distracted. (from music, fashion, food)

or focussed rather, on travel. past travel.

EGYPT. a year and a half ago.

beautiful.

complex.

enlightening.

delicious.

hot.

mind blowing.

welcoming.

awe inspiring.

compassionate.

curious.

proud.

humble.

amazing.

heart-capturing.

i feel for its people. i want them to have the freedom we do to elect the government they desire.

below are a few photos from both cairo & alexandria. my prayers are with you, egypt.

as well as a piece of my heart.

love,

sunlovey

Khan el-Khalili

alexandria

awaiting sunset at hotel osiris, cairo

my fave falafel ever, at felfela, cairo

love is... a camel hug

realizing a dream

my last night in egypt, spent saving its splendor in my mind & heart

And now, back to Egypt...We went out last night with a man we met at the pool that was from Cairo, an actor & A NUDIST, with an American accent!? to a place called Genesis—insanely decorated & owned by a Egyptian man and Russian woman. Crazy atmosphere, huge light up fish tanks for tables, Christmas lights, country flags... a petite pool out back with a light up water fall. So surreal. The owners' daughter was named McKenzie, spoke perfect English and had a HUGE personality and imagination. They had a great dane, a horse and a CAMEL—the prettiest one I've ever seen!!! The camel was a pale, creamy color, so clean and so friendly. What a night! The Egyptian man we were with was hilarious, such a character. Got home around 2, slept 'til 10, skipping breakfast, then went to Karnak Temple. It was hotter than the fiery pits of hell but quite impressive. You can't fathom the vast scale of these places. The columns' circumferences were like red wood forest tree trunks, perhaps bigger?! And covered entirely in hieroglyphics. How much those ancients had to say on every single flat surface they could carve their symbols into!It's beautiful and it makes me crazy I want to read it all! Curiosity fills me as I stare on end at these perfectlyformed symbols everywhere!!! There are many depictions of Pharaohs, their queens, gods, their children. And some of these things are still, after thousands of years, SO COLORFUL.I learned yesterday that they made the various colors with crushed semiprecious stones, water and egg whites. The stone explanation completely makes sense regarding the color lasting the way it has, so impressive. There were many sphinx's there as well and striking statuary of kings and queens. All enormous. I just can't tell you enough! But GOD it is so hot.
Here in Egypt, all sites requiring tickets for entry have the same beautifully designed tickets with small holographs upon them. I'm saving them all. After Karnak's impressive structures there was also an ancient lake that existed as far back as Hatshepsut, but then again, hello! So has the Nile river!

After Karnak we went to Luxor temple, which at a certain point in time was taken over by Roman Christians who painted their frescoes OVER hieroglyphics, for a surprising mixture of both today.

However, I totally omitted writing about yesterday! Our trip to the West Bank, Valley of the Kins, Valley of the Queens, Hatshepsut's temple & Memnon's colossi. All outstanding. I can't believe I'm here. I can't. I can't believe the brilliance of the Egyptians so long ago. We saw King Tut's actual tomb & his mummy!!! CAN NOT BELIEVE IT. The photos that we were allowed to take will somewhat capture all of this, somewhat.

Hatshepsut is fascinating. She ruled for 20 years as a man!! Had them all fooled! And was apparently very powerful and productive, her temple attests to this.
Then we went to an alabasterfactory which truly did blow me away. to take chunks of jagged stones & rocks and turn them into fragile,delicate vessels, I can't believe the beauty. I got one piece and a couple of old ceramic pieces, as well as a bust of king tut in lapis for my dad. Then we came back to the hotel, ate a little lunch had a drink and spent a couple hours at the pool. It is so refreshing after the heat and the view is great. (THE NILE!) Then, we took a felucca (a wooden sail boat) down the Nile to Banana Island. All the bananas we could eat and hot tea! Plus an encounter with Egyptian police! Was an experience.

Back to today... just had a pedicure, fuchsia glitter with black flowers. When in Egypt. ;-) Tonight we take a train back to Cairo, Giza actually. And stay at Le Meridien. Ah the night train again. :-( Will pick up food to take on board this time for sure.

