Getting Here

Welcome! This is my blog about my trip to Egypt to study archaeology with a Columbia University program. If all goes well, I will be here 3 months. I'll be on the Dakleh Oasis for 2 months, taking classes and participating in the excavation of Roman-era ruins at Amheida. In March I'll be traveling around Egypt looking at important historical sites, though we'll be based out of Cairo.I left New York the evening of January 1st:

The days before my flight to Egypt were some of the craziest of my life. I won't go into detail in this blog, but let's just say I was relieved to get out of the country. That relief was tempered, as I learned that my Uncle Bear died the morning of my trip. It's a hell of a thing to miss a funeral ( or party in Bear's case), and this makes three that I've missed while overseas. The actual trip was pretty uneventful, discounting the HUGE line for security (we checked in 2 and a half hours early and still had to be rushed through the line). It's amazing how anticlimactic air travel makes going half-way around the world. Sit in a chair for a while and BAM you're in Egypt. We stayed in Cairo for a couple of days; I'll talk about it in my next entry.