I always quite enjoy those blog posts >.< sorry they’re such a hassle!

Thank you! :) I’m really happy to hear that. 

I’m glad that people are enjoying them and it gives me a chance to reminisce about my trip there. 

They’re not usually too much hassle to write although I do spend a good hour waiting for my brain to work and remember what actually happened on those days. Partial-Eidetic memory helps sometimes! 

It just took 5 attempts to upload that blog post.

I’ve been swearing at it for a good hour and I’m sure some of it has been lost.

It’s honestly too hot to write my thesis and I’m kinda tired so it’s time to write another blog post. (It’s kinda related to my thesis! I swear! If only because it’s about Egypt) 

Today’s post - Karnak temple!

I think we got there at about 7am when the temperature was a relatively cool 32 degrees (considering it was 28 degrees at 2am there was no difference for us whatsoever) and we were still suffering from the heat and coach trip the day before. 

Now my recollection of this day is a little hazy since a) I was tired and b) I went on this trip in 2010 so you can’t expect me to remember everything in my old age. We were up and out early to go to the museum that accompanies the site which was lovely and air-conditioned. There was a full scale replica of the site in there which was pretty cool. You don’t realise how big the site is until you’re actually in it. Only then can you appreciate the sheer grandeur of the place. 

We were heading towards the first Pylon at around 8am. Richard said we needed to get out of the place before 11am so that the heat wouldn’t kill us. Let me tell you now…he wasn’t kidding. By the time we left the heat was unbearable and even the most hardy of us were falling behind. I’ve never felt so glad to be back on a coach in all my life (with the exception of the experience of Deir el Medina). They Pylon itself is overwhelmingly huge. The pictures just don’t prepare you for it. I can only imagine how awesome it would look painted.

Moving into the first court yard there’s an avenue of Ram/Sphinxes (these are ambiguous…really ambiguous and it’s amusing) from here you can see the beginning of the Hypostyle hall which looks incredible before you even get into it. 

The sheer size of the columns make you feel incredibly small. We couldn’t even fit 7 of us holding hands around one column. You could get lost wandering through as there are so many different scenes and exits to other parts of the temple. 

The Graeco Roman part of the temple still had most of it’s paint left on so all the blues and reds really stood out. It gave you a real taste of what the full temple would have looked like during the Egyptian period. 

The last part we visited (before the heat forced a hasty retreat) was the lake at the rear of the temple. I can’t actually remember a lot about it other than being made to walk around a gian scarab by our guide only to be told, after walking around it 8 times, that we were now married to him. It was not amusing. 

Karnak temple: Columns are big and tour guides are willing to engage in mass marriage.

areyoutryingtodeduceme:

YOU GUYS NEARLY 11,000 OF YOU PUT UP WITH ME ON A DAILY BASIS. You guys listen to more of my crap than my own boyfriend generally does. That deserves rewarding. So this is an extra SPECIAL tea give away, and there will be THREE winners. Oh my god. Want a chance to become one of those lucky three people? Read on and follow directions.

THE PRIZES:

• First Place Prize: A set of all seven Sherlock Shipper tea blends [Sherlock/Moriarty, Sherlock/Irene, Moriarty/Moran, Mycroft/Lestrade, Lestrade/John, Lestrade/Molly, Molly/Moriarty]
• Second Place Prize: A set of all four* Avengers Teas [Thor, Loki, Steve Rogers, and Coulson *and possibly also Tony Stark if I make a tea for him soon]
• Third Place Prize: A set of all three Doctor Who Teas [The TARDIS, Amy Pond, and Rory]
• IN ADDITION TO THE ABOVE PRIZE PACKS: Each winner will get ONE blend specially created for them. It can be a character or ship or show or book or whatever that I haven’t done that they’d like me to do. It can even be a blend made based on THEM. Whatever the winners would like. They each get to request one, and they will receive it with their other teas.

I MIGHT ADD TO THESE PRIZES. If this gets reblogged like, a lot, or something, I might lose my head and also send the winners mugs to go with their tea. Or a book. WE’LL SEE.

THE RULES: 

• Anyone ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD can enter EXCEPT AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND!! I am SUPER sorry for my followers down under because not only do you have to put up with terrifying wild life, you can’t even allow tea to be imported to help comfort you. Sorry, there’s like, crazy laws and stuff.
• You do not have to be following me to win, but it might be helpful to keep track of updates or changes (if any). Plus I plan to make some blends for other fandoms in the future, so if tea is your thing, it might not be a bad idea?
• Only two reblogs a day allowed.I did not realize how often people would reblog my last big give away soooo I’m going to enforce this LOL. You can reblog on as many days as you’d like, but yeah, only 2 reblogs a day please. I’ll be checking.
• LIKES DON’T COUNT. Sorry! You have to reblog!
  
• The give away will end and I will choose the winners on FRIDAY JUNE 1ST. I’ll probably do the drawing late at night on that day, so I’m going to say I’ll stop counting reblogs at 10 p.m. EST. Winners may not be announced until the next day or so, just to be aware!
• Here’s how the winners will be selected: Just like all of my other give aways, I’ll compile a spreadsheet or numbered list of all of the reblogs, and I’ll use the number generator on random.org to chose a number and find the corresponding username on the list. The first number I draw will win the first place prize (or, if they are more into Avengers or Doctor Who, they may chose one of the other prizes). Second number I draw will win the second place prize (or a choice between whatever two packs remain), and the third number drawn will receive the last prize!

[5/20 UPDATE] Dudes you guys are on a ROLL with this! I promised that if it hit 25k notes by the end of this weekend, I’d add another prize pack and, well, it happened. So now instead of three winners, FOUR people will win a prize. Same rules apply as before. The first place winner gets first choice of the prizes, then the second place winner, then so on. So what teas am I adding? CABIN PRESSURE!

The Lemon is in Play, Ottery Kisses, and Polar Bears are BRILLIANT!
And of course this prize pack will also come with a customized tea blend of the winners choice as well <33

Thanks so much everyone! You guys seriously are just the best, and odds are, I may end up adding another prize pack at 35K or something if it actually gets to that o_o

[5/21 UPDATE] DANG GUYS. ANOTHER ADDITION ALREADY!

Not another prize pack, per se, BUT, I am possibly doubling the number of final winners. Basically, when I draw names for the prizes, the people that the winners reblogged the contest from will ALSO win the prize that the person drawn chooses. If the winner reblogged from me or themselves, they’ll still only get one prize. And I’m not going to win a prize in my own contest so….

Anyway, I guess this is a good reason to encourage your followers to reblog the contest from your blogs or something 8D;

[5/24] YOU GUYS ARE INSANE. SO. This has reached 35k. And I said earlier that if I created a Tony Stark blend, I’d add it to the Avengers Prize Pack. Well, I made Tony Stark, so he’s adding. But then I also made Bruce Banner, Clint Barton, and Natasha Romanoff as well. So I’m also going to add THOSE to the Avengers prize pack as well.

And hell, since I’m somehow about to hit 15k followers too (what are you guys even thinking, honestly), here’s another new prize pack so the number of potential winners is increasing:

Both of the Good Omens Teas! Aziraphale and Crowley! <3

Uh…. if this hits 50k I’ll think of something good.

(via blanketforyourshock)

unpluggedoutlet:

THE BAR HAS BEEN RAISED BITCHES!!!

(via archkeyblader)

I still haven’t the hang of touch typing. I can do it for the most part but when I go back and read that the tomb robbers that I’m typing about are either being “placed on weed” or “placed on woof” I suddenly realise I need way more practice.

Or more sleep. 

Strangely my transliteration is not affected but none of that’s spelt right anyway.

I have this stuck in my head. The sun is out, its warm and I have the day off from my thesis. 

The only depressing thing is that I was 10 when this song came out….

youknowyourebritishwhen:

I can only hope your stadium is as impressive as Azerbaijan’s this year ^__^

youknowyourebritishwhen:

We didn’t come last. I think this can be considered a success.

I feel bad for Englebert. His song wasn’t bad at all. Just not what this competition likes. 

Wow I can’t believe how many of you guys have chosen to follow me recently! 

Hi guys! 

You’ll have to excuse my ramblings about life and occasional rants about my thesis. I attempt to write a few posts about Egypt and share my photos. 

If there’s anything you ever want to know consult my About Me section or simply submit me an Ask box question. 

(via fadingchildhoodmemories)

It’s nearly 1am. How is it still 17 degrees?

Ugh.

Just a quick update today as the heat in the UK and my general exhaustion make blog writing pretty much impossible. 

Today’s Egypt post comes from Abydos. This was one of the sites I was pretty damn excited to see when we were told we were going to visit it during the trip. However by the time we got there we’d been on the coach so long no one was particularly excited to get off the coach and go explore. The pull of the air con was just too much. 

Once we got inside it was a different story. We had the entire run of the temple and were allowed to roam free through the corridors. This made for an interesting experience as we separated off into groups and ran off in different directions. The place has so many different rooms and corridors which intersect one another so we were constantly running into one another and scaring the beejezus out of others by sneaking up on them. Hiding behind columns is far more fun than it’s ever allowed to be. 

The wall reliefs in there are stunning. The photos I have (shown above and about 50 more still on my laptop) just don’t do them justice. The levels of detail and the paintwork are just beautiful. I wish we’d spent more time there as I didn’t get to fully explore the temple as much as I liked. 

We did venture outside the Osireon to get a good view of the lovely green water its now filled with. Our eagerness to see it was only eclipsed by the terror of the rather rickety stairs we were on to descend into it. This was quickly forgotten after we embarked on a new venture known as “Sniper photography”. This involved taking photos of people while they weren’t looking by hiding behind walls, columns and doorways then sticking the camera out to the side and just clicking like crazy. By the end of the trip we’d turned it into a kind of art form with kudos being given to anyone who could get 7 or more people unawares. The photos from Dendera showcase this best after we started photo sniping on two levels of the temple. 

There was another part of the temple which was a fair walk through the desert. I don’t have a lot of pictures of this as I was suffering from the heat by this point and was clinging to the walls which cast a shade. 

Abydos: Intricate corridors, exquisite art, brilliant photo sniping. 

I swear it’s hotter now than it ever was in Egypt. Ugh I hate sticky heat!!