Monday morning and two blog posts

On Friday I managed to vacuum the downstairs like I planned, but then I ran out of steam. Having managed my jet lag rather well all week, I decided Friday afternoon to have a wee nap. I didn't wake until 5:45 p.m. in time to make dinner. I warmed up some chili con carne and a pasta bake leftovers....my idea of fast food.

I have not yet done a major grocery shop since I have come back. We still have some food left in the freezer. But I sent my Sweetie to Giant Tiger and No Frills for a few sale items. I will have to do a recap of that shopping trip someday soon, as I didn't take pictures. Instead, I took out my card stock and stamps and played both Saturday and Sunday. I have a lot of Spring birthdays coming up and I needed to replenish my card supply. You will notice that I went a little crazy with my Inkadinkadoo stamp called "Meadow". These are silhouette stamps of wildflowers and grasses.  I had a lot of fun with these.

The little rocket is on an action wobble (a spring fastener), so it moves around. I did some more water painting for my bouquets of flowers. I also managed to download the photos from my camera and sort through them. I need to use some for my blog and I need to print out others (with faces in them) for my scrapbooking. People are asking to see my photos, and they have sort of taken a back burner. I need to get them printed.

And finally, not to be outdone by Nathalie's Garden Updates, I am including today my own version of Garden updates: voila.

Snowdrops

Aubretia deltoides  (rock cress)

First crocuses

This morning's snowfall

Karnak Temple

We arrived from Cairo to Luxor by an overnight sleeper train. That in itself was quite an experience. We were ushered to a room with a wide train seat with a table between us and a window for viewing. There wasn't a lot of viewing because it was already dark by 7:30. About 30 minutes later, we were brought  hot dinners served on a tray by our steward. Washrooms were at the end of our sleeper car, but in our sleeping berth we had our own enclosed vanity with sink and running water, and a complimentary bottle of drinking water. Everywhere we went, our guides had provided us with cold bottled water. Water from the taps was not for drinking, only washing.  When our steward came back for our dinner trays, we asked him to make up our beds. We had not slept well on the 12 hour non-stop flight to Cairo and then touring the sights in Giza and Memphis all day. I had the bottom bunk (yay!) and "Dee" took the top. It was a good sleep for me. (I like the rocking motion of the train and I was so tired, I could have slept upright), but it was an interrupted sleep because of the lurching motion, stops and starts,  and lots of other passing trains. We were awakened at 4:30 because we were due to arrive in Luxor at 5:30. At 5 A.M. they brought us a hot breakfast of eggs and potatoes, and lots of different kinds of breads and spreads. A guide met us to take our luggage and take us to the Sonesta St. George, where fortunately we were able to board right away and shower and have a nap....our first GREAT sleep since we left Toronto. When we awoke, we had a self tour of the boat and went to the dining room at 1 P.M. for a buffet lunch. Have I described how everything was luxurious on board? We met our Egyptologist Ahmed, who would be travelling on board with us and would be our guide for the next four days. Our first tour was the Karnak Temple.

Pyramis Isis Island resort

I have been home for three days now and have been informed that I have to start showing some of my photos from my trip to Egypt before I get too comfortable. I still haven't downloaded my photos from my camera, so here are some more that I have taken with the Blackberry. After our Nile Cruise, we spent a relaxing week at this all-inclusive resort on Isis Island. It was a welcome relief after a very busy five days of touring Pyramids, Temples and tombs. We were able to hang by the pool, read from their on-site library and soak in the peace and quiet  that this place had in abundance. We could walk completely around the island and enjoy the wonderful flowers, or  watch the birds and animals that lived along the river. We really enjoyed our stay here. It was so good for the soul.
   

View of the Nile from our balcony (right hand side)

View from our balcony (left hand side)

View from the dock in front of our hotel

After a few days of solitude, we were able to book a tour to Abu Simbel, one of the great wonders of the world. (You will get to see pictures later). It was a full day's excursion with a guided tour bus, as it is a 3 hour drive from Aswan. We also went by river taxi on our own to Kitchener Island to spend an afternoon at the Botanical Gardens. We also took a boat city-side to spend a morning on the terrace of the Old Cataract Hotel. The Old Cataract is very posh (comparable to the Ritz in London or the Empress Hotel in Victoria). We were too early to have 'Tea". so we settled for a tall cold glass of guava juice. Though these smaller excursions in Aswan were unguided, we felt perfectly safe. 

View from one of the two pools on the property

The sailboats in Egypt are called felucas, and yes we were able to sail on one. We looked forward to watching the school children pass by in river boats on their way home from school in Aswan. They were always singing and clapping on the boats and waving  to us on the island on their way by. So I will leave Egypt for a little while now, to report on my doings since I have come back.

I have completely unpacked and have done up two large loads of laundry and hung them out on my clothesline outdoors. Ya-a-ay! It really hasn't been that warm, but the last two days were sunny and breezy and perfect weather for drying. I have folded those two loads and another that was waiting in the basket, and put them away. 

