So You Like The Internet Huh?

Either my Uncle Hubert or Edward called my grandparent's apartment while I was over there just now. Now don't have a cow because I don't know which Uncle it was, they both leave in Detroit, therefore they have the same area code, and they sound the same on the phone. Uncles Hubert and Edward are my maternal grandfather's older brothers...in any case one of them called to talk to my grandfather, Pop-Pop. I was getting ready to leave their place and walk across the parking lot to my building but Pop-Pop wagged a finger at me to say hold on, obviously the Uncle wanted to speak to me. I waited patiently, hearing half the conversations and it consisted of cut off sentences and chuckles so I was either going to get a riddle or a question that Pop-Pop deemed funny in his mind. Sure enough the first words that were spoken in my ear from Detroit via the receiver were "So you like the internet huh?"

The question hit me like a gramatically incorrect statement, my internal word processor threw up an SOS because it couldn't compute the question.I had never before thought of the world wide web in terms of "liking" it. I use it, a lot, and its practically on my right hip at all times thanks to my Blackberry...but to ask if I liked it seemed so out of place.

Our generation has grown up with technology. The only think amazing about computers to us is when they get smaller and yet more powerful. I can't imagine the feeling of simply being amazed by a computer in any form. The same goes for the internet. Its commonplace for me to be able to connect to anywhere in the world at the blink of an eye, to be able to post this blog and have it visible to any computer in the world. I know its possible to be unconnected but I can't imagine not even having the option of being connected at all. In the lifetime of my uncles and grandparents this world has gone through some incredible changes...what in the world can we think of next?

I am writing this from the futon in my apartment on the night of the first lunar eclipse since the 19-teens.

Posted via email from Diggs' Posterous

Lazy Is As Lazy Does???

The Common Hour, in actuality the common 65 minutes scheduled for a campus wide speaker or event every thursday, discussion today was on the impotence of athletics at F&M and, by implication in my opinion, Division III schools in general. One statistic thrown out during the meeting was that the highest average GPA for an interscholastic team last year was around a 3.6 and the lowest 2.6. I was stunned! When do athletes find the time to study???

This got me thinking. I'm not doing terribly as a student but I don't have the same drive and energy for school work that I think I should have. Separately, but perhaps connected, I am one of the laziest people when it comes to physical exercise. I am allergic to gyms, I see no point in traipsing across campus to get sweaty and do laundry faster. But maybe there is a point to the whole exercising thing that I've been missing.

I remember all those Tiger Schulman karate commercials saying that their students improved their bodies and minds, and were able to focus on academics better. I've heard talk about how being on a sports team, or simply sticking to an exercise regimen, can prepare your mind for buckling down and doing work...and in fact give one the drive s/he needs to accomplish it well. If exercising is what I need to get that academic drive back, then I guess I'll never get it back :)

I'm writing this from the Alumni Sports and Fitness Center, covering football practice as the rowers row and the runners run.

Sent from my Sprint BlackBerry

Posted via email from Diggs' Posterous

Short Reflection on 9/11, A New Project(s Perhaps)

This morning on twitter I replied to a 9/11 related memory with a short memory of mine own. I said "@llanerrr I was in 5th grade and we saw the smoke and thought it was rain clouds, we didn't want to watch Matilda or 101 Dalmatians again." I didn't think that that short synopsis of that day for me could be confusing, because of course it made sense to me. But of course it did lead to confusion and I had to explain that Matilda, 101 Dalmatians, Goerge and the Giant Peach and other associated movies were the movies of choice when we denied recess due to weather. By the 5th grade, most of us had seen all those movies from beginning to end about 50 times at least, so the thought of having another recess taken away from us by mother nature was a little hard to bare.

Retelling the emotions that class 5-308 felt in the moment when we first saw the smoke makes me want to know what other's reactions were. As we approach the 10 year mark I am seriously considering starting a project to catalog the reactions of ordinary people, and not just Americans but internationals too. I think 9/11 was an event that everyone can remember where they were and what they were doing as if it were yesterday. I know that I'm one of them.

