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It was 8 am already when I woke up and I wasn’t prepared. The exam starts at 9 am. I hadn’t even studied properly.

I have not studied at all in the past two years, and suddenly the exam date has arrived. After all, we have our university entrance exams in Sri Lanka after two years of intense preparations. How could I be so careless? What was I thinking? My whole life is in jeopardy now. FREAK OUT TIME!

I need to get out of bed, get ready and go write the exam. But I haven’t studied anything. I am going to fail!

Fortunately, this was just a dream. Not a dream I had the night before the exam, but last week. In 2010. I took the university entrance exams in 1998.

I never had such dreams (or should I call them nightmares?) when I was actually taking the exams. I was well prepared and I was aware of that fact. I also performed well enough to secure a place at a university. Then why do these unfinished memories haunt me now?

I don’t have an answer.

Recently I read an article about how Ohio wildlife, especially birds, is having a tough time with the unusual amount of snow and ice. It restricts their food sources and in turn, they become weak. Since many berry trees are situated near roads, these weak birds tend to get hit by vehicles.

A robin searching for food on a cold day in Columbus.

I have always liked watching birds. I am not an avid birdwatcher and rarely can identify birds. Nonetheless, for the past few years, I have loved having a birdfeeder on my balcony. When I moved to Columbus, a new birdfeeder was one of my first purchases. I eagerly filled it with seeds and hung in from the balcony roof. I waited and waited, and waited more, but no birds appeared on my balcony.

This was quite saddening, because when I was in Ann Arbor, my birdfeeders were always busy. My Columbus apartment is in a very green area, and I was surprised that birds were not interested in the feeder. I thought, perhaps, seeds and fruit was abundant in the area since it was still summer and that they would come later in the year. Autumn came and still no birds. The feeder remained full for the first few months.

One day in late Autumn, I saw a friendly sight. Few birds were checking out the feeder. From then onwards, they came once in a while, and I kept filling the feeder once every couple of weeks. Since birds don’t come very often, I didn’t have the initiative to fill it up every week.

Since I read the article mentioned above, I thought of filling the feeder again. It has been a couple of months since I restocked it. The seeds are kept in the closet on my balcony. Because there were huge chunks of ice on the balcony, I couldn’t get the closet door open. It is sunny today, and I hope the ice melts soon. The feeders will be full again this weekend.

When I was in Ann Arbor, snow storms were not uncommon. Every winter season which lasts from about early November to mid April, we would have five to ten occasions where at least six inches of snow would fall. I got used to it, and actually enjoyed the snow. Since I either walked to lab or took the bus, I didn’t have to deal with snow and ice scraping from my car. For this reason, I rarely drove during the winter. There would be weeks gone by without the car being used. My roommate used to tease me saying how the car would be covered in snow, then how the snow melts, and how the cycle repeats.

After coming to Columbus, I noticed that the winter here is “milder” than Ann Arbor. Columbus is about 200 miles south of Ann Arbor, and I can feel the difference. The autumn lasted a little longer and the temperatures were few degrees (Fahrenheit) lower. When there was a snow fall of six inches in Ann Arbor, we didn’t have any snow on the ground.

Recently, a huge snow storm covered most of the country. Columbus got about a foot of snow that weekend. There was some rumor that the Ohio State University would close if it was a weekday. This was comical to me since there are no weather holidays or “snow days” at the University of Michigan. The rumor has it that this was due to a law student suing the university in the 1970s when it closed due to 19 inches of snow (I don’t know if this is a fact or an urban legend). A little bit of web research shows me that Michigan classes have been cancelled only three times in the (almost) 200 years of university history because of weather.

I am hoping that spring would arrive in Columbus sooner than in Ann Arbor. Late March, perhaps?

08/13/2009

Today we woke up at 7 am and went for breakfast. Food was colorful and delicious as usual. At 9 am, Amir took us to the Temple of Edfu which was located on the west bank of the Nile. This temple belongs to the god Horus and is built with sandstone blocks. It is the second largest temple in Egypt and was built between 237 and 57 B.C. It was very impressively built and well preserved. A man at the temple asked Liz where she was from, and when she answered, he told her how much he liked Obama.

