In fact, we got up early and made it to breakfast downstairs before we left for Alexandria. Breakfast was tasty, I'm noticing that we're eating cucumbers and tomatoes a lot, the cucumber is dry but the tomato is quite juicy - they're both so refreshing. I wish I had more leafy greens…
As we headed North West to Alexandria, which is about 200km away, we saw many things on the road: mosques, pigeon farms, date palms, livestock being transported, and new developments for companies and residential areas.
Camels!
There are many booming tech companies coming up over here, I even saw an Oracle building. They all had this sandy color with blue windows, it was a nice color combination, and maybe it represents an oasis of some sort.
Alexandria was named after Alexander the great and was a center for trade throughout the Mediterranean sea. On the car ride there Fatma pretty much summarized the entire history from the end of Ancient Egypt, through Greek and Roman influences, through the Persians, Fatimads, Ottoman...all the way up to recent presidents and history of the Suez Canal. The thing that fascinated me the most was the complex intertwining of royal/noble figures and cultures between the Egyptians, Greek, and Romans. This was greatly displayed at the catacombs in Alexandria where they found tombs that had Egyptian and Greek gods combined. The completely different cultures came together because they wanted to worship their dead so much. The legend of Osiris being resurrected by Isis was depicted on Greek tombs. There were dozens of paintings that showed the hybrid of these cultures. Cameras were not allowed down the catacombs so I don't have pictures, let me tell you, they were spooky and could've been a great place to film a horror movie. On a lighter note, it kind of makes me think of the hybridity of cultures and symbols in modern times. Like in this one UC Irvine Vietnamese Student Association skit, "Lucky". Shout outs to the VSAs!
After the catacombs we went to Pompey's Pillar, which was is kind of a misnomer due to more recent historical facts, however… people don't really seem to mind..so...yeah.. It also contained some subterranean galleries. Scholars are not completely sure what they were for but they were predicted to be for rituals (Serapis bull-god) and also potentially a library where scrolls were kept in the pockets of the walls.
The NILOMETER, they used to measure output of the Nile here so that they can predict a wet lush season or a dryer season that could predict drought and famine. How cool is that?!?!
Haha, Vivian wanted to take some more light-hearted pictures:
We then headed to the shores of the Mediterranean, near where the bit lighthouse of Alexandria used to be. Though some time ago they tore it down and built a fortress, so it's gone. The view was beautiful! Shout outs to Betsy, Jeff, and Karina who are across the way in Spain!
Egyptain courthouse...European architecture! Hybrid!
Lastly we stopped at the Library of Alexandria, which was an international collaboration and….OMG. Sorry Cal but it puts The Doe Library /Main Stacks to shame. It's expansive and state of the art, built about 7 years ago from designs that won an international architect competition.
The front of the building has 120 inscriptions from all different languages and cultures, the back there is an infinity pool. There are 7 stories of reading tables, the windows are in the shape of eye lids with designs on the outside that act as eye lashes, protecting the inside from direct sunlight and sloping down to carry the rain away. There's also an internet archive that has like thousands of pico bytes of data and so many resources accessible to the general public. They've digitized millions of books (in collaboration with the library of congress and China) and original ancient manuscripts which are all available to the general public for free at www.bibalex.org. Seriously ya'll check it out! Also, those books that are online can be printed in their book printing machine (1 of 34 in the world, the first being in the Library of Congress). Books can be printed in about 20 minutes and costs only about 6 USD -- cool! I was amazed. There are also galleries with artists and historical artifacts.
This one is for Jonjon:
Our final picture with Fatma, our awesome and VERY knowledgeable guide.
Wow, today was soo enlightening with the history from the different cultures combining and the grandeur of the library. This library is so awesome, it would inspire me to study within it!
I love nature photos =)
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