Onto a little more of a cheerful subject. I am an avid reader of a blog called the Sartorialist: thesartorialist.blogspot.com if you're interested. There people in the fashion world take pictures of everyday people that they feel have good or quirky fashion sense. I'm not one for fashion, but I do appreciate the pictures they take and the care with which they do so. In that same vein then I have started a little pet project called The University List : theulist.blogspot.com if you are so inclined again. Following the same model of the Sartorialist, I, and hopefully YOU and some friends of mine at other colleges and universities, take pictures of my fellow F&Mers and then I describe in a few sentences why I did so. Hopefully I can get this grow to other campuses around the country (and the world) but for now I'm content to go it alone...but I won't be for long :)

I write this post from the Innovation Zone in the basement of the Harris Government Center on the campus of Franklin and Marshall College.

 

 

Posted via email from Diggs' Posterous

I Probably Should Be Doing a Hundred Other Things But...

I feel I have neglected the blogging world for long enough, well I wouldn't exactly call it neglecting because I have been rather busy. I've been back at College since the 18th both for my campus job and my House Advisor orientation. A House Advisor performs the same duties as the Resident Assistant in other schools, but since our conversion to the House system a few years back the position went through a transformation itself. Myself and my partner Kelsey are responsible for the well being of 16 first years and 3 sophomores, so 19 total...21 if you count the fact that we probably should take care of ourselves while we're at this. 

In all honesty I'm really not worried about my sophomores, I know them and they are the least likely to be in or cause any sort of problems worth drawing attention to. My first years though, well I feel like they are my kids...in fact I keep referring to them as "my kids". A friend asked me why I feel so attached to them, and I couldn't give a good answer besides the fact that it was my job, and to be honest that is the best answer that I can come up with. If you know me you know I like to help people, and I want to see people succeed. Up until this point I tried to do that on an equal footing with those I cared about, but now I have been placed in a position of authority and its given my sense of charity a Jose Canseco dose of steroids...and I'm totally ok with that.

Now I write this post, which I think will end shortly, amidst the emptiness that is my room for this year. A privilege of my position is the chance to have a double room to myself as a single and after a year of living with my old roommate Brian in "The Place" I find myself both not knowing what to do with my newfound space and not having the energy to actually try and figure out what to do with it. My flag from New Orleans is crumpled on the second desk behind me, my tv sits in front of my extra mirror plugged into the outlet but sans a cable coaxial since the one I bought broke because it was too short and I have a suitcase of winter gear (I think) that just sits next to my fridge that really only has chip and dip in it currently. I look around and I "see" what I can do with the space but I just can't make myself get up and do it. I'm not especially worried though, passion seems to find me when I need it most.

I finish this post from my aforementioned empty room for the year as "Gold Digger" plays over the sounds of my first years bonding.

Posted via email from Diggs' Posterous

Going Postal...Well Trying Not To (3 Days, and counting, of Package Retrieval Nonsense)

These past three days have helped me to understand the phrase going postal, perhaps in a different sense than intended but the English language has a long history of breaking the mold of old dogs learning new tricks. In any case my string of bad luck came to a head today and got the better of me for a couple hours. I know when I need to step back and take stock of things, and this evening was one of those times. Luckily knowing me my whole life, Mom understood that and did what she could to keep me from actually going postal, and thankfully she did a good job. With a clearer head now, at 3:01 in the morning, the past couple days seem a bit comical actually, but things usually look better in hindsight.

Day 1 of the ordeal was Tuesday. Mom ordered a new tv to replace our broken Sony. Mom ordered it either Sunday night or Monday morning and suffice it to say, we weren't expecting it for a couple days. Of course one hopes that a package will be early so I was listening out for UPS come Tuesday. So imagine my surprise when I step out the door at 3:20pm and see a UPS missed delivery notice on the floor in front of the door. Why was I so surprised? Only because I had been sitting by the door since 12:30 and the slip said they came at 1pm. So I was very confused as to why I hadn't heard it. I had a theory though, I figured the man had only rung the bell, which is broken, and hadn't bothered to knock to double check. Wouldn't it make sense to knock to make sure?

