Well after all our adventures in Aswan, we then traveled onto Luxor, which was a beautiful city, and filled with a lot of historic sites, from the Valley of the Kings, to Karnak... there was alot for us to see... While in Luxor we got a nice rate for the Sheraton Luxor Resort, it was a great deal for the three of us who went... :-)... When we got to the train station in Luxor of course we got the typical tourist reaction from Taxi Drivers, "Taxi, Taxi, Good Price" those type things... this one guy picked us up for his brother, who was a driver, and took us to the Sheraton, while we were going the brother of the driver turned out to be a tour guide, 
so he gave us a deal, which included an conditioned bus and a tour guide. It turned out to be worth the money. :-)...The Following morning we woke up and started our Adventures. First we stopped at the Valley of the Kings, where we saw three different tombs, Rames I, Rames II, and Rames IV. They were pretty cool tombs, but they were humid and the weather in Luxor is just generally HOT... We were not allowed to take pictures of the insides of the tombs, so of course I went and purchases pictures from the street sellers in the Valley of the Kings, because they were just so cool to look at and all the painting that was in them... Our Tour Guide was a women named Emmy, or Emi. She was really nice and sweet, sincerely interested in getting to know you, so it was nice to talk to her and find out some stuff about her... I learned that she had gone through alot to learn all the stuff that she did, she has a college degree, and has been a tour guide for a while... She actually was the first women tour guide for all the sites on the West Bank of Luxor... which is pretty cool. After the Valley of the Kings Emmy took us to an Alabaster Work Shop, where they showed us how they make the beautiful
Alabaster vases, as well as all the hand made basalt sculptures... It was really nice, and of course I shopped, but one thing I love about shopping here in Egypt, is that you can bargain, and see the best price you can get... After all the shopping the guy in the store gave us these necklaces, which were pretty cool... I LOVE free stuff... :-)... After the Alabaster Factory, we traveled to the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut (pronounced Hat-shep-suit), which was amazing... Hatshepsut was the only Female Pharaoh of all of Egypt... Her temple was made into a mountain wall, the same mountain that the Valley of the Kings is... go figure... anyway, we went and walked in the Heat through Hatshepsut's temple, trying to avoid the gaurds who take
you to places in the hopes of getting Backshesh, or tips... We had already learned that lesson... so we went and adventured through the three levels of her temple... the coolest level was the top level where the inner temple was... there was alot of cool stuff to see, but I cracked up when I saw this sign that said... Polish-Egyptian Conservation site... I was very proud of my Polish Heratige, and of course all the polish Jokes were running through my head... I could imagine a statue being put together the Polish way... haha... anyway... Hatshepsut's temple was really cool... After the temple we went to see the Colossus of Memnon, which are these two statues made in the middle of a field, who were suppose
to be dedicated to one of the Pharaoh's, but when the Greeks and Romans came though they were renamed... I dont remember why, but one of the statues is made out of one solid piece of stone and the other is not... it is said that when the wind picked one of the statues would whistle and make noises, but once the cracks and everything was fixed, it stopped... Go figure they would fix something that sounded so cool... anyway, after the two statues, we went to what Emmy told us was a Papyrus Museum, or that is what she called it, in actuality is was a papyrus shop, and they told us how Papyrus was made, and then sold us some art... haha... It was late now, so we went back to the Hotel, rested, ate and relaxed, the heat took a lot out of us... That night Stanley
wanted to see the Light and Sound Show at the Karnak Temple, so later we headed out and watched the show, which was interesting because when we arrived at Karnak the sun was setting, it looked so cool... Karnak was the one site that I wanted to see when I knew I was coming to Luxor... so I was glad to see the Light and Sound Show because I knew the History of the site, and could understand what its purpose was... After the Light and Sound Show, We went to an English Pub in Luxor called the Kings Head Pub... yes you heard me right... we went to a Pub... It turns out that alot of Brits vacation in Luxor, there were about 10 or so Pubs, English or Irish, so it was just fun to be the obnoxious Americans in a English Pub... although we were not 
that obnoxious... :-)...The Next day in Luxor was about relaxing a little, we slept in a little, and then we went adventuring... First we went to Karnak Temple, yeah I know I was already there, but I really wanted to see it during daylight hours, so we went there again... I dont think I can show you in pictures all the amazing sites that I saw in Karnak... there was just so much to see... We tried to make this trip as fun as we could so I decided to Walk Like an Egyptian... :-)... Karnak was such a Historic site, I learned that it was the seat of the God Amun Ra, or Sun God, and Karnak was his temple, and it was situated on the East Bank of the Nile because it was a temple dedicated to the God, And the Sun rose from the East, that is why the Valley of the Kings in on the West Bank, it is were the sun set, meaning the end... Karnak is where all the Pharaoh's would come to commune with the Sun God, since the Pharaoh was considered the representative of Amun Ra on Earth..
. Karnak is not just one building, it had been a complex of many buildings, all of which were added by different Pharaohs, and the only consistent part of the Temple Complex was Amun Ra, and the Lotus and Papyrus flowers they would use as decorations... Karnak was a huge complex... it even had its own Lake, yep, there was a sacred lake on the Karnak complex... in Ancient times, Karnak was once attached to Luxor Temple, which is about 10 city blocks away... they were connected by a walkway of Sphinxes... After we were doen visiting Karnak we cooled off, then traveled to Luxor Temple, which was another temple in Luxor, which housed one of the great festivals for the Pharaohs... 
we went to the Luxor Museum and saw a lot of statues and artifacts, of course no pictures were allowed... after that we still had some time so we took on of the carriages that Luxor has... pretty much these men take you around the city, I thought it would be cool, that is until he forced me to go to this Government shop since it turns out that the more tourists they bringOne of the funny things about the Luxor Temple was that at one time the Muslims in Luxor decided to build a Mosque on top of a section of the Temple... I mean it, there was a mosque built on the temple... It was really cool to see the mosque there, being fixed up... After the Luxor Temple there, they get money and water for their horses, or that is what the man told me, well I got 
a little pissy with our carriage driver, since well, I was tired, and I just wanted to enjoy a carriage ride, plus all weekend I had started to develop a head cold, which had been traveling around the AUC Dorms... :-(... so I made it known I was not happy... but I went into the store for his horse, because if it sincerely helps the horse then I want to make sure the horse it taken care of... After all of this adventuring it was nice to take the train back to Cairo, and be around Egyptian Men who do not hassle you as much as they do in Upper Egypt... Well it is Monday and I am teaching my class again today!!! But this weekend was so much fun I would go again, no matter the bad that I experienced... :-)...
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