Egyptian Museum

I went to the Egyptian Museum yesterday for the first time and it was, as everyone says it is, an overwhelming experience. There are tons of incredible statues and mummies and busts. And at the same time it is not very well organized or well marked. There is so much history and no museum big enough to capture it all. However, we had a great AUC guide who took us through the museum somewhat chronologically and gave us a great overview of how ancient Egyptian art developed. We saw a selection of King Tut's treasures (and if anyone is trying to think of a gift for me, a pair of King Tut earrings would be great...). And it turns out that James Patterson's guess at King Tut's murder in his recent (bad) book is not that far off from what experts now think happened.

Last night I watched the USA-Ghana soccer match. It seems like Egyptians are really split over their soccer preferences. In my discussions with taxi drivers, all of them wish Egypt were in the World Cup and a number supported the USA against Algeria simply because they still have a strong hatred for Algeria since Algeria beat Egypt last year. The rest supported Algeria because they felt obligated by their Arab nationalist sentiments to support the only Arab representative. Last night was very similar--it seemed like most were supporting Ghana because of African unity and the desire to see Africa represented in the next round. Qaddafi must be proud. Although I wanted the USA to win, now I am supporting Ghana against all the European and South American teams. Y’alla Africa!