Day 2 of the ordeal would naturally be Wednesday. Expecting the package to come around 1ish judging by the day before I was hoping that I would be able to get out of the house after it came to meet a few inquisitive Prep 9 kids who were interested in finding out about going to school at Lawrenceville for high school. It does make sense to judge a shipping company based on previous performance right? Wouldn't you assume that they have some system that meant that they would reach my building sometime around 1 everyday, give or take an hour? Well of course it turns out that that makes no sense at all because the tv didn't show up until around 6. Having the foresight to ask security to have UPS physically knock on the door did pay off but my whole day was shot, I could have gone out and met those Prep kids, luckily that plan had called for two people to go and the second person was able to make it. Adding insult to injury, the UPS guy delivered the package in such a way that I didn't realize the entire tape job was busted. The tape is clearly labeled with a warning reading something to the effect "of the tape is damaged upon delivery, please review all items with the delivery agent." As I had let the "agent" go because I couldn't see the busted tape upon delivery, Mom and myself had to go into lock down the building mode because we weren't about to be saddled with any potential loss of money over this. So I rang up security to have them stop the UPS man and send him right back upstairs, and Mom not leaving things to chance grabbed her book and set up camp in the lobby to act as look out lest UPS man try and make a mistake. Luckily he was an honorable guy and came back up rather apologetically and looked the contents over with me. Happy ending to the UPS debacle, but I still have a package coming through the Post Office itself.

Day 3 of the ordeal is Thursday. I ordered a new phone last Friday and admittedly wasn't expecting it until this Friday but be the overzealous shipment tracker that I am I saw that it was processed through my branch post office early this morning and was, and I quote, "Out for Delivery or Available at PO Box, August 12, 2010, 9:42am, BROOKLYN, NY 11205". Well we don't have a PO Box so I was right to assume that I would be getting my new phone that afternoon when the postman came to fill all the mailboxes in my 23 story building...right? Well you'd be wrong again. I went downstairs to "get" my package to be told by the postman that packages come on a truck and that the normal truck driver was out today and would make his runs tomorrow. Well in the hope that I could pick up my package myself I rang up the branch office and this woman informed me that a sub had come in and taken out the truck and that he would be swinging by later. In the hopes of catching this sub I went downstairs about every half hour just to check. If the Post Office tries to deliver a package they leave a slip in the box saying that the package is in the mailroom, and every time I checked no such slip was present. Well it was going on 5:30pm and I was starting to get antsy. At that time my sister's father had come to pick her up so I took her downstairs to hand her over and stayed downstairs with them about 15 minutes which means I came upstairs around 5:45. Ten minutes later I get an email, yes I signed up for email alerts, saying, and I quote, "Notice Left, August 12, 2010, 5:42pm, BROOKLYN, NY 11205". In plain english that means that some invisible postman came and "tried" to deliver my package and being unable to do so left an imaginary slip in the box stating that fact, ALL while I was downstairs in the lobby "watching" this happen. In laymen terms, THE UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE LIED!!! I was livid! I tore downstairs and inquired with security if they had seen the delivery truck come through today, of course they said no. My anger had to be evident on my face because everyone I passed on my way back upstairs kept asking me "what's wrong Robbie" or some facsimile therein...and I was unable to put my anger to words.

As 'Waiting on the World to Change" plays through my headphones, I think it sums up how I feel at this moment. The world needs snail mail and there is really nothing I can do about its deficiencies except wait for it to change itself. As it stands now I'll just keep on waiting (chorus: waiting) for my phone to show up...I might just try and retrieve it myself tomorrow morning. We'll see how that goes.

I write this as the world famous voice of John Mayer soothes my anger away (well the likes of Raul Midon, Beirut, Keane and others have been helping) as I sit on my familiar futon perch about to head to bed. 

Posted via email from Diggs' Posterous

Notes From Underground...Literally (Partly Inspired by the Life Photo Essay on Tourists in NYC)

Before I launch into my stories from the underground we call the subway, I invite you to look through this hilarious guide on tourists in NYC. Believe you me tourists, we New Yorkers can spot y'all from miles away...and that's not a bad thing, we love to help. In any case, the gallery from Time: 

Slide 7 is a point of particular contention for New Yorkers. We have way too many subway lines to refer to them solely by color. I am sympathetic to the tourist who is overwhelmed by the vast numbers and letters and needs to something with which to sort them out...but please realize that at the end of the day you have to use either a letter or a number to get to your destination. And while travelling to your destination, it is important to be alert...but paranoia won't help. Its slightly amusing to observe the shifty eyed tourists who are constantly pretending to read signs or averting their gaze between stops, and then leap into panic mode every time we get to one, fearful that they'll miss there designated departure point. Riding the subway needn't be an exercise in Defcon 1 Red Alert type readiness, relax and soak up the atmosphere around you instead...its some of the richer that you'll experience anywhere.

