The Valley of the Kings

It's just after noon on another grey and chilly Monday in Kassel.  I had what in no way could be called a bad weekend, especially if you lump in some excellent Thursday night shenanigans with the concept of "weekend".  I drank a couple decent gin n' tonics (lemon instead of lime, why Europe???), sang 90s songs (Wallflowers and The Verve Pipe, baby), took a walk in a park, and discovered the truth about Budweiser.  I also had a two-hour meeting on Saturday morning, and did company paperwork and planning for six hours on Sunday.

But now it's Monday, and due to several of my classes being on break or not having started yet, I don't have to be anywhere for a few hours yet.  SO, let's knock out one of these blogging albatrosses, otherwise known as "What I Did in Egypt".

When I last left you on the banks of the River Nile, I had just come off of an incredible day touring the Temple of Horus, Karnak, and Luxor.  Sisyphus once again was stuffed to bursting in preparation for our flight to Cairo, but before Ismail and the group could say goodbye to each other, there was one more 5:30 AM wake-up call.

We were going to the Valley of the Kings.

That is a terrible picture, but it's the best one I have of the Valley because they do not allow you to take photos at the site at all.  Not even outside, which frankly is completely ridiculous.  So this is from the parking lot.  In fact, there are signs everywhere telling people to leave their cameras on the bus.  I did not, and as it turns out that would be a very fortuitous decision on my part!

I was just so, so excited about being here.  I can't even tell you.  Up to this point in my life, this was the single best thing that had ever happened to me.  There were tears again, discrete little ones behind big sunglasses.  I wanted to see everything, but unfortunately the Egyptians were one step ahead of me.

There are 65 known tombs in the Valley of the Kings.  When you buy your ticket, it allows you to choose a maximum of three to go inside and visit.  And sadly, most of the truly famous ones (including Ramses II and Hatshepsut) are closed to the public.  Ismail recommended we visit the tombs of Merenptah, who was Ramses II's son and successor, and then Ramses III and Ramses IX.  So that's what we did.  Tour guides are no longer allowed to go down into the tombs with their groups, so Ismail gave us the highlights and then let us loose.

Inside the Tomb of Merenptah

Merenptah's sarcophagus

Incredible art on the tomb walls, sadly slightly blurry due to illegality

Yeah, so.  Balls to that no photos rule.  It just so happened that the tomb wasn't very crowded at the moment we went inside (everyone in that first photo is from my group), so I and a couple others decided to risk a stay in Egyptian jail for visual proof of one of the coolest things I have ever done.

I unfortunately wasn't able to grab any photos inside the tomb of Ramses III though.  It was more crowded and there was a steady passage of guards wandering through.  I remember it being incredible, of course, and at the end there seemed to be a collapsed or unexcavated passage that was dark and closed to the public.  I should have been an Egyptologist!  Maybe in the next life.

After Ramses III, I broke off from the group because I was about to do something incredibly special.  The one exception to the "no famous tombs are open" statement is nothing less than the most famous tomb of them all -- the tomb of Tutankhamun.  Keeping true to their Egyptian spirit, this particular tomb is not included in your choice of three.  You need to buy a separate ticket to visit Tutankhamun, at a cost of 100 EGP.

That might sound like a lot, but it's about the equivalent of fourteen dollars.

The fact is though, it didn't really matter how much it cost.  I probably would have paid 100 USD for this.  Because let's be real -- there is ONE Valley of the Kings and ONE Tutankhamun's tomb, and this very probably is going to be my ONE -- my very much one and only chance -- to see it.

I was the only one from my group to pay for the Tutankhamun ticket.  The only one.  No one else apparently thought it was worth it to come to Egypt and pony up fourteen freaking dollars.  Well, okay.  Each to their own, of course.  I hope you enjoyed the hell out of whatever it was you spent that fourteen dollars on instead.

But.

This meant I was alone in Tutankhamun's tomb.  Alone, that is, expect of course for the guide/security guard who climbed down in there with me to make sure I kept my hands to myself and also of course to get his baksheesh.  And wouldn't you know, this turned out to be the one time in Egypt when baksheesh culture ended up working in my favor.