As usual, there were street vendors and children trying to sell everything to the tourists. They also have tricks to get your attention such as throwing a necklace at you and saying it was a gift. Before getting down at every tourist stop, our guides taught us how to ignore the vendors. That way, they lose interest quickly.

The Temple of Edfu was not used after the banning of non-Christian worship in the era of the Roman emperor Theodosius I around 390 A.D. Many carvings of the temple were destroyed (razed) by Christians at that time. Because the temple was not used, it gradually became buried in the desert, with sand more than 10 meters over the highest point. Over the time, people built houses on top not knowing what lied beneath. In the last 1700s, a French expedition identified the temple and in the mid 1800s, a French Egyptologist began the excavation of the temple from the sands.

After we came back to the cruise ship, I was tired of walking in the hot sun, and took the opportunity to take a nap. Afterwards, we had lunch, and Liz and I went up to the cruise deck to check out the view since the ship was moving towards Luxor at this point. At Esna, we went through a lock. Everything was beautiful along the Nile. There were more greenery and the atmosphere was quite different from busy Cairo. We had tea and sweets on the deck in the evening and we stayed there until sunset just chatting and laughing. Since Liz and I had just moved far away from each other due to our new careers, we took the time to chat. We had seen each other almost every day for the past six years. The Egypt trip together was a perfect way to spend time before we started our new lives.

After dinner, we went to the dance area of the ship. It was “Egyptian Night”, and people were dressed up. Our guide Amir had organized a belly dancing competition for the ladies of his group, and we each came to the stage and danced. It was fun. When we came out of the dance floor, the ship had already docked in Luxor.

08/12/2009

Around 5.30 pm, we went to the sun deck on the top of the ship. Liz enjoyed some tea while I admired the beauty around us. It was blazing hot. After all, this was summer in Egypt.

At 6 pm, the ship had arrived in Kom Ombo. We got down from the ship and walked to the Kom Ombo temple dedicated to gods Haroeris and Sobek (the crocodile god). There we saw this huge temple, many depicting on the walls and secret rooms. It was beautiful during sunset since the temple was facing west. The temple glowed in orange.

We then returned to the cruise ship for dinner. The dining room had dimmed lights and had a very romantic feeling to it. Liz and I were given specially made vegetarian food. There were many servings of quite tasty dishes. My favorite was the pumpkin soup they served at the beginning of the meal. After dinner, we went back to the deck. It was perfect weather with a cool breeze. Liz and I chatted about life for a couple of hours. The moon was rising and everything was perfect.

08/12/2009

We woke up at 4 am today, got ready and went to the hotel reception. The person at the counter started speaking in Arabic to Liz because he thought she was Egyptian. Fun times…

We met Yasser at the lobby and then proceeded to the airport. We were flying to Aswan today to board a Nile cruise. The flight was 1.5 hours. I took a nap on the plane, but when I woke up, we could see a beautiful sunrise coming out of the clouds. We arrived in Aswan around 7 am and met our representative of the tour group. He took us to the cruise ship, Nile Admiral.

Soon after we got down from the plane in Aswan, it was apparent that life here is quite different from Cairo. Not very many people or traffic was around. There were more trees, less pollution and calmness in general was visible.

The cruise ship was large and looked like a big building. Basically it was a hotel that floats. We checked in, and went to our cabin. It was small, cozy and nice. We had a view of the shore from the room. I took a nap for a couple of hours and Liz and I then walked in to the lobby to meet our local guide Amir.

Amir’s group included us and about 15 more people who were taking the cruise. We boarded a bus and were taken to the Aswan High Dam. It was pretty impressive how they managed to control the Nile, but also scary of what can happen if something were to go wrong. There were many army officers guarding it.