Which brings me to my stories. I've told the one about my friend Davide before but its worth telling again. Last summer I was going who knows where and this Italian comes to the door of the train asking "uptown?" I said yes and he jumped on. He knows english but isn't fluent so it took a little hand gesturing and pointing to get our points across to each other and I assume he made it to his destination. The funny part is I began my tenure as a student at F&M a couple days later and my family thought it would be good to spend the night prior to move-in in Lancaster so we stayed at the Lancaster Arts Hotel. Breakfast on the morning of move-in and as I move about to grab my toast before it burns the same Italian tourist who I had helped a few days before walked in. How is it possible for two strangers to meet twice in places 160 miles apart. I found out he works for Pfizzer and that his name is Davide and we are now facebook friends and say hello from time to time. I have a standing offer to visit Italy...but money is forever funny :)

Another story involves a newly moved couple from Seattle who had settled on Central Park West sometime last year. I was with my mom heading into the city to catch the Staten Island Ferry and go exploring when I overheard the unmistakable sounds of confusion from the couple. Its hard to explain but its that halting speech pattern usually sprinkled with a few "this is it" or "this has to be it" and I knew they needed a little guidance. After squaring away their subway question the conversation turned to their idea to move from the city into Brooklyn. They had been looking at places in Brooklyn Heights and had eaten at the semi-eponymous Heights Cafe to sample the local fare. Of course Mom and I launched into ambassadorial mode (we should really be paid) and espoused on the other eateries in the neighborhood, in our neighborhood, the greenery in Prospect Park, etc. But since they were focused on Brooklyn Heights I mentioned the Brooklyn Promenade and was horrified to discover that they didn't know about it. So as we exited at Chambers St to transfer to the 1 to South Ferry, we encouraged them to take a stroll down there, especially at or near sunset.

The funniest story of recent memory involved a group of young male acrobats on an A train I was on last week. They got on at Port Authority (Times Square for most people) with me and instantly started bickering. The guy with the stereo begged his friend to pick the track, that friend refused. In the meantime we had arrived at Penn Station (34th St/Madison Square Garden) and the dude with the stereo turned his attention to asking the boarding passengers to leave the middle of the train clear. Surprisingly everyone complied. Feeling accomplished stereo kid turned his attention back to asking his colleagues to pick the track for them to do their tricks to. If you have ridden the A train downtown out of Penn Station you know there is that slight hitch to the left just before the train gets into 23rd Street, well stereo kid apparently forgot because the jolt made him drop the cds. By the time all of them had been recovered we had gotten to 14th Street where the boarding passengers did not heed stereo kid's pleas to leave the middle clear with one disgruntled white gentleman snapping "I'm getting off next stop!" Turns out the group of acrobats were departing at West 4th as well. The show the group put on may not have been much in the way of acrobatic prowess...but they certainly have a future in comedy.

I wrote this from my customary futon perch at home, chuckling at the memory of the not so acrobatic comics.

Posted via email from Diggs' Posterous

The Little Mosque That Could and The Mayor Who Said It Should

So the mosque near Ground Zero is set to be built, and I couldn't be happier to hear that. I normally don't like wading into political battles but this is more than about politics, this is about healing and understanding. I lost someone I knew quite well on 9/11...in fact I saw her the night before and was too consumed with the headache I had at the time to say good night to her, and that makes me pause when 9/11 rolls around every year. Those extremists took 3000 lives because of a misconstrued and perverted notion of the religion they practiced. So when those who practice the mainstream and true version of that same religion are willing to open up share it with others, let's not shut them out because other practitioners wronged us, let's do our best to embrace their efforts and take a little time to learn something in the process.