Tutankhamun's mummy is actually here; it's the one mummy displayed for general viewing in the Valley.  I did not get a photo of the mummy (sadness), but the guy raised the barrier and let me go right up to the glass for a better view.  He gave me his flashlight and let me poke my head into one of the treasure rooms (now dark and empty, but still completely amazing).  On the other side of the main room, he showed me where to lean over the railing to see an incredible wall painting of Horus and Anubis (I think it was those two).

And then he let me take a picture.  Hell, he took my picture.

I'm the same color as my shirt.  It was freaking hot in there.

I think this guy would have sold me the mummy if I'd asked him.  Needless to say, I paid happily and handsomely for my privileges, and we both climbed out of Tutankhamun's tomb feeling very satisfied with our fifteen minutes.

This was one of the most memorable and generally mind-blowing things that has ever happened to me.  I know I'm saying that quite a bit in these Egypt posts, but every one of them is true.  I've never felt so incredibly fortunate.  The trip.  Of.  A LIFETIME.

I rejoined the group, and we walked over to our last tomb of the day, Rameses IX.  This tomb is interesting in part because it has been heavily defaced with Coptic and Roman graffiti.  Such barbarians.

The tomb of Rameses IX

I was only able to get off one hip shot here, but you at least can see the extent of the decoration.  Completely incredible.  We're walking down to the burial chamber; you can see the hulk of the sarcophagus there at the end.

And that, my dear friends, was the Valley of the Kings.  Had I been by myself, I would have bought a complete second ticket, and gone on to visit three more tombs.  But unfortunately there was an air-conditioned minibus to get to, and several more things to see before I would board my place to Cairo.  So we said our farewells to Tutankhamun and the various Rameses, and headed off to Queen Hatshepsut's Mortuary Temple.

I haven't said much about the heat so far in this post, but let me just take a sec to do so now.  June in the freaking Egyptian desert is no joke.  Without exaggeration, I have never in my life felt anything like this, and hope to hell I don't again.  It was almost unreal.  In a weird, heatstroke kind of way, the extreme temperatures almost added to the experience.  It certainly lent a particular facet of "unforgettable."

After the breathtaking ordeal that was visiting the temple, the group took refuge at the shady cafe and hydrated for a few minutes.  I spied an Efes in the cooler, and was ecstatic for exactly seventeen seconds before I spied the "alcohol free".  Giant sigh.  Switched to coke.  Oh well, it was still not even noon yet, despite my having been up for almost seven hours.

Last stop of the tour was the Valley of the Queens.  Which Ismail told me is actually kind of a misleading name.  It's the burial place for all of the king's family -- his kids, parents, etc... and his wife (wives).  There were three people in our group who had booked with a different company, and their tour included a trip to Queen's Valley when the rest of ours did not.  Ismail gave the rest of us the option to buy the ticket individually, and again I was the only one to decide to do this!

We visited two tombs in the Valley of the Queens, both for children of Rameses II I believe.  It's terribly unfortunate, but I didn't make proper note of this at the time, and now have forgotten.  One thing that did make the Valley of the Queens memorable -- due to these tombs not being quite so famous as their brethren over in the next valley, they're in far better condition and the wall paintings here were amazing.  I wish I could have gotten some photos, but the guards were like hawks here.  I did get a couple shots of outside though.

What would a day in Egypt be without a Baksheesh Shakedown?  At the first Queen's Valley tomb we visited, the man punching tickets would not let me into the tomb until I took from him a dilapidated piece of cardboard.  "Fan!" he said enthusiastically.  Of course, you know where this goes.  On my way out, once again he physically blocked my way until I paid him for the privilege of using his "fan".

"Why are you bitching about this?" you may ask.  "You just ranted that 100 EGP was about 14 USD, and now you're complaining about forking over the equivalent of 75 cents?"

Well, yeah.  I am.  It's not about the money.  As I explained up in King Tut's tomb, I am perfectly happy to exchange goods (money) for services.  This is not a foreign concept to me.  I'm an American, and we're know for being the most generous tippers in the world.  I almost always tip higher than what's considered average for where I am, even if service was less than great.  I understand that people in the service industry depend on tips, and don't begrudge my expected contribution to this system one bit.