Egypt Continued... (raw & uncut)
Had lunch @ a little upstairs place recommended by a shop owner that sold scent oils, it was called Al Ahd Al Jadid- they brought a huge tray out with everything they had & asked us to pick what we wanted- we were the only tourists and the food was so good. really. Egyptians are so curious about us, about us liking it here, if we're being treated well, feeling welcome. & MANY of them tell us they love Obama. "Obama is for peace, Bush was for blood" one man said to me.

So... got some sleep on the train once the beds were set up. I was on the top bunk, tim on bottom, maggie stayed up the entire night looking out the window. I stared out as well & all night long we saw people out and about & about. Also, mosques at night are lit up by bright neon lights. It seemed like no time and we were being told to wake up, get ready to get off the train!

what a b!tch carrying our luggage up the many stairs, esp. at 5:30AM with little sleep in HOT AS HADES Luxor. Lord have mercy! Got a cab for 20 Egyptian pounds to Iberotel. They were kind enough to let us check in right away and we went up to our rooms, checked out the view from our balcony (AMAZING, the Nile is so lovely here in Luxor, breath taking), showered and passed out for a few hours.

I ended up getting up and checking out the pool etc. with maggie. We had tea & coffee, then came to get tim, he walked down to check out the pool too (OH, i forgot, maggie shopped her BUTT off after coffee) then we were going to have lunch in the hotel restaurant... they said buffet or a la cart? we said we wanted to look at the buffet, maggie went first and totally fell, HARD, screwing up two of her fingers badly, one looked broken & i saw right then tons of dirty water on the floor!

She was eventually taken in a cab, with the manager and tim to the Luxor hospital, it was a disaster. The day slipped by and poor, poor maggie went thru a lot. when they finally came back the hotel gave us lunch- bread, cheese, eggs & french fries? and we ate with the managers as they apologized. WAS SO WEIRD. & I am still MAD about that water by the buffet, the mgr. said it was a bottle of water spilled by one of the guests, i told him right away, NO WAY.

We then went to the pool for the afternoon, then showered and walked along the Nile to the Winter Palace for dinner. What a gorgeously furnished hotel, so Marie Antoinette. I had yellow lentil soup & sea bass. We walked back and I sorted out a guide for tomorrow's West Bank sites. 250 Egyptian pounds. We will leave at 7:30 & see AMAZING things. We'd like to take a felucca ride on the Nile while here. Until later! Prayers for maggie to feel better. Thanks to tim for being so helpful...

(the down low: i sorted out said guide with a guy at a tourist trap shop, got to be "friends" with him. he got us a brilliantly educated English speaking guide, a driver and air conditioned van for approx. $30 for an entire day, it pays to be friendly & to get to know people you encounter out there)

REMINDER: Yesterday was Tuesday and thus, FREE Single of the Week day on itunes. Did you check it out? Did you look for the FREE Discovery Download? The FREE video? It's not too late... http://www.itunes.com
FREE Single of the Week: Wonderful by Gary Go (never heard of, will check out, they dare to compare to Coldplay) Genre: Pop
FREE Discovery Download: Apolkalypse Now by Polkastra (POLKA!?) Genre: World
FREE Video: Down by Jay Sean (feat. Lil Wayne, probably not my cup of tea, but perhaps yours?) Genre: Pop

Something else catching my eye in the "FREE on itunes" section!?!?!? a Where The Wild Things Are exclusive featurette. AWESOME. download.

Now, more from Egypt...

Alexandria looks quite beautiful in our photographs... sadly there's not much to it in terms of ancient sites.

they've been demolished or shipped off to the U.S. (like the Obelisk in Central Park, NYC, pictured, shipped from Alexandria in 1881) & England... we did visit an extremely old catacomb and a fort on the water. we had such a questionable lunch at a place called Fish Bono—dear LORD it's amazing our stomachs are OK. we laughed so much though. had "virgin mojitos" actually called garden view cocktails & virgin beer. it was so hot. the drive back was unique, our driver smelled incredibly. OMG we were dying. Maggie smoked sheesha with a random guy at a gas station.

Once back we sipped beers on the balcony of our hotel and watched another insane sunset. they are phenomenal on their own and then the call to prayer kicks in and it's just surreal!

we took the advice of some things i'd read online and had such a lovely dinner at Felfela. Quite good, great service, more laughs. the various dips and salads are incredible, the fresh pita & their falafel (also called tamiya, pictured) was TOP NOTCH, crusted in sesame seeds. We had two orders. Good beer. Great atmosphere, nice decor-

then we went to another place for tim and maggie to smoke sheesha. i just stared at the people, Egyptians, their eyes, eye color, eyelashes, gorgeous.