We then drove, and took a boat to the Temple of Philae which is considered to be one of the burying places of Osiris. The temple is built on the island of Philae. The most ancient remains of this temple were built in the reign 380-362 B.C.E. It was a huge and a magnificent temple. In 1960, UNESCO started a project to move this temple to a higher ground due to the increasing water level of the Nile. Brick by brick, this massive structure was moved to an island 500 meters away.

There were a lot of heliography and drawings of gods. Liz and I were walking around the temple admiring the scripts and magnificent carvings when a guard spoke to us. He asked where we were from and he told us that he liked Obama.

After visiting the temple, we took the boat and came to the mainland, then came back to the cruise ship for lunch. I was exhausted and took the advantage of free time to take a nap.

08/11/2009

The first full day in Egypt, we got up at 7 am despite some sleep I lost due to jet lag. Our breakfast was comprised of very tasty bread, cheese and hummus along with other goodies. We met Yasser around 9 am and he introduced us to Khalid, our tour guide/Egyptologist for the day and the driver Ibrahim.

Khalid was a VERY talkative and excited guide. We drove towards the Giza plateau. As usual, the traffic was crazy and we saw many carts dragged by donkeys in the midst of thousand vehicles. Although many Egyptian women cover their hair, it was not required for foreign women to do so. However, Liz and I decided to cover our hair in Cairo, out of respect. Liz wore a hijab, while I wore a scarf around my head. Yaseer thought Liz looked like an Egyptian.

We went to the pyramids. We walked on sand to get near them. No tree or shrub was in sight. Plus, it was HOT.

Khalid explained in great detail about the pyramids, who built them and how mummies were not found in the biggest pyramid. Only one mummy was found inside all three, and that was shipped to a British museum. The ship that was carrying the mummy sank in the ocean…

We had to pay money to go inside the three pyramids, so we chose not to go. However, there were three smaller pyramids nearby. They were built for the close female relatives of the pharaohs. We went inside the pyramid where the king’s mothers’ mummy was kept. We had to walk backwards clinging on to a rail. It was a narrow pathway and going in to the ground, so we had to bend in order to not hit our heads. Every step we moved in, it got hotter and hotter. I am sure it was over 120F inside the chamber.

There were many people trying to sell camel rides to tourists. Actually, there were many people trying to sell you anything and everything. They can come across being aggressive, but the trick was not to make eye contact. Just pretend you didn’t see or hear them.

We went to see the Sphinx. It was created to look over the valley to protect the pyramids. Its nose and beard were missing.

After leaving the Giza plateau, Khalid took us to a Papyrus gallery. They thought we were Egyptian and started explaining the papyrus making procedure in Arabic! We bought artwork depicting various ancient Gods found in temples and tombs.

Khalid then took us to a perfume shop, which might be our least favorite experience in Egypt. It was just us at the shop, and a man explained to us in great detail about the essential oils they produce and how they are identical to name-brand perfume (Chanel etc.). Afterwards, he asked us which perfume we usually use. Liz and I looked at each other and told him that we don’t wear perfume. His persona changed, he became upset and very lethargically explained the rest of his perfume story. He then tried to sell us these oils, somewhat forcefully. We felt quite uncomfortable.

We then went to a restaurant for lunch. We were given many different options of tasty, Egyptian food, which was a pleasantly different from the food at the hotel that were made for tourists. Liz and I are both vegetarian, and Egyptian cuisine had many options for us.

Khalid then took us to the Cairo museum. This is where many of the treasures are kept, including twenty mummies found in the tombs. However, we had to pay extra to see the mummies, so we decided not to see them. We saw many treasures and the coffin of King Tathunkhamun, as well as other impressive carvings and statues. I had a disagreement with Khalid about Queen Hatshepsut’s family history since I had read a National Geographic article about recent findings. I quickly understood that he was not up to date on this matter (I don’t blame him since the article only came out the previous month – but still I wish he knew this information for me to have a discussion about it).

It was a day where we learnt many things about ancient Egypt thanks to Khalid. We were quite tired of all the walking, so we went to bed early since we also had a very early morning next day.