And that is why I applaud Mayor Bloomberg. "Hizzoner" stood up and proclaimed that now is the time for moving forward, for building towards peace together. Here's an excerpt of his words I gleaned from this article http://gawker.com/5603633/lets-give-michael-bloomberg-a-hand?skyline=true&s=i : 

"The attack was an act of war, and our first responders defended not only our city, but our country and our constitution. We do not honor their lives by denying the very constitutional rights they died protecting. We honor their lives by defending those rights and the freedoms that the terrorists attacked...it is my hope that the mosque will help to bring our city even closer together, and help repudiate the false and repugnant idea that the attacks of 9/11 were in any ways consistent with Islam...Political controversies come and go, but our values and our traditions endure, and there is no neighborhood in this city that is off-limits to God's love and mercy..."

I invite you to read the article, in it you'll find the entire excerpt that they pulled from his speech and a link to where you can find the speech in its entirety. 

I write this post from the futon in my apartment as the sun sets lower in the sky and my Beirut (the artist) playlist plays from my pc.

Posted via email from Diggs' Posterous

A Day In My Life, A Photo (and Video) Essay

This is an essay in pictures and videos. Simply put I decided to take my camera with me today, photographing my surroundings and trying to document my transitions from place to place by taking pictures of the subway stops I got on at, transfered at and got off at. Started my day across the street from the house at Mike's, went into the city to listen to reggae themed Summerstage concert and then came back into Brooklyn to catch the Okay Africa/World Cup Finale Celebration concert highlighted by The Roots and hosted by Talib Kweli. The concert was great, but the day in general was a good one for me, I like going around my city. Hope you enjoy.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Download now or watch on posterous

DSCF3558.AVI (33315 KB)

Download now or watch on posterous

DSCF3559.AVI (23734 KB)

Download now or watch on posterous

DSCF3560.AVI (20200 KB)

I uploaded these pictures and videos from the futon in the living room while watching Quick Pitch on MLB Network

Posted via email from Diggs' Posterous

The Chore That Reading Has Become

I just tweeted about how I "cracked" and looked up the Lawrenceville School's summer required reading list for book suggestions. To understand why I used the word cracked, you would have to have lived through my four years at Lawrenceville, specifically the four summers before each year at Lawrenceville. That list used to be the bane of my existence, the sole reason I didn't want to leave my Lawrenceville, New Jersey enclave for three months each year, because I knew that the letter from the now defunct Assistant Headmaster's Office and later the Office of the Academic Dean would soon arrive detailing what books I would be "forced" to read that summer. To be honest I didn't read every book that was required, and in fact each required book sometimes wasn't so required in the end, but regardless of both facts, the letter itself was enough to ruin the summer state of mind.

As I was honest in admitting my occasional non-compliance, I will also be honest and say that that list produced two books that I couldn't put down while I was reading them and that I continue to recommend and love, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean Dominique-Bauby. So yes some good has come from that dreaded list, but a lot more bad came with it...for the sake of professionalism I will not reveal the books that I couldn't stand, lets focus on the good shall we.

Also I cannot make it seem that Lawrenceville alone has turned my off to pleasure reading, the torture started at the Specialized High School Institute and continued into Prep 9. Having to read tomes like Great Expectations (which is a great story but 300 pages too long), anything by Shakespeare, Chaucer's classically long Canterbury Tales (I liked a few of those tales, don't ask me which because I don't remember), slowly and steadily killed what used to be the joy in my day, reading.

I used to wake up at 6am every morning to read my neighbor's New York Times in the blinding light that reflected off the Twin Towers. Why would I wake up so early, so that I could have the Times back in its blue sleeve and back on my neighbor's doorstep by about 7...and yes he knew I was doing that. I used to read Hardy Boy books in a day, sometimes 2-3. I read Harry Potter 4 in 3 days. The Redwall Series used to make my mouth water with its descriptions of the great feasts that were had in The Abbey of Redwall. Lloyd Alexander books used to be the changeups to the fastballs that were the yearly editions to the Redwall collection. And nowadays, its hard for me to fathom how I was able to do all that and enjoy it. That to me is incredibly sad.

And so now, on this day of Independence in 2010, I am trying to recapture the magic that once was. I don't want reading to be a chore anymore because I feel as though a part of me is missing and I need to get it back.