I SLEPT. didn't even hear the morning call to prayer. maggie woke us at 8:30, we had breakfast (hmm, not the best, the tea is ok but it's loose in the bottom of the glass, so you end up eating it). After breakfast we set out for the Egyptian museum, it is so striking from the outside, they take great pride in it. 60 egyptian pounds to get in. NO AC, dear GOD. except in certain rooms that house things that can't survive 1000 degrees. An extra 100 pounds to see the mummies & now i know i'm going to dream about them...

the rest of the day was spent wandering through and bargaining in the bazaar, Khan al Khalili. Was a blast with maggie, laughing! we spent a lot of time in a small tunic shop where maggie bought outfits for many children she knows. but we ended up seeing tunics that we liked ourselves and spent much time talking and laughing with the father and son shop owners about maggie's "pyramids". was hilarious. people would actually say to us through out the souks "how can i take your money today?" quite honest.

I woke up with a fashion purpose this morning. Whatever works. A few years ago two dresses were given to me. Vintage sheaths. Both had much promise. And were stowed away in a spare closet. They originally belonged to the mother-in-law of a neighbor. And I came to mind when said mother-in-law passed them down. So last night, awaiting sleep, I thought of them. Yes, some three years later. Got out of bed, went to the spare closet and found them. Was drawn to the one pictured in particular. A bright and summery change from the gray I've been drawn to so much lately. I hung it on my closet door, thought "GOLD SHOES" and fell asleep. This morning I quickly chose a necklace and a trio of bracelets & was on my merry way...


SEGUE:
Tweets from Monday night, August 10th...
Travel writers show on travel channel taking place in chile for this episode is SO good. I'm jealous and instantly addicted.about 20 hours ago from txt

And they're going to patagonia... If you know me you know i'm dying. about 20 hours ago from txt

ok, travel is officially saturating every crevice of my brain now-if you were my travel journal from egypt WHERE would you be?!?! can't find about 20 hours ago from web

journal FOUND. expect egypt blogs shortly. inspired by Confessions of a Travel Writer:
http://confessionsofatravelwriter.com/ about 19 hours ago from web


YEAH, a lot of inspiration was taking place last night, and not just in the fashion realm. Prior to my vintage dresses in spare closet revelation I got absolutely consumed by a new show on the travel channel. Confessions of a Travel Writer. WOW. Dry, funny, real, AND THE FIRST EPISODE TOOK PLACE IN CHILE!!!! Know me, know I want to go there next, BADLY. I was glued, riveted, swooning. Please oh please find and watch this show, tell others about it, keep it on TV. It's smart and if it goes away that will suck. Watching the show evoked a dire need within me to find the journal I kept while in Egypt. Mad dash searches transpired during commercial breaks. And HALLELUJAH it was found.

So... motivated by Confessions of a Travel Writer, I bring you a travel journal entry. You like? Tell me. You don't. TELL ME. Got it? Cool.

June 18th
We're here—still taxi-ing to the gate. The flight was fine. Already caught sight of the pyramids. Cairo looks HUGE & dry. ... Walked around a bit, city is bustling. Ate dinner at Cafe Riche, then had drinks at Pottery Cafe & watched the Egypt v. Italy game with tons of excited Egyptians 'til we were about to pass out, then we left. The streets were overflowing with

TV sets & crowds all watching hte game and I love the internationality of it all—the world watches!! Have been sending updates to twitter from my cell along the way, I'll print and paste them -HERE- once home. Dinner was pretty good, I ordered various dips with fresh pita and had a chick pea layered cassarole, the name escapes me. I AM FULL. Alarm goes off at 6:30AM, we're off to Alexandria. Good night. ... And we're off in our car service to Alexandria, just drove along and am currently crossing THE NILE RIVER, that's madness. A lot of ships along it. Breakfast was strong tea, strong unrecognizable juice, pita, jam, cheese (white and salty), yogurt. Sleep? NONE. Call to prayer at 4AM? HEARD IT. Beautiful...