The lecture given by Dr. Zahi Hawass last night was an absolute hoot. The man may be the most renowned archaeologist on the face of the planet, but he could easily ditch that job to become a traveling comedian. He kept us in stitches for the entire night.
There was only one problem. The man wouldn't frickin' keep still, so I got a lot of pics like this one:
I did get a less blurry (but not by much) pic of him standing at the podium:
This was the clearest of the night and it was a pic of the slide projection screen he used during the lecture:
I was kinda disappointed to see him in a suit. I wanted him in the blue shirt and fedora. oh well.He is a fantastic public speaker and his job may be the most fascinating job ever. He was so cute, absolutely passionate about his career and the history that he is literally uncovering.
He seems very sweet as well. He had been corresponding with a 10 year old little girl and her parents and he called the girl up on stage with him. Then he astonished her and her folks by giving her an all expense paid 10 day trip to Egypt with him as their guide. It was all I could do not to stand up in my seat and scream "Me too! Take me too!" :)
We did not stay for the book signing. I wish we could have, but it was around 10pm when we left and there is no way we would have gotten home before 1am. The Fox theater was packed, and I do mean packed (between 1500 and 2000 people -way more than I expected would be there), and everyone of them grabbed the book they had either brought or purchased while there and ran to the room where the signing would be. Practically a stampede.
But wow, was this guy fun. I would like to have met him. Maybe one day.
He spoke on all the excavations he has going currently all over Egypt. He spoke only briefly about Tut, most of it was about other mummies and pