Journey to Egypt, Part 9: Valley of the Kings & Howard Carter’s House

December 27, 2018 (This post is part of my travel journal, and also for Your Daily Prompt 3/8/19: Nobility; and for Norm’s Thursday Doors 3/7/19 ). This morning we visited Valley of the Kings, where there are 62 tombs of Egyptian nobility – specifically, pharaohs, including Tutankhamen. They date from Thutmose I of the 18th […]

CFFC: Patterns Around the World

For Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Patterns, I am going multicultural! November 2018: At a Chicago Sinfonietta concert celebrating the Indian festival of Diwali, during the intermission, audience members (especially children) made their own Diwali patterns using glue and glitter on preprinted patterns. Here are two of my favorites. December 2018: In Egypt, we visited Al-Azhar […]

Journey to Egypt, Part 8: Luxor Temple

December 26, 2018 Luxor Temple, in the heart of Luxor city center, is much smaller than Karnak, making it easier to see and digest. We visited after dark, around 6:00 pm. Mohamed said it is more striking at night and he was right. Luxor Temple was almost right across the street from our hotel, Sofitel […]

Biblical Layers: Tels in Israel

Dutch Goes the Photo has a weekly Tuesday Photo Challenge; the theme this week is Layer. Israel is full of archaeological layers, called tels. We saw several of these when we toured Israel last month, including Hazor, Meggido and others. These were cities or communities built over time one on top of the other. The […]

Journey to Egypt, Part 6: Coptic Churches & Ben Ezra Synagogue

December 25, 2018 We left the Egyptian Museum ready for lunch. We boarded our bus and headed to Old Cairo, where we would go to a restaurant for lunch and to the Christian Quarter of Old Cairo. At Felfela Restaurant we were greeted by this hookah-smoking dwarf. The restaurant had interesting décor. Our tummies satisfied, […]

Journey to Egypt: Part 4 – Visiting a Mosque and Celebrating Christmas in Cairo

December 24, 2018 I had not expected to see much evidence of Christmas in Egypt. Although I knew there was a population of Coptic Christians in Egypt, I thought they were few in number and not much attention would be given to this Christian holiday. I was wrong! Egyptians love Christmas! We had seen evidence […]

Journey to Egypt, Part 3 – The Cairo Marriott Hotel: Thursday Doors

December 23, 2018 Located on an island in the Nile River in the middle of Cairo, The Cairo Marriott is huge and opulent. Its décor is beautiful with Arabic influences, including some awesome doors. This post combines a history of this magnificent hotel with Norm’s weekly feature, Thursday Doors. Originally a palace, it was built […]

Thursday Doors: The Via Dolorosa (Jerusalem)

Norm’s Thursday Doors this week contains a new word for door lovers – doorgasm! Yes, I know the feeling! We’ve been so busy since we got home from our trip to Egypt and Israel last week, due to our daughter’s wedding this weekend, that I have not had time to organize my photos for blogging […]

Thursday Doors: Sigma Alpha Epsilon National Headquarters (OHC 2018)

During Open House Chicago 2018, we visited several sites in Evanston, including the national headquarters of the fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Regardless of my personal opinion of this fraternity’s history of hazing (for which it has been disciplined at least nine times) as well as of fraternities in general, the headquarters building is an austere […]

Thursday Doors: Lake Street Church (OHC 2018, Part 7)

During the weekend of Open House Chicago (Oct. 13-14, 2018), we visited another of the Evanston sites, Lake Street Church. Although founded as Evanston Baptist Church in 1858, according to their welcome brochure, Lake Street Church is now a “progressive community of spiritual seekers from across multiple denominations” and is “rooted in the free-church tradition,” […]