I am mostly caught up with all my emails and blogs and  have left comments on some. The only things left are the You tube videos I subscribe to, but they can wait. 

I have looked after some end-of-the-month bills that are due, by paying them on-line. 

I cleaned the litter box downstairs and washed out the dog's bowls.

Both the  kitchen and the downstairs bath have had a good clean. 

I emptied the kitchen compost. I usually take out the garbage and the Blue Box, but my Sweetie Pie did that for me last night. Yay!

Tomorrow I would like to vacuum through the house, make some birthday cards for April and May, and then make up my room-by-room lists for decluttering and Spring cleaning. But I will be back to share more photos with you. I want this happy feeling to last a very long time. 

I am back safe and sound

I am back. I hadn't planned on writing first thing this morning but I will write this short post to assure you that all is well. Having being alerted to the hijacking of an Egyptair aircraft yesterday (the day that coincidentally we were also flying home on an Egyptair airliner), I have decided that I must at least let everyone know that it wasn't OUR plane. We arrived in Toronto Pearson airport yesterday morning and I took the Megabus to Kingston from 11:40 AM to 3:15 PM. My Sweetie Pie bought us pizza and I was in bed sleeping by 8 PM (2 AM Cairo time), so I was just plain worn out and exhausted. So I didn't get any news until I woke up this morning. Access to the internet was very sporadic while we were travelling, so I was unable to send posts to Blogger as I had hoped, so over the next few days I will try to send out some photos and stories of our adventures. In the meantime, know that we felt very safe while we were there. We felt pampered like Egyptian goddesses. The Egyptians are very friendly and were always concerned that we felt both safe and happy and that we were having a wonderful time during our stay.

The Temple of Philae in Aswan

Sonesta St. George

Some pictures of our Nile Cruise Ship. I have noticed that my last post has completely disappeared, so I will only write a little and hope our WiFi improves. The cruise ship was very elegant and "Old World" looking....

Reminded me of the Titanic.  Meals were absolutely scrumptious. We were always on the go. There were tours at least once, sometimes twice a day. There was also entertainment on board in the evenings...so much fun. We have seen so much, but I will give better descriptions when I get back.

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Luxor

Most of my photos from Luxor are actually on my digital  camera so I am unable to show them to you until I get home. But we began the day with a 4:30 wake up call, a boxed breakfast, and a boat ride across the Nile to the West side for an hour's hot air balloon ride. It was absolutely incredible. The photos taken from the air are on my other camera. We did a "sugar kiss", which meant that we got down so low, we were able to touch the tops of the sugar cane as we passed over. We were able to see down into the open floors at the tops of houses where they kept chickens, goats, donkeys, and other livestock. We saw the tombs and Temples from a different perspective. We also flew so high that our ears popped with the change of altitude. We saw fields of bananas, wheat, and lots of sugar cane. When we came down for a landing, we came down close to a school, so we were surrounded by the students who were looking for any baksheesh.  Unfortunately, I hadn't realized we would run into any children on this outing, so I left all my pens and candy back on the Cruise ship. 

This was a very full day. After the hot air balloon ride, we joined the rest of our tour group to explore the Temples and tombs from the ground. We rejoined the ship for lunch at 1 PM, and set sail for Edfu. We were able to sleep that afternoon. I am sure everyone in our tour group DID. Afternoon tea was always served on the top open sun deck around 4:30 every afternoon, if we happened to be on board. And dinner was served at 8 o'clock every evening. Meals always were much later than what we were used to. So it seemed strange to us to be heading off the ship after tea, at 5:30 (sunset), to be touring the Temple of Edfu. But it wouldn't be the last time that happened. A lot of the Temples are lit up at night. When we go back to Cairo, we will go to one of the light and sound shows that are so very popular. 

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First days in Egypt

I have discovered that I can compose some emails so that when I do get lucky and find some WiFi, they will be sent. So let me say that I loved flying with Egyptair......lots of flight attendants......lots of food and drink served. Each passenger received a pillow and blanket at no charge. We were presented with a travel pack containing tension stockings, sleep mask, earbuds to watch the movies, travel toothbrush and toothpaste. The flight was 11 hours. When we landed, we were greeted by an agent who took care of everything for us........luggage, customs, travel visa, and transportation. We went immediately on tour in Giza to see the Great. Pyramid and the Sphinx. And yes, we went on a camel ride.

We had a short visit of Cairo with a lovely lunch of  various Egyptian starters and a grilled plate of various meats and vegetables.  We watched a demonstration of papyrus being made from start to finish. At the end of the day, we were taken to the train station for the overnight sleeper to Luxor. Dinner was brought to our room and our beds were made up. We slept really well until 4:30 when we were awakened. Breakfast was served and we arrived in Luxor at 5:30. Again, we were met by a guide who took us to the Cruise ship on the Nile. I will talk more about Luxor next time. It was absolutely breath taking.

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