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Monday, January 05, 2009

Uncle David and Coptic Cairo

Uncle David arrived just after 3 AM on New Year's Eve. We ordered a Blue Cab for him so that we could stay home and play games and watch movies together instead of sitting in the smokey airport lounge waiting for him to show up. It was great...even though they charged us 80 LE instead of 55 LE. The little cheaters!
We were excited for him to come, not only because it meant we'd have a visitor, but also because he brought Christmas with him. We enjoyed getting all our presents and treats! Thank you to everyone!

Rachel, although excited about having gifts to open, was less than thrilled to meet Uncle David.

To distract her from his presence we decided to head to Coptic Cairo for the day. Sadly, I don't have much to say about it this time. We've been there so many times that nothing seemed too out of the ordinary. Except that we met some East Indian Mormons from Utah. And the Hanging Church was all decked out for Christmas with balloons and streamers. That's pretty much all though. Oh, and we visited the Coptic Museum for the first time ever. It's well worth it, at least we think so. It's laid out much better than the Egyptian museums with air controls and glass cases and everything.
I'm still not writing much, but here are some pictures. We're in Luxor still and everyone wants me to come and play games. What, like, interact with people away from the computer? What?
The Hanging Church
Inside the Hanging Church
David, Rachel and Me outside of St. George's Church

After the Hanging Church and St. George's we went out to the Greek Orthodox Cemetery. That's one of my favorite parts of Coptic Cairo. It's rather peaceful and the crypts and tombs are fascinating. We even found a tomb that had a little house set up inside. How sad that someone actually lives there, in the graveyard, instead of some place warm and homelike.
On the path to the cemetary
I think these trees are cool
Rachel knocking on a tomb
These crypts look like little townhouses, don't you think?
This one is rather crooked
It's pretty much my favorite
Rachel enjoyed a game of peek-a-boo with Andrew
I see you!
We spent a long time in the graveyard

Someone lives in here
And then we visited a church that isn't on the map in our guidebook but that apparently has the crypt that the Holy Family hid in during their stay in Egypt. There are two such crypts in the Coptic Cairo complex. We are not sure which one to believe. Maybe they stayed both places. Maybe they stayed at neither.
Poor Rachel was so exhausted! She's still sick (we both are, actually) so she was trying to be cheerful and fun to be around, but really she just felt icky. I love these pictures--the first is her trying to look happy and cute and the second is how she looked for most of the day. Just ugh.


And I'll leave you with a few pictures of the mystery church we always go to. One day we'll learn more about it. One day I'll actually tell you a few more stories. But not today. The internet here stinks, although we're grateful for the connection we have, and everyone is still on my case about being a real person. So I'm off to play cards. Gotta please the crowd.
What's with the skull and crossbones?

8 comments:

  1. I really hope you mean Uncle David...

    Looks like you guys are having fun!

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  2. Hey I noticed that too...I was thinking who is Uncle Andrew, I mean I guess Andrew could have a hidden bro named Andrew...but that would be as weird as Jamie having a brother named Jamie...oh wait she does.....lol

    Hope that you are having fun and that you soon get some rest at home in YOUR bed!

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  3. the skull and crossbones are usually depicted underneath the cross in Coptic iconography. They represent the bones of Adam, and traditionally Jesus' blood touched them, reuniting the Old and New Testaments.

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  4. Ah, cool. I was wondering about that. Is it possible that the skull and crossbones under Christ's cross also represent Christ destroying death?
    As for the East Indian Mormons from Utah - do you mean East Indian as in Caribbean, or East Indian from the eastern part of India?
    Oh, and nice semi-allusion to Napoleon Dynamite! Do you even know you made one? lol.

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  5. I am not aware of a Napoleon Dynamite allusion, but I'm not surprised I made one...even accidentally.

    I say East Indians because if I merely said "Indians" then people would have been equally as confused. I mean something along the lines of this. I didn't want people thinking "cowboys and indians," rather "bollywood."

    And yes, I accidentally typed Andrew instead of David. It should be fixed now. We really haven't been getting a lot of sleep. For example, we woke up yesterday at 8, went out all day. Rachel fell asleep for about 15 minutes while we were walking home. She woke up when we got to our hotel room and wouldn't fall back asleep. She went to bed at nine. The day before she got up before 7, took a half hour nap in the van on the way back to the hotel, and then didn't go to bed until 10:30 PM. She has some sort of a non-sleep issue.

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  6. And thanks, for explaining the symbolism.

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  7. Rachel has inherited all of our most wonderful family attributes, like insomnia and nightmares. Lucky girl!

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  8. Your hair is really cute!

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