But I hate being bullied.  I hate being taken for a ride, manipulated, shaken down, take your pick.  It's the principle of the thing.  I'm not going to cheerfully accept someone trying to take advantage of me.  Money really has very little to do with it.

So there's that.  Baksheesh rant over. For now.  (I'm almost definitely going to get some comment troll about this one, but whatever.)

On the way back, we stopped for a quick photo op at the Colossus of Memnon.  (Colossi?)

And then it was time to say a grateful farewell to Ismail and the Tower Prestige.  I've probably never been happier with value for money as I was with this cruise.  In fact, the only big-ticket item we missed was Abu Simbel, because we didn't get that far south.  I can, and will, recommend this trip to anyone.  Completely safe, completely comfy, and days packed from start to finish with sights you'll never forget.

And then I flew to Cairo.

Saturday Sightseeing in the Rain

Holy crap, am I making a blog post about something that happened less than two weeks ago!!??  Yep, turns out my desire to procrastinate on lesson planning means that I instead choose to tell you what all it was I got up to yesterday.  As you know, I'd had yet to get out an experience any of Kassel's sites beyond that of the beautiful Bergpark, so on Saturday I was determined to call up my backpacker's heart and spend the day tromping around museums and churches.

After a lazy morning, I did indeed pack up a bag and head downtown, despite the grey and cold weather.  Pretty much the minute I stepped off the tram, it started to pour.  Typical.  Well, it certainly wouldn't be the first nor the last time I would go sightseeing in the rain.  I swung through the Brüder Grimm Platz.  The Grimm Brothers weren't born here, but they compiled their first compendium of fairytales while in Kassel, Kinder- und Hausmärchen.  As in all cases where a particular town or region might not have terrifically much else to recommend it, Kassel really loves the Brothers Grimm.  Which is why I was rather surprised the other week when I first came upon the surprisingly meek and tiny statue of the two brothers at the aptly-named (but also tiny) Brüder Grimm Platz.

In perusing my Kassel maps and guidebook, one of the things that had stood out to me was the Museum for Sepulchral Culture.  A welcomed respite from your standard art and history museums, I was really excited to peruse the works in a museum that proposed to focus on "the culture of death, dying, burial, and mourning."

Well.  What a freaking letdown this place was.  I was hardly expecting something along the same lines as the Capuchin Monk Bone Art (see Rome post), but all the same.  First of all, it is incredibly small.  Furthermore, all the captions and descriptions are only in German, which I realize is my problem rather than that of the museum's, but it certainly did nothing to enhance my experience.  Lastly and most importantly, there just isn't very much there.  A few transplanted gravestones and urns.  A couple hearse-carriages.  A few coffins, modern and antique.  One glass cabinet with mannequins wearing mourning clothes that looked to be Victorian.  And some other stuff, but there was nothing edgy or different or weird or even terribly interesting.  There was a little bit of modern art that dealt with the question of death, but only one or two pieces of mention.  I'm not sure exactly what I had been expecting, but this was not it.  I would have been extremely frustrated if I had forked over the 6 euro admission on a backpacking budget.  Even walking through the entire ground floor two times, I was done in less than half an hour.  Big letdown.  Unless they have some sort of Free Museum Day, you really can go and spend that 6 euro on beer with a clear conscience.

Antique coffins

When I came back up to the entry level, the woman at the ticket counter had found a small flyer for me that did explain some of the exhibits in English.  I thought that was extremely nice of her, but I'd been just too damn underwhelmed to take the flyer back downstairs and walk through a third time.  Oh well.  I brought it home, and suppose it will make some some good light reading one night.

After the Museum for Sepulchral Culture, I found my way through the rain to the Neue Gallery, that was supposed to house a good collection of modern art.  The main level has late Renaissance-style paintings and portraits, with a few modern art installations thrown in.  I really liked this one, although I forgot to take a picture of the card so now don't remember the artist or title.

