. Admittance into the Valley grants means I could go into any 3 tombs of my choice. These tombs, like everything else in Egypt, are amazing. Everywhere I looked was covered in vibrant heiroglyphics, either carved directly into the walls or painted on, depending on if the king died before the tomb was actually finished or not. By this time on the trip I was actually able to recognize some of the symbols and understand at least part of the story that the artwork told. The amount of detail was amazing to see.

The main rule of the valley is that no photography at all is allowed. One reason is because they want you to buy there postcards. Another reason is that if too many people forget to turn their flashes off the artwork will be damaged. Luckily this is a CGU group so we don't follow the rules. We were walking along one of the tombs and one of my group members took a picture, no flash, very subtle. That is until another one of my group member gasped and shouted his name! The security guard grabbed his camera which meant my group member followed. The fine for taking a picture is 1000 Egyptian pounds which converts to about 200 US dollars. Luckily our tour guide bargained it down to 100 Egyptian pounds. As we were leaving the other group member that had outed the picture taker told said picture taker that they wished he had had to pay the full fine because "He was destroying the thing that I loved." I think the heat had gotten to her but it had been a week without decent tv at this point so any source of drama was pounced on.

After the valley we headed over to a nobleman's tomb. The nobleman's tomb was not as big as the kings, we had to climb down steps and crawl into the room, but the pictures were still vibrant and descriptive. The best was the Dr. Gabra was sitting in there with us practically lying down pointing out all of the artwork and it's historical significance. The nobleman's tomb showed a story of feasts while the workers tomb that we saw next showed a story of farmwork. The story of the feast and farmwork would also carry over into Karnak Temple, which we saw the next day.

After the tombs we headed to Hatshepsut Temple. Hatshepsut was the only female pharaoh and if you thought family scandal begin with English royalty, you are mistaken. Hatshepsut took the crown of pharaoh because the eldest son was too young to rule yet. He grew up and went off to school and when he came back, he wanted the throne. She said no and continue to rule until she was finally forced out of power. To demonstrate his power over his mother, Thutmose III wiped out any statue or heiroglyphic that bared her name. Thus the temple is full of bodies with no faces. The majority of people on the trip are Women Studies majors and they did not take too kindly to this slight. Cabby especially decided it was time to step on her soap box and use that might Texas accent to explain to anybody who would listen how messed up it was. And don't worry, she's still not over it. I am going over her house this week to watch a documentary about Hatshepsut and her accomplishments. Woot. Woot.

One of the most interesting things about this day was our interacting with our tour guide Islam. He made some rather bold comments throughout the day. For one he couldn't understand why anyone would be interested in Hatshepsut. She didn't do anything. And by not doing anything I mean she didn't go to war. Thus she must have been a loser. The straw that semi broke this camel's back was when he started talking about the Jews who lived in Egypt during WWII. He claimed they were losers for leaving once Germany had occupied Egypt. Now at first I was hot mad, but then he tried to explain himself and I realised two things, 1) he has no clue how fierce the word loser is when referring to a whole religion/culture, 2) he has no clue about Judaism at all. When we started the conversation he thought that the Jewish religion believe in a Holy Trinity. Right then I realized that this man was just talking out of his so I don't have to bother with taking him seriously. But actually when I listened to what he was saying, what I think he was trying to convey was the if the Jewish community had stayed in Egypt during WWII and recognized themselves as Egyptians, then the country would have protected them and then Egypt's economy actually lost a lot since they left. This piggy backed onto his idea that Israel is not needed since all Egyptian Jews are Egyptian first. After a long day in the sun I just chalked up our disagreement to a deluded version of Egyptian pride.

Luxor

We woke up bright and early the next morning and took a 1 hour flight to Luxor. Our first stop was the Luxor Temple. The pictures I took do not do the temple justice. Everything was just so large scale, yet again I was in awe of the detail. After spending about an hour at the temple we headed over to the Luxor Museum. This was by far the most modern of the museums we visited. Our tour guide for Luxor, Islam, was taking us through the museum and begin very detailed. Unfortunately, we had all been up since 4am so our interest in the subject matter was outweighed by our interest to get to the hotel.

This hotel was more like a resort and Luxor overall felt geared towards European tourists. After a nap Cabby and I joined a group of others and we took a carriage ride through downtown Luxor. Islam told us we were going to stop at a bazaar so I was getting excited to stretch my bargaining muscle yet again. Before we went to the bazaar we went through a local market on the carriage, which made me very uncomfortable. Shopkeepers were sitting on the ground waiting for customers and here we are, the white American tourists, riding through on our horse and carriages taking pictures of them as we sit elevated above them. My tourist guilt overwhelmed me. To me there are different ways travel and the most enjoyable ways are the ones where you incorporate yourself into the culture. This carriage ride was one of the ways that I despise to travel, as if you are going through a cultural zoo and are just stopping to snap pictures of the "exotic" locals.

Once my guilt subsided we arrived at the other bazaar. Cabby and I immediately went off in search of a bag for her to pack more of her stuff in. We stopped at one place and the man took us inside to bargain with Cabby. After she had gotten her bag the shopkeeper asked if I wanted anything. I told him no, that I didn't have a lot of money with him. He took this as a sign that I wanted to bargain and then started asking me to name a price for a bag. I told him no again. Then he turned to Cabby and asked her to leave. She didn't of course, and I know that the reason why he wanted her to leave was so that he could offer me the same bag he just sold her at a lower price. At this point Cabby and I start leave the store. After Cabby leaves the doorway, he blocks it with his body and says he doesn't believe me that I have no money. Well my patience was gone. The only way to get by him was to skirt around and step on his merchandise, which I did. Cabby asked me if I was ok and I said yeah but the Jersey in me was starting to come out so I should give the bargaining a rest.

After the carriage ride back, we had dinner in a room that looked like it was right out the Luxor hotel in Vegas. Then it was time to crash before another long day the next day.