Cairo

This is the view from the apartment that I'm subletting for July. It's on a little plaza (midan) in a very residential middle/upper-middle-class neighborhood called Agouza. The local economy seems to run on cell phones and falafel, fresh vegetables and soda. In addition to falafel (taamiya) and foul (fava bean mush), pitas can also be filled at falafel places with fried poatoes of various types, eggplant, tomato and other salads, and various sauces. Evenings there are as many as three men with cactus-fruit carts, and an occasional grape cart.

Thanks to Bob and Mary

Huge thanks to Bob and Mary who put me in touch with a few thousand years of Yorkshire history and gave me a breath of fresh country air from the Dales.



This in the historic and still used indoor marketplace in well-preserved Halifax.










This in front of their beautiful and historically accurate home, complete with sheep, horses, the remains of a Roman road, and some delicious vegetarian cuisine.












Thank you to them for instructing on and encouraging me to get to Hadrian's wall, on touring me constantly for the weekend,


and reminding me to keep a sense of humor.

Various Sights of Northern England

Tea and crumpets anyone?












Housing built by early factories for their employees. Common throughout these parts.













Roma (Gypsy) cart driving by a Pizza Hut. Roma generally have average homes, but take these out for a spin to give their kids some culture. The kids on this cart were wearing sports-team sweatshirts.








Old-school houses were built on raised mushroom-shaped columns, because rats can't get a footing on the underside of the mushroom, and can't eat their way through.
















Ah, land of bicycles.

Roman history

View from Hadrian's Wall into England.













Sheep using the path along Hadrian's Wall. The wall was originally built by Romans who had conquered England to keep out the barbaric hill-dwelling Scots (about the same idea as China's wall), but eventually became largely to make sure Scots paid taxes when they traded with England.







The hiking path atop Hadrian's Wall, a popular destination for hikers domestic and international. The entire coast-to-coast hike (mostly beside not atop the wall) takes six days.









Among other things, the Romans brought phallic symbols large and small (small pendant at front) to Britain.












Romans brought plumbing to Britain. This was in Houstead's fort along the wall. A big tank sat in the distance with rainwater which slowly flowed along the narrow aqueducts for handwashing, then it flowed below the wooden seats that would have covered the outside edges here and then would take the waste outside of the fort walls. They used sponges for wiping.











That's Constantine, the first Roman emperor to embrace Christianity. He was declared Emperor here in [old] York. He happened to be here on a military campaign when his father died. Soon after, when the Roman military was losing power, Britain was more or less abandoned and most troops sent to Europe.

Lovely English Countryside

The fence beside this field is lowered there in the ravine so that fox-hunters can jump it, but cows can't.











That's a hand-powered canal lock. The canals were very popular for about 50 years until the railroads replaced them, and for the last 150 or so have been very popular with vacationers, some of who travel all over England for months via canal. The paths along the canal are nice biking/walking paths, too.

Small Cars Everywhere

Cars in England are small. Damned small. See that Mini? See the smaller cars behind it? Hells, yes. That's partly due to the price of gas (about 1 pound per liter, = about $7/gallon), partly due to very narrow roads, partly due to a national consciousness about global oil politics.

What's up with the smallest car around being a Ford? Go call Ford and demand that they sell the Ka in the US.

Lovely Durham

Durham is a college town surrounding the cathedral/castle in the background here. The plaque says:

Grey towers of Durham/
Yet will I love thy mixed and massive piles/
Half church of God, half castle 'gainst the Scot/
And long to roam these venerable aisles/
With records stored of deeds long forgot.

They did a decent job of keeping the old cobblestone village center fairly traffic-free, with the freeway disguised below. I had to work hard to find an angle with both together.