Upstairs is their main collection of modern art.  I enjoyed it, but didn't see the name of anyone I knew.  (Not that I'm some sort of modern art expert, hardly.)  My favorite piece upstairs was this spirally installation:

My second time through this room, I found the info card, and wouldn't you know it -- the spiral is the work of none other than Mario Merz!!  (I should have recognized it, spirals feature prominently in his works.)  I was really happy to have stumbled upon it, and there was that one familiar name that happened to be attached to the most interesting thing in the place.

The other piece that deserves mention was a spoken-word film (in English, yay!) by Willie Doherty, "Secretion".  I don't want to spoil the punch of it by saying too much, so let's just leave it at that it gave me way creepier chills than anything in the Sepulchral Museum.

The last cultural stop for the day was across the street at the Brother's Grimm Museum.  Also quite small, again I'm not exactly sure what I expected but this place sadly did not fill me with wow-ness.  There was a lot of personal ephemera in glass cases; the cards said something like "drinking cup of Jacob Grimm's brother-in-law's half-sister's cousin" or "ring from an unknown woman in the Grimm family."  Um, super?  Some rooms were devoted to the modern interpretations of the Grimm's works, which  might sound cool but in reality just included items such as a framed movie poster of Dreamwork's Puss n' Boots.  The coolest thing there was probably Jacob Grimm's seal.

Back down in the gift shop, I thought about buying my nephew a coolly illustrated book of Grimm's fairytales for Christmas, but they only had one option that was in English and I wasn't loving it, so saved that purchase for another time.

I'd intended to walk down and check out this one church I'd been passing every day on the bus going to or from work, but suddenly food seemed much more relevant.  I parked myself in a corner restaurant and ordered pork schnitzel with "hunter's sauce", which turned out to be a spectacularly delicious brown cream sauce with mushrooms.  The schnitzel options came in three portion sizes, and I ordered the "medium" which I think was 260 grams.  Having always been terrible at math, I had no real reference for how large that was going to turn out to be.

With human hand for scale

This schnitzel was deeply, amazingly fantastic.  But OMG.  The hilarious thing was that they also offered a schnitzel almost twice as big as this, a 500-gram monster.  Which, the menu noted, would come without salad.  Because let's face it, if you're going to set out to consume 500 grams of fried pork slathered in cream sauce, there is not a salad on earth that is going to save you.  (No mention was made of it coming without fries.)

As I worked my way through this thing, I amused myself with imagining how such a creation could ever have come to be in the first place, like a scene from a culinary version of Drunk History.  "Dude!  Let's deep-fry this massive pork fillet, and then cover it with cream sauce!"  "Yeah!  And dude -- it needs to come with fries.  Like, a lot of fries."  "Dude!"  "Duuuuude."  Fistbump.

I had a great dinner at this place, Eckstein's, but when I got my bill I saw that the second beer I'd ordered had been rung up as "Alkoholfrei".  WTF.  Now, it is of course completely possible that's just what they punched into the computer and not actually what they served me, but I had noted that my second beer tasted distinctly different from the first.  So, bummer.  Truly, I do not even see the point of non-alcoholic beer.  It's like caffeine-free diet coke -- with calories!!  At that point, shouldn't you just be drinking seltzer?

Anyway.  Decided to walk home rather than wait for the Saturday evening tram to finally lumber around.  Stopped in for toilet paper, water, and wine (how's that for a trifecta??), and settled in to watch more Jeremy Brett DVDs.  A very satisfying Saturday, all around, even with the less-than-mindblowing museum experiences and the practical joke of my second beer.

I think maybe I'll stick around this place for a while.

Workin' and Ridin' the Rails in Kassel

Lessee... do I blog about my first week teaching in Kassel, blog about the Valley of the Kings, or turn my internet stick off completely for a whole hour and watch some Jeremy Brett?

... I guess the teaching thing should come first.  Boo, I know.

