I have arrived (kind of)

Well, I’m sitting in the Cairo airport, waiting for our flight to Luxor. So far, it’s been a fairly uneventful trip. We had a pretty crappy trans-Atlantic plane, with only the big overhead screens instead of ones on our seats. But that's ok, I did some crossword puzzles and the food wasn't bad. Lindsey hurt her ankle this morning, so we were able to by-pass all of the lines and board first, no questions asked. Also, the Germans are amazing at planing and de-planing and we were able to load the entire 400-person plane in 15 mins. Lindsey and I were lucky enough to get all 3 seats in our row, so we were able to toss a bunch of our stuff in the middle seat.

We got into Frankfurt where we had a 2 hour layover and get this- they have bikes to get from place to place! It was so cool. Lindsey grabbed a picture of it, so I'll try to get it from her to show you. Also, I stole a roll of toilet paper from the Frankfurt bathroom since you have to tip for toilet paper in Egypt.

The flight to Cairo was much better- we had screens in our seats, so I watched a few movies. The food wasn't as good and the seats were a little more cramped (just Lindsey and I in a row again, but it only had the 2 seats), but I did get to see pyramids out the window on the way in, so that was fun!

We thankfully got through visas and customs and everything just fine into Cairo where we met Nadine and Greg (heads of the excavation and she's my adviser) almost right away. We then got some Burger King. Yep, my first meal in Egypt was Burger King.

There's also something I need to admit. Occasionally, I envy my brother. I know Mom, you're shocked.  Now is one of those times. Scott can sleep anywhere, in any position, with just about anything going on around him. I, on the other hand, have trouble sleeping in my own bed most of the time, let alone a plane. So Dan and I went to bed late after watching a movie, I then got up at 9:10ish... and I've been up ever since. Currently it's 10:30am THE NEXT DAY in Chicago and I have yet to sleep. I'm actually doing ok- even Nadine said I looked really good. At least we'll have a really nice hotel room tonight in Luxor. Needless to say, if this post is rather long and rambling and not very witty, well, sorry.

We leave for the site super early in the morning tomorrow (Tuesday for me). The only hitch with our permits (we were some of the only ones to get full excavation permits) is that Lindsey, Susan and I aren't listed on the security forms, so that could be fun to sort out. We did get special badges that will get us into any site for free, so if Susan, Lindsey and I can't get in right away, we'll just go sight-seeing :)

Alright, I'm logging off. I'll try to get internet at some point. We've switched houses in Edfu (away from the Coptic section that seems to be having issues), so internet is still a little up-in-the-air. I'll get back to you when I can.

The Wait Continues

The head of the Egyptian antiquities council decided to resign literally hours before the meeting to decide whether or not we will permits. We're hoping that a new head will be in place sometime next week, who will then approve our permits ASAP. But at the moment, we're in a holding pattern. We won't leave on Oct. 1st as planned, but it's possible we could just get word and go at any time.

Even though I just took my big grad school exams, I still need 1 more "quality grade" (basically, I need to not take a class as Pass/Fail). It can be in anything- I've already done all of the actual requirements, I just have to take 9 classes post-MA and I've only done 8. Digging was supposed to count. So for now, my adviser is going to give me a reading list and assign some papers so that I can leave immediately if needed, but also still get my credit if for some reason we can't go. It's no ideal- I was looking forward to never doing non-dissertation work again. But alas. Gotta do what I gotta do.

I'll give more updates as we know.

Assignments and Permits

Molasses. Turtles. Snails. Dial-up internet. The SAC (the Egyptian department in charge of excavations). All of these things are synonyms for one thing: slow. We still do not have our permits for Egypt, which means we can't book plane tickets. Sure, you and I know that the longer we wait, the higher airfare gets, but does the Egyptian gov't care? Not so much.

So we wait. I want to add a countdown clock over on the right of time until I leave, but I have no leave date. So that waits, too. Dear Patience, won't you be my neighbor?

In other news, Greg (married to my advisor Nadine, he's sort of co-owner of this site) sent out the tentative plan for who is doing what when. I thought I'd be drawing Second Intermediate Period (SIP) pottery for 9 weeks. But I'm not! I'll be mostly working on SIP pottery, but after the first 3 weeks, I also get to dig! Hello shovel, this is Patience, care to make this a trio?

For those of you curious folk who have been keeping up with the Tel Edfu excavations (and really, who hasn't been?), we'll be working on 3, count 'em THREE areas this season (along with drawing pottery and cataloging small finds). We'll be finishing up the Middle Kingdom columned hall and silo area that had Nadine all aflutter on the Tel Edfu excavation page in previous seasons. There's also a First Intermediate Period (FIP- comes between the Old and Middle Kingdoms) enclosure wall that they want to clean. And finally, they want to start excavating the (super massive) Old Kingdom layers! I'm thrilled because I love me some Old Kingdom.

But wait! If you keep reading now, I'll double your order and throw in this free Old Kingdom pyramid cleaning! There's a small pyramid at South Edfu that Greg will be heading up at the end of the season. I won't be doing much (if anything) on that, but I might get to go see it. Did I mention I love the Old Kingdom?