Am I really Here?

Today a couple of us went to the Egpytian Museum. It was overwhelming in so many ways - there's really no other way to describe it. Overwhelming in a good way, b/c its just incredibly difficult to wrap one's head around the fact that the statue in front of you was made in 1330BC, or that the sarcophagus across the room actually has hieroglyphics on it. However, also overwhelming in a bad way, b/c there is just so much stuff! According to Lonely Planet, there are over 100,000 artifacts on display. We decided to just meander the ground floor, b/c there is way too much to properly appreciate in one day. Plus, its not air conditioned, & since we figured it would be, we arrived just after noon - needless to say, we were soon uncomfortably hot! There is this enormous statue of a king & queen & their 3 daughters that dominates the entrance that I think is just so cool. I stared at it for quite some time.
Other highlights included the wildly inefficient camera-confiscation plan and the unbelievably useless labels on selective items. While going through security, there are signs all over that say "no cameras in museum." however, nowhere does it say where to put them instead of in the museum with you... we went through the last security screening, & then there is a little table with 2 people sitting at it. They politely asked if we had cameras, so we all said yes. The woman pointed us back outside & said "you must leave it." So 3 of the girls we were with wandered out in the direction she had pointed, & Erin & I walked in that direction & then looped back around & started looking at stuff. We had no intention of taking pictures inside since we don't want to ruin the objects or anything, but we were very uncomfortable with leaving our cameras in some stranger unknown place. It was pretty funny that getting out of it was so easy, especially since we didnt even try to be sneaky about it.
And as for the labels on things .... hilarious. First of all, the vast majority of objects are just sitting there without any sort of title or label. Those artifacts lucky enough to have labels have their own set of issues. Mostly, they don't give any useful information about the object itself. Instead, they like to focus on one main thing: where the other half/the original/the matching set of the object is, and why it should really be in Egypt with the one you are looking at. The contempt & anger implied in all the labels informing you what was in London/New York/Paris was pretty intense. My favorite label, however, described what was engraved onto several panels of a pretty big wall design, and then ended by saying "the rest of the panels are of no interest." Wow. Way to be proud of your history, Egypt!
I was also weirded out by how touchable everything was. obviously, there are signs everywhere saying "No Touch" and even the occasional guard, but most artifacts didnt have cases/ropes/anything around them. Its astonishing how many of the tour guides would just trace whatever it is they were talking about. I wonder how many more thousands of years this stuff will last if its not taken better care of.

All kinds of other excitement is going on, mainly the discovery of absolutely fantastic places to eat (falafel for 17cents!), class registration, and an encounter with an Islamic missionary woman, which I will relate later. And we leave for the Red Sea on Friday!