Progressive Dinner

A few days ago, our group here on the compound decided to stage an Italian progressive dinner....six courses in six different villas. The night started off with a nice little sunset as we walked to the first house for drinks.


Two things you may notice in the following photos: 1) All of our villas look the same with the exception that a few have had their walls painted white and 2) I didn't take photos of the food as much as I did the people but you can trust me, the food was wonderful!

First house was Brad's where he served Italian Stallions. A shot of 1/2 Peppermint schnapps, 1/2 Sambuca, a licorice liquor. It was.......interesting.



Next, was bruschetta at Lama's villa:


Then, our house for Italian sausage tortellini soup (by special request, we also played Pavarotti :)


Then, some delicious calamari at Sue's. This is me getting my third plateful. :)


Brian completing the finishing touches on his Shrimp scampi and fettucine alfredo:


Joe's apparently finishing the story he was telling over Calamari :)


Finally, tiramisu and coffee at Anne and Chris's. They have been here for over four years and have seen TAFT teams come and go. Some have a good group dynamic and have fun doing things together and other teams have tended to keep to themselves. Our team comprises one of the former and I'm glad!

Rome!!

Is it possible to casually say that we went to Rome last weekend?? :) Here are some pics from our 3 days there....I only regret that these don't capture my favorite part of the trip: the cappucinos, gelato, wine, pizza, bread, antipasti.....did I mention the gelato???? :)

We've been to Rome once before, but here are a few things I came away with this time.

1. Now that we're seeing through more informed Egyptian eyes, we've noticed that there are ALOT of obelisks in Rome....thirteen in all. Apparently, the Romans felt no compunction about carting off the monuments from their newly conquered territory, proudly displaying them in their public squares, although some were created in Rome as well. Most of them have been "Christianized" by being topped with a cross or a statue of the pope.



Here's one in St. Peter's square, in front of St. Peter's basilica















This little beauty is a miniature Egyptian obelisk atop a baby elephant sculpted by Bernini....apparently, a tongue-in-cheek reference to Hannibal's war elephants which transported siege towers across the Alps to attack Rome in 2nd c. BC. That's the Pantheon in the background.









2. Speaking of Bernini, I finally saw Baroque in a new light. In Rome, we saw Greek statuary everywhere, a testament to the renewed interest and appreciation of classical ideas and art which we know as the Renaissance. This elegant statue was in the Vatican Museum and embodies the Renaissance focus on the beauty of the individual:
















In the 17th c., artists took Renaissance art to a new level, focusing on movement and drama. Bernini's sculptures embodied this new style which became known as Baroque. I've never appreciated the flowery, overly decorated style of Baroque but in the Villa Borghese which we visited during our second day in Rome...I got it. Cardinal Borghese, the papal nephew, wanted to illustrate that present-day artists could compete with the classical greats. In each of the grand galleries, renaissance sculptures, stately and pensive, line the edges of the room...but the the sculpture in the center of each room is the main attraction. Each gallery features a sculpture by Bernini and, wow, talk about drama....take a look at this:


This is the same Apollo as the statue above. This time he's grabbed hold of the nymph Daphne just as she's being turned into a laurel tree. Instead of posing gracefully as portrayed in the Vatican, here he's running in mad pursuit and instead of the blank face above, here he's startled, realizing that something's happening to her. Bernini has been able to capture a dramatic moment in marble.

Anyhow, I want to show more Bernini statues from the Galleria Borghese but I'll stop. :) It was a very impressive art collection and the juxtaposition of the Bernini sculptures with the Renaissance figures around it really illustrated how different the Baroque movement was. I came away with a new appreciation, at least. My apologies to those with a greater understanding of art history for any butchering I may have done! :)
























3. David and I drank coffee the way the Italians do, ducking into coffee shops, stepping up to the bar and ordering an espresso, or in my case, a macchiato, which is an espresso "stained" with milk. Ten minutes later, we were on our way.





4. We took a tour of the Palatine hill which, according to legend, is the hill where Rome was founded. In Classical Rome, only the very wealthy lived here, including emperors of which Augustus was the first. You can see part of the hill rising up from the Arch of Constantine, erected in 312 AD to celebrate Constantine's triumph over the city (we're standing at the Colosseum).




Here are some of the remains from Augustus's palace on top of the hill. We saw some of the remains of Nero's palace too, including an excavation site where last year they believe they've unearthed his revolving dining room which had only been alluded to in the sources.








The Palatine hill looks down on the Colosseum and the Forum.
























