Tenth Day: The Ten Commandments
Thursday, January 4, 2007
The girls hopped a flight from Aswan back to Cairo that morning. And for however many hours were designated on their itinerary, they were to explore the Egyptian Museum of Cairo. There, as the display most worthy of note, resided all of King Tutankhamen’s magnificent treasures. Gold, lapis, and carnelian…
Likely as not, the girls had tried to take pictures of the artifacts through the cases. However, Collette was not entirely sure that the museum guards would permit it. And Carrie probably found out more about the alleged King Tut curse, to report upon return.
Other than that, they were bound for another brief hop over to Europe the following afternoon – back to cooler lands in Germany.
Meanwhile, back in the States, the Dead Sea Scrolls were on tour again, this time in Kansas City. When Collette had seen them in Chicago, the rooms had been dark and very quiet, filled with lines of people peering through the glass cases. Israeli guardians (of sorts) stood very close to be sure that nothing was tampered with and that no fingerprints were affixed to the glass. Collette recalled seeing mostly fragments, but they were still quite amazing.
And it was back to work for Collette that morning after a good long twelve-day break for the holidays.
The weather continued its warm spell. According to one report, crocuses and asparagus had been seen sprouting in New Jersey already. They were said to be “confused”. But surprisingly, even the experts weren’t blaming the current above-average temperatures on global warming, even though parts of New England had not produced a white Christmas that year for the first time since 1877.
It started raining after Collette got to the office that morning. And once again, the all-too-tempting donut box was brought out for the staff.
Everyone was back on the job that week, except for Judah, who was in California with Evangeline, celebrating a late Christmas with Evangeline’s family. And Jimmy was trying to decide where he wanted to have his birthday lunch the following week with the staff.
In other news of the morning, OLeif reported that both inspections had been favorable for the house. He also found out that there were two other people in line behind them, should they decide not to purchase it.
Meanwhile, Dad called Collette early in the evening at the office to find out where the girls’ contact information was located. Apparently Carrie-Bri had been trying to contact Dad from Cairo, leaving a message with Frances saying something to the effect that she was unable to use Dad’s ATM card. She also said that they would need to be able to use it in order to be able to get back home, for some reason. However, seeing as she had not left enough information about the specifics of the dilemma, and why she couldn’t use the card, Dad was obliged to wait and return her call early Friday morning, Egypt time, and figure out what the trouble was.
Other than that, it seemed, according to Frances, that everything was going well. There had to be at least a little adventure in every trip.
And the rain continued to mist into the evening on a very slow Thursday in January.
Collette thought about making plans to visit Iceland some time in the future.