On that note, I just completed my first "full" week of teaching.  Full is in quotes because apparently I do not yet have a full schedule, despite painfully long days at least three out of the five.  On two of those three days, It's painfully long not because I am teaching a million classes and making a ton of money, but because I am riding the rails on Kassel's assorted bus and tram system three to four hours a day to get to all our different client sites.  Needless to say, this reality is slightly different than the "teach two classes at one site in the morning, take a break for lunch and travel 20 minutes to the second site, teach two classes there" that was described to me during the hiring process.

(Note:  I am currently a freelancer, which means I get paid per teaching hour.  This has its benefits and its flaws, and a fair number of both.)

It's been a long week.  Long hours full of meeting my students, figuring out all of my assorted routes, internal paperwork for my company, and of course, the dreaded lesson plan.  Otherwise known as "what I did all freaking evening in my apartment the past couple of days."  I'm really glad it's Friday.  The paperwork is (mostly) done, classes are over and happened successfully, and before too long I really do promise that I'm going to be cracking open that bottle of Italian red (sorry Germany) and watching Jeremy Brett be simultaneously off-putting and amazing, while sitting on my loveseat in my long underwear.

This is, without question, the most work I've been asked to do in a long time.  It might even be more time-consuming than my other-life DC job, and that fact kind of boggles my little dilettante expat mind.  But while this job asks a lot of me, it also does something else that was pretty noticeably lacking in places like DC and Istanbul.

The work is rewarding.  My students are respectful, punctual, hardworking, and smart.  I end the day feeling exhausted and productive, and while I might not be jazzed at the idea of waking up at 7:00 AM, it's hella more peaceful than how I used to feel when laying my head down in Istanbul.  Of course I'd heard from multiple sources that this pretty much is how it is in the world of teaching adult ESL English.  I'm tired.  I legit just did something like five hours of paperwork to close out my Friday.  I have something like 12 completely customized 90-minute lesson plans to get through this weekend, unless I want to punish myself like I did this week, and assume I can do the next day's load the night before.  Not so much.

I still wouldn't trade where I am now for anything in the world.

See, I don't mind working hard when I can actually get behind what it is I'm being asked to do.  Didn't happen much in DC, let me tell you.  Maybe a little bit in Georgia, with my MOJ students at least.  And Turkey?  Forget it.  I'll always be super grateful to Istanbul for showing me the teaching experience that I am not suited for and do not want.  It made deciding which jobs to apply for a whole lot easier this time around.

I know that it will get easier -- that I'll get to know the secret tricks of the mass transit system and that lesson planning won't take nearly as long once I know my students and what it is they're really looking for (and needing!).  The paperwork.... that's something I'm just going to have to learn to love. :)

It's kind of nice to be challenged again.  To have to actually use my brain a little.  I mean, not that I don't seriously miss drinking beer and vodka all afternoon while staring bemusedly at the Black Sea and Georgian Men Hair Sleeves.  That was pretty freaking awesome, for a time.  But it's nothing I could build a life around.  I think that option might just be here for me though.

I'm happy to be here.  Happy to have gotten through the week with no disasters or dumb newbie mistakes.  Happy to be sitting with my feet up on my very own dilapidated loveseat, with the sounds of the tram whirring by outside every few minutes on this chilly and rainy Friday night in Kassel, Germany.

Oh, and today I booked my ticket to fly home for Christmas and New Year's.  Can we say pudgy adorable smiley baby in tiny lederhosen?  Because I sure as hell can.

It's not a bad life.  Not at all.

All right, I can check "one blog post" off the list.  (Did you guess I picked this one over Egypt because it was shorter??)  I'm ready to see some Reichenbach Falls.

Kassel: German Cleveland and Birthplace of Fairytales

Hello once again, loyal (and very patient) readers.  Comin' atcha from my very own flat in Kassel, Germany.

Hard to believe I've been here a week and a half already.  Time has flown, but unfortunately I don't exactly have very much to share that is blog-worthy, thus far.  I've gotten to know my employers and co-workers, and have made pretty good friends with two teachers living in my apartment building.  I've had my fair share of training sessions and meetings, and long treks around Kassel to sketch out my various tram and bus routes to our assorted clients.  I can only say I'm pretty damn grateful that riding the tram in Kassel is far less painful than doing the same in Istanbul, because I am going to be on trams and buses a LOT.