I have written this on the futon in my living room at home watching the Wimbledon Men's Championship with Nadal up 2 sets and on serve 5-4 in the 3rd. Thanks for reading!

-Diggs

Posted via email from Diggs' Posterous

Cairo Post 12 (From Chicago): Its Good to be Home, I Hate Jet-lag, Final Thoughts on Egypt

Good Morning from Chicago, Illinois...well literally Hoffman Estates, Illinois. I got back from Egypt this past Tuesday around 6 in the morning and spent about 30 hours in New York before getting on a train to come to Chicago on Wednesday afternoon. Because of my rapid movements, the internet being out in the hotel the last night, being in the air for 12 hours, on the train for 21 hours, fighting jetlag...I really had no chance to post until now. I had a grand scheme of writing an "exit" blog and writing down my thoughts before coming home, but I guess I will just have to make due with my thoughts as they are now.

Before I get to my thoughts together on Egypt, I would like to share my thoughts on the phenomenon known as jet-lag...I HATE IT! I've never felt so loopy and utterly tired and so incapable of doing what i want to do before in my life. I would sit down in a chair and almost instantly fall asleep, I would have been a hypnotists dream...although I doubt he could have gotten me to do anything besides have a conversation in my sleep...I'm quite good at that actually, ask my Mom.

Now to Egypt. How do I find the words that mean Egypt? First of all, if you don't get the reference I just made I must ask what happened to your childhood? Second of all, I think the best way to describe how I feel about Egypt would be love/hate. I absolutely love the history of the place, visiting the incredible structures that have been standing for millenia. I mean stop and think about that for a second. The buildings we make today will stand for maybe 100-150 years, and I think that's being incredibly optimistic. To walk the halls that were once elaborately decorated for different Gods and Goddesses and to be able to see remnants of the work of the master craftsman who labored tirelessly 5000 years ago...it is just awe inspiring. Of course going to those tourist places usually involved getting bothered by the relentless hawkers who pray on the overly hot tourists like buzzards do dying animals in the wild. And then of course there was the almost daily adventure of dealing with the perpetual rudeness that comes with riding the Cairo Metro, getting pushed this way and that way without much regard for trampled feet on poles in the way. I didn't like the forced tipping for just sitting down in a restaurant, even if you are a party of one. I couldn't stand the apparent change shortage that all the ticket selling places seemed to be going through...the list of things that annoyed me is quite long, but still I find myself wanting to go back and go through it all again. 

If I have more concrete things to add I will definitely do that, things probably have not fully worked themselves out in my head yet. For the foreseeable future though I think I will be retiring the "Cairo Post" posts and get back to my regularly scheduled ramblings as they come to me.

Again thank you for reading!

-Diggs

Posted via email from Diggs' Posterous

Cairo Post 11, Part 2: (After Quite a Delay...) The Nile Cruise

Please excuse the extreme lateness of this post, apparently a few hours means a few days in my head. 

In any case, The Nile Cruise. No we didn't sail out from Cairo, in fact the trip itself started with getting on the mini-bus at our hotel at 3:30 in the morning for a 5:45am flight from Cairo International down to Aswan...so the cruise started 25000 feet up in the air on an Airbus A320-200. As I said in the previous post from "a few hours ago", Air Egypt domestic was surprisingly comfortable and I would gladly make that hop of an hour and 15 minute flight again.

We were met outside the airport by our tour guide for the 3 day trip Marwa and we proceeded to the great dam in Aswan. We all were a little tired from having to get up so early and then proceeding to tour right after landing, so we probably made a bad impression at first of being slow and uninterested when in fact, at least for me, I was very interested in the dam having been to the Hoover Dam in Nevada/Arizona a few years before. After the dam we went to the Friendship Building that President Nasar built to show thanks to the USSR for helping to fund the dam project. It was an impressive building, hollowed out in the center with four arms being linked together at the top by a ring...at least I think it was joined by a ring. I could be wrong, my camera ran dead and I left my spare batteries in the car so I don't have pictures of it. I do however have pictures of the last place we toured that day, the unfinished obelisk of Hatshepsut. What an impressive sight to see because as it is unfinished, one gets to see the process of making those gargantuan in progress...sort of. The fact that they could "cut" those things out of the side of granite mountains and somehow manage to roll them down to the Nile, which was about 3-4 kilometers away (or in American 1.8-2.5 miles), and then manage to sail them down (which is north towards the Mediterranean) the Nile to their destinations, and then install them...it is just absolutely mind-boggling. I might begin to subscribe to the theory that extra-terrestrials played a part in all this...just kidding.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

