"Soldiers, 40 centuries of history look down upon you from these Pyramids"

That's Napoleon, preparing for battle at Giza 21 July 1798. And apparently he didn't blow off the face of the Sphinx during target practice. Urban...desert legend.

The abridged collection of photos has now been posted.

You know those shows on the Discovery Channel, or History Channel, which bear promos exaggerating the exhausting quest to solve how the pyramids were constructed? I do. But after viewing one, I tend to switch them off after 55 minutes, full-well knowing the final lines of narration will conclude with a setting sun over the desert and the narrator's voice waxing poetic as he says something along the lines of "that, we will never know." So disappointing! However, from what I supposedly learned on Saturday, the building of the pyramids was not a divine feat. Here's the abbreviated story: most of downtown Cairo was a lake, flooded through 1870. Much of Giza, where the pyramids are located, was also a giant lake, there are great photographs in the hallways of the AUC of people in canoes not far from the pyramids in the background. This, apparently, lays the ground for a long history of the presence of water around the pyramids. Which concomitantly invites silt from the Nile. This slick and slippery silt allowed ancient Egyptians to literally slide the great big blocks into place from the limestone quarries just a few hundred meters away. Then, levers and pulleys to stack.

Climbing through Khafre was spectacular. There are no guards, no guides, just you running through a three foot by three and a half foot tunnel for ten minutes in each direction. Not for the faint of heart. There these fluorescent light boxes along the perimeter of the area for the nightly light show, broadcast in different languages on different evenings. While the entire area is tourist centric, and, we were one of "them" in our tour bus, the lack of rhyme or reason to the area endows a trip to the pyramids some renegade enchantment. The bus was nice however, I learned about the "purchasing power parity" and other such economic theories on the ride back into Cairo from Ryan, the double physics and economics major beside me. I hate to say it, but I think I might like economics...

And Arabic classes finally began! I have a class of five people, all of whom very committed and a pleasure to be in the company of. Here's the roster:

• Will, a political science grad from Yale, now working at a newspaper in Singapore.
• Heather, who is in the process of obtaining a PhD in art history, and is studying Coptic art in Egypt next year hoping to work with medieval texts.
• Miriam, in grad school at Johns Hopkins phenomenal IR program in Bologna, who intends on working as a journalist in the Middle East. A great coincidence.
• Ahrem, a middle aged German financier who came on holiday to Egypt and doesn't want to leave. He cracks me up.

And then Sasha, the high schooler. I claim a special position as the youngest. Coddled on a pedestal.

We're progressing nicely and the teaching is excellent. Alright, lots of homework tonight, I must be off, and my blog is back in action.