To get to Kassel from DC, I took IcelandAir through Reykjavik to Frankfurt, and then hopped on the ICE train to Kassel.  That last leg was surprisingly brutal, but once again I owe my traveling success to the kindness of strangers, this time in the form of a woman I met in the station cafe who happened to also be going to Kassel on the same train.  Folks from my company were there at the Kassel station to greet me, and they put me up in a nearby hotel because my apartment wasn't ready yet.

I think I have to finally admit to myself that, while the will is stronger than ever, my body simply cannot shrug off these long painful trips like it used to.  I was wrecked.  Nonetheless, the idea of grabbing a sad little sandwich and eating it in my hotel room was positively unacceptable for my first night in Germany, so I rallied and ended up enjoying a very nice meal (and beer!) at a bistro across the street.  And then, a very climactic shower and head-hitting-pillow, which was pretty damn wonderful.

They moved me into my flat on Saturday, and it's... okay.  Hardly paradise but it's an actual one-bedroom, not a studio, and I even have two twin beds.  There's also plenty of storage and a big desk in the living room which is great given the work from home I'm pretty sure I'm in for.  The location is great, and that's the most important thing.

As fate and scheduling would have it, I've ended up only teaching one class so far.  The downside of that means that I've not made any money yet, but the upside has been that I've been able to focus on getting settled, and planning for the classes that will kick off tomorrow, Monday.  I feel like the days have been both long and tiring but in truth, not a huge ton has happened.  Perhaps extended old lady jet lag is to blame?

Kassel might not be edgy like Berlin or full of oompah-ing good times like Munich, but it's a pretty city.  (A colleague recently compared it to Cleveland.)  My neighborhood is one of the few that actually survived the WWII bombings, and there are a lot of olf beautiful buildings scattered about.  I've gone out a few times with friends and colleagues, and finally on Wednesday night I netted my first bratwurst and Oktoberfest-sized beer!  Kassel might be Germany's Cleveland, but there's no shortage of food options.  In fact, last week I actually had my favorite Turkish junk food, Iskender.  The joy of finding said delicacy was mitigated by the fact that it was kind of crappy Iskender (ranch dressing instead of yogurt, WTH), but at least it was available.

There are a bunch of museums and art galleries in Kassel, but I have yet to pass the threshold of a single one.  I feel kind of awkward about that; it has been ten days and really I have not been that busy.  But the only touristy sightseeing thing I've managed to do was a walk through the beautiful Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe last Sunday with my new friend and fellow teacher, Jocelyne.

The Schloss Wilhelmshöhe Museum, which we did not go into.

The impetus for our afternoon hike were the impressive cascade water features and fountain which is the unequivocal highlight of the park.  The water is only turned on at certain times, and Jocelyne had gotten word that this past Sunday was going to be it for the season.  So we humped it on up the mountain and got there just in time!

You can see the water starting its way down

At the foot of the cascades

 Standing guard over this marvel is a giant bronze statue of Hercules, which is modeled after the Hercules in the Naples Museum.  After they turned the water off again and the crowds thinned out, Jocelyne and I climbed approximately 4,565 steps and went to say Hi to him.

His best side.  I couldn't get a photo from the front.

On the way down, we took a little detour and ended up at Löwenburg Castle.  You know... just a freaking castle tucked away in the woods.  If this is not the complete and utter land of fairytales, I don't know what.  Oh, and did you know that the Brothers Grimm wrote their stories in Kassel??

Exiting the park, Jocelyne and I stumbled onto Route 66, an "American-style cafe", and I had a jalapeno cheeseburger that was to die for.  Castles and jalapenos.  I love Germany.

Now, a week later, I'm feeling more or less settled in, but still just kind of tired.  I was hoping to pep myself up before my week of early mornings and long days starts tomorrow, but no luck I guess.  Germany needs to take a page from Italy's book and install little espresso bars every ten feet.

Well, stay tuned.  Maybe next weekend I'll have some Brothers Grimm awesomeness for you.  And there's still half of Egypt to go!