After the obelisk we headed to our home away from home, which of course at the moment is Cairo, the MS Esadora II...or as we called her, the boat. The first visit to the boat was to see if we could check in of yet and have access to our rooms. As we got to the boat around 10:00am and they weren't ready yet, we decided to do all the paperwork and leave our bags there and then go to a garden island in the middle of the Nile. I have a soft spot for gardens because I practically grew up in the Brooklyn Botanical Garden back home, and even participated in their gardening classes for kids for a year or two. The garden we saw in the middle of the Nile didn't disappoint, and in fact was a pleasant surprise. So, if you would like an escape from the heat while you visit Aswan, I would highly recommend the garden in the middle of the Nile...if I actually remember the name of the place and bother to edit this post so that it is here as well, then be sure to tell your boat driver that name and not the garden in the middle of the Nile...although that might actually work :)

See and download the full gallery on posterous

When we got back to the boat it wasn't quite lunch time yet so we went to our respective cabins to wait for lunch. In our cabins we discovered beds that gave nary an inch when sunk into...in fact one didn't sink into the bed so much as bounce up in recoil as if you had walked into a door. Ok it wasn't as bad as walking into a door, but may as well have been. The saving grace was the huge sliding door window we had that allowed us to stick our head out to check on our nautical progress, or to prop our feet up and enjoy the hot weather of Egypt from the comfort of our air conditioned cabin. As we had the rest of the day off after lunch, much time was spent in our cabins, or on the top deck in the pool, or in the forward part of the 4th floor where there was a balcony, and at night in the bar. Well in addition we still had access to the city of Aswan herself well into the night because our boat didn't shove off until 6am the next morning, so actually a few of us went into town to their market and did a little shopping before calling it a night.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

As I said we set off from Aswan on the way to Luxor at 6am the next morning, so I left the curtain open in the hopes that I would wake up to the Nile sailing by...and it worked. I happened to roll over just as we made the U-turn out of port to head on down the river. After waking up for good around I went up on deck to see what was going by, and my goodness the view was beautiful. Most of the time there was greenery as far as the eye could see, with the occasional people sightings. Seeing the other side of Egypt that we previously hadn't seen was worth that cruise alone, and gave us all a much needed break from Cairo.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Our day consisted of two stops, the city of Edfu's eponymous temple, and the temple of Kom Ombo. Kom Ombo was first and is the only temple in Egypt built to honor two of the Ancient Egyptian gods. The level of detail that was still abundantly clear after 5000 years was incredible, and its Nileometer (the ancient way of measuring the Nile and therefore floods) was still intact as well. Conversely, the temple in Edfu was a massively facaded building that is truely a wonder to behold, and causes one to wonder how the ancients managed to build such huge structures without the aid of modern technology. The Ancient Egyptians were some truly smart and ambitious people.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

After Edfu we had the night off and sailed on to Luxor, arriving sometime around 1130-midnight. In the interim, our group took the bar over on the boat and enjoyed a few drinks and watched the opening day of World Cup action, especially the American tying effort against our beloved Lucie's redcoats. The night was also gawlabia night (thobe in gulf arabic, or the long dress like thing normally worn in the Middle East) and Emily's birthday. The next day and the day after that was spent solely in Luxor. We visited the Valley of the Kings, Hatshepshut's temple on the other side of the Valley of the Kings, Karnak amongst other sites. Out of those places, Karnak was especially amazing. The entire complex was just massive, it felt like it was the size of F&M's campus...and I wouldn't be surprised if it was. I can't really do it justice with words so following you will find pictures of the places we went minus the Valley of the Kings which didn't allow cameras, so the pictures will start with Hatshepshut's temple.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Again, thank you for reading!

-Diggs

Posted via web from Diggs' Posterous