Have returned from an amazing trip to Egypt.
Here is a sampling of some souvenirs I brought back.
Some alabaster figures, cheap canopic jar trinkets, beaded bracelets,
wooden carved camels, a head scarf, and some leftover change.
Perfumes and a blown glass container from a perfumery in Aswan.
Sorry for the bad picture, but this is an abundance of tea and coffee
from an Aswan spices shop.
Have been home for just over a week, and, after washing everything in
my duffel bag and getting stuff put away, I have had some time to
reflect a bit and start processing the experience.
The next few posts will be detailing my Egyptian adventures, but
before I get to all of that, there's some random stuff to talk about.
Long flight home.
It was an overnight flight from Istanbul, and the older lady across the aisle from me
behaved like it was her first time on an airplane.
Not even away from the gate, and the attendants were telling her to keep her tray
table stowed and asking her to fasten her seat belt.
An attendant fastened it for her, and she immediately unbuckled it, and
then was trying to refasten it backwards. She was not an English speaker,
which is to be expected on a flight like this, so I gestured to help her
refasten it correctly so the plane could take off.
Mostly quiet, until about midway through the flight, when she starts
yelling at the man in front of her who had reclined his seat back to get some sleep.
Apparently, this was so offensive to her, to have her tray table squished into
her lap (like we all have at some point in a long flight) so she starts yelling
at the man and pushing his seat. Other people attempted to speak to her, and
not understanding Turkish, I don't know what they were saying, but I could
imagine the conversation.
The reasonable people were trying to get her to quiet down and stop yelling at the
man, who was yelling back at her. And they were both yelling at the attendants.
The attendants did their best to make her understand,
but in the end, after much caterwauling on her part, she was guided around to
the other side of her aisle, which had another empty seat, and someone not
reclining all the way back. She was quiet the rest of the trip.
It's been a while since I've seen someone behave so out of line in public.
If you don't want to be crowded on a plane, don't buy a cheap coach seat.
And then, on the last leg of my journey on public transit, I was
placed in an Amtrak train car with a man (I think he was a man) who
was, let's say challenging to tolerate on the last two hours to my car.
The tattooed, hard-of-hearing man who tried to talk to everyone, but
couldn't hear any responses very well, kept asking about smoke stops,
(there wouldn't be any until many stops down the line), ordering
food from the food car, then throwing half of it away, uneaten,
complaining again about no smoke breaks, and asking me a dozen times
if we had gotten into Virginia yet. This train wasn't going to Virginia.
But, to give him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps he thought it
was Iowa, not Virginia, because he was told no smoke breaks until an Iowa stop.
Either way, I was so ready to get out of that carriage.
And then the train stopped an hour away from Galesburg; my stop.
Where my car had been parked.
Everything at been on time and as expected the whole trip,
only to have a break down an hour from my stop.
But that's how the pyramid crumbles.
Mini flag. As has become tradition. Gonna collect mini flags from
any country I visit.
Back home for about 48 hours, and it was out again to catch a performance from
Gunhild Carling, a fantastically talented jazz musician from Sweden.
I had seen videos from her on the social media pages, and was glad to catch her play live.
She's amazing!
Multi-instrumentalist, (trumpet, trombone, recorder, uillean bagpipe), she sings,
dances, and tells funny jokes. Performing popular jazz tunes and a few
compositions of her own.
Three trumpets at once!
Play a trumpet tune while accompanying herself on bass.
She did not disappoint. Bravissimo!
Collected the tickets from all of the places I visited.
Except for the Islamic sites, my guide didn't give them to me.
Knew I had these two, but found them later.
I really got around.
I arrived in Cairo alone, but had arranged a half-day guided tour on day one
to see Islamic sites before meeting up with my Intrepid Tour group.
Four Australians and me. Plus our guide, Sayed.
After settling back in, it was back on stage for me.
Two days subbing in on saxophones with the local cover band.
I'm not much of a door wreath person, but I couldn't resist this one.
Love the little toothy plants.
An homage to one my favorite musicals, The Little Shop of Horrors.
Spooky season is upon us, time to spookify the house.
Got some clarinet licks in at the Catfish Jazz Society jam.
And, before I leave you here and start hacking away at
most likely several upcoming Egypt posts, here is the squirrel
I saw hanging around the house this morning.
Apparently black squirrels aren't everywhere.
This one had a snack. Nom nom, crunch, munch,
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