It was a lovely walk....one of many we did over our three days there. For souvenirs, we brought home olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and blistered feet!! :)

Nile Cruise: Day 3, Luxor

We spent all of our last day in Luxor. Modern Luxor stands on the site of the ancient city of Thebes, which, in turn, is the site of the Karnak temple complex, Luxor temple, Hatshepsut's temple, and Valley of the Kings. We squeezed in all that plus more...a long, thrilling day.

First off, we dragged ourselves out of bed to watch the sunrise during the boat's last stretch on the river before it docked at Luxor.



Then it was off to Karnak. A thousand years after the pyramids were built, Karnak was just a small temple dedicated to the local god, Amun. With the beginning of the 18th dynasty (around 1570 BC), this site became a religious center for the country with each pharoah adding his or her (in the case of Hatshepsut) elaborate homage to Amun. These also served as a tribute to the pharoahs' posterity as well, of course. :) Here's the entrance to Karnak...notice the row of sphinxes on the left:



The photos one always sees from Karnak is the great Hypostyle hall, built by Seti I and completed by his very famous son, Ramses II and I must admit that I couldn't stop taking photos of it. Amelia Edwards, an Englishwoman who traveled through Egypt in the 1870s, describes it perfectly in her memoir "A Thousand Miles up the Nile":

How often has it been written, and how often must it be repeated, that the Great Hall at Karnak is the noblest architectural work ever designed and executed by human hands? One writer tells us that it covers four times the area occupied by the Cathedral of Nôtre Dame in Paris. Another measures it against St. Peter's. All admit their inability to describe it ; yet all attempt the description. To convey a concrete image of the place to one who has not seen it, is, however, as I have already said, impossible. If it could be likened to this place or that, the task would not be so difficult ; but there is, in truth, no building in the wide world to compare with it. The Pyramids are more stupendous. The Colosseum covers more ground. The Parthenon is more beautiful. Yet in nobility of conception, in vastness of detail, in majesty of the highest order, the Hall of Pillars exceeds them every one. This doorway, these columns, are the wonder of the world. How was that lintel-stone raised? How were these capitals lifted? Entering among those mighty pillars, says a recent observer, "you feel that you have shrunk to the dimensions and feebleness of a fly." But I think you feel more than that. You are stupefied by the thought of the mighty men who made them. You say to yourself :--"There were indeed giants in those days."

David, Sara, and Steve letting all that history settle a bit before heading to the next site.











Next was the Luxor temple. A sphinx-lined road once connected Karnak to the Luxor temple, a mile away. A major project has been launched to unbury and restore this road to its former glory. I'm standing on the beginning of this road with Luxor temple behind me:


You can see the statues of Ramses II flanking the entrance. Ramses II was the one who erected the two obelisks as well. As you can see, only one is left, as one was given by Mohammad Ali in the 1800s to King Louis-Philippe in France who erected in the Place de la Concorde. King Louis-Philippe graciously sent a clock to Mohammad Ali, the first electric clock in the Middle East, as a thank you....except it didn't work. It stands today in the Citadel in Cairo....you may remember the whole story from our entry last September here . Doesn't the obelisk look lonely??

In the afternoon, we visited Hatshepsut's mortuary temple, Deir el Bahri. She built this for the purpose of housing her funerary cult as well as a way of strengthening her claim that she was the physical daughter of the god Amun and therefore was fit to be King. Reliefs throughout the temple show Amun claiming her as his offspring as well as other scenes from her twenty-year rule. We were struck by how Greek the temple looked.


No photos from the Valley of the Kings as we were only allowed into three tombs and we weren't allowed to take photos...actually cameras were forbidden on the premises. During the late Kingdom period, pharoahs were realizing that if the goal was to secure their mummy for the afterlife, publicizing their ornate burial chambers filled with treasure with a huge pyramid probably wasn't the best route. They started building their tombs in a valley miles away from Thebes, underground and unmarked. As we know today, this also didn't work, as all the royal tombs were robbed....all except for that of a certain famous pharoah whose name was King Tutankhamun. As I said, I went into three tombs: Seti I, Ramses III, and Ramses V. The colors and scenes painted in the underground chambers were dazzling!

Back at the boat, we ended our night with a wonderful gala dinner. The dessert was Baked Alaska in the form of the Giza pyramids, presented to each table as the rest of the staff played lively music, and then lit on fire....Fabulous!!


Part of the entertainment at the end of the night was a whirling dhervish, who twirls constantly to music for hours. Our whirling dhervish only twirled for about 20 minutes which was enough for me but I liked this photo: