I've likened my trip to southern Egypt from everything to jumping into an oven to lying in a sauna wearing wool pajamas. The trip was hot. The only difference between the day and the night was the light -- the heat was constant. When I stepped out onto the street from the 12 hour, air-conditioned night-train I felt like I was being both blasted back into the car and pinned to the ground with the overwhelming heat. I was melting, sweat pored down my face, my back, my arms, legs. Little did I know that I'd feel like this for the next 36 hours.

I set out on the trip to meet with the family of a friend in a small Nubian village 30km outside of Aswan, but I couldn't go. No, and it wasn't the heat preventing me, rather, the police. Who, with a short upward nod of the head that was more the impression of movement than actual action, refused to hear any pleas or arguments I had to the contrary. Foriegners are carefully monitored in this part of the country. So I did the next best thing, I slunked off to the Nubian Museum. Besides a great history of the people from the land south of Luxor, Egypt and north of Khartoum, Sudan known as Nubia, the museum had a few Nubians themselves. Pointing to the large air-conditioning unit and saying harr, hot, over and over again, I introduced myself to the Nubian guards outside the museum. They laughed, the days temperature, 109 degrees C, was for them obviously nothing to sweat over.

The next day when I boarded a bus with "air-conditioning" I didn't realize that this meant that, if you were lucky enough to have a window seat, your window would open a mere six inches. And with the humidity the breeze only helped the sweat pore more quickly from its pores. Arriving in Luxor I tried to psyche myself up for the round of site-seeing that's required for any visitor to the ancient city of Thebes. Tramping out into the desert wasn't exactly an easy thing to get excited about. I'll refrain from uttering any of the many poor Tomb Jokes that go hand-in-hand with any tour of this area -- the burial place for great pharaohs, their queens and the rest down the line. But, I swear, I was almost convinced I was heading to my grave as I neared the famous Valley of the Kings.

I've been back in Cairo for a day cooling off my brain in the comfortable 90 degree weather blowing in from the subcontinent. It's the middle of July in Egypt so I can't complain too much. What did I expect?

I rolled over and peeled an eye open enough to see the watch sitting on the bed-side table. 1:19 PM it read. I closed my eye. When I opened it again, this time joined by the other, the watch glared accusingly 3:45 PM. This is so easy, I thought. And I decided I'd stay in bed all day. Ever since returning to Cairo from my trip to the south of Egypt I've barely toed the threshold of this little flat. Sure I stare at it every now and then, peek at it over the top of my laptop, but I have seven more days to get the design and layout finished for the print version of therewewere that's going to press in mid-August so I try and buckle down. Work. Not that haven't had my fill of cultural activities, in case you were worried. When I do manage to hop out the door every few days for water, food, sunlight, I always run into a little culture.

Usually the culture is trying to get me to join in on some cross-cultural experience looked so favorably upon with forgiegners: marriage. I swear, I get asked for my hand, and everything else, in marriage at least 20 times a day. The best proposal came just a few days ago when I thought I'd venture out to see if the sky had changed color in my two-day absence. A very friendly Egyptian came up to me as I ogled and peered around staring at the Cairo skyline. He said "Beautiful eyes... Beautiful eyes... Marry me, Beautiful eyes..." It wasn't for a good few hours that I realized that I had been wearing my sunglasses and the fellow had actually said "Beautiful ASS". How lovely.