Easter Rituals

I can't remember the last time I attended Easter Mass; it was certainly well before I started coming to Luxor for the season. But last night Christian and I walked over to the Franciscan church (built in 1895) near Luxor Temple for the 9:30 service. It began as we all went out to the courtyard to light our candles from the Paschal candle (the "Holy Fire"). We re-entered the lovely little church and Mass began. It was quadrilingual--no, make that quintilingual (is that a word? maybe quinquelingual?): Latin, Italian, French, German and English! Shades of my childhood: incense (I do love incense!), blessing of the holy water and recital of our Baptismal vows, the unveiling of the Christ statue (which has been covered since Good Friday)...

And children never change: two rows ahead of us there were three little girls sitting with two nuns. The girls were all dressed in pink-and-white frocks and each one had donned a pair of either gleaming gold or silver sandals. Of course, they were much more interested in the people attending Mass than they were in the ritual itself!

Here is a photo of the church and courtyard taken just after the service ended:

Afterward, enjoying the slightly cooler night air (103 F yesterday, folks!), we strolled to the Oasis Café only to find it closed for the night. So we decided to try the Metropolitan on the lower Corniche, where we would have Nile-side seating. The cappuccino was decent, although not as good as the Oasis's iced version, and the view was extraordinary:

As we were preparing to make the short trip back to CH, we both noticed a rather bizarre life-size poster showing Sarko and Carla during their visit to Luxor a couple of years ago:

Not quite sure what that's all about but..."Smile, you are in Luxor!"