Kitsch on the Corniche

Last night I watched my mom drive away in a taxi, and by now she is probably back in New York. I was sad to see her go, but I know that in 24 days (!!!) I will be back in the United States of America with her and the rest of my family, so I'm doing okay.
Before she left, we did something ridiculously stupid. Really stupid. Really really stupid. Don't believe me? Here is the proof . . .

Now that I have published the first picture, it cannot be used for extortion. Copies are available upon request. :D

On Saturday we decided to forgo some of the more traditional tourist destinations in Cairo because frankly we've exhausted all of the important ones, and went instead to the cheesy "Pharoanic Village". We both hated it, but in a good way. The place is supposed to be a recreation of a village in Ancient Egypt, but in reality it's just a cheesy 1980's flea-bitten theme park. The other down-side is that our tour guide (who was forced upon us) acted as a jailor and watched out for any potential defections. We got a huge laugh over it, and the picture above as a souvenir, so it was worth a few hours of agony.
Later, to make up for the previous experience we ate at Barry's, the restaurant we went to in August to eat and gaze at the pyramids. They never get old, and the food was delicious.

Unfortunately, I got ill from drinking apple cider at another restaurant earlier in the day on Saturday, and I was unable to do anything except go to school with mom on Sunday. Then the next day, we went to a french patisserie in Maadi that was "very civilized", according to my mother. (See the picture on the right for me and my chocolate confection. Mmmmmmmm).
Now my mom is gone, and I'm counting down the days until my departure.

  

Coptic Cairo

After a lovely four-course luncheon and stimulating table conversation with my Lawrence professors, Mom and I headed by taxi to the Christian area of Cairo. Unfortunately, our taxi driver dropped us off at a major intersection without any indication of the direction of the Coptic city, so we walked randomly and found ourselves at a very large mosque where we witnessed a baby without pants pooping on the grass, fully veiled women glaring at us from their eyeholes, and from which we were ultimately shooed away by large policemen with guns.
Realizing our mistake, that we had actually walked in the opposite direction of the walled/heavily secured Christian area, we traipsed back to our starting point and found the correct entrance.
Coptic Cairo appeared, as my Mom observed it, like a Disneyworld attraction. The streets were fairly clean for Cairo and besides the Coptic locals, most of the people milling about where Japanese and American tourists. The buildings were all whitewashed and medieval looking, and the rest of the town was comprised of either medieval church buildings or souvenir shops, just like Epcot.
We wound our way through the narrow alleyways, peeking into small chapels, reliqueries, and churches. The last stop on this short visit was the Hanging Church, which looked like something out of Mexico with a cactus in front of it (see picture below). It's called the "Hanging Church" because it is suspended over an old Roman fort.

The architecture inside was not very impressive, though the churches' importance lies in its role as the seat of the Coptic patriarchate. We even witnessed a priest with a chest-length beard and kind smile blessing children. The experience was an interesting one for its human factor- from the old Christian women kissing the relics of saints, to the nuns walking about, and the intermingling of Christians and Muslims, co-habiting, at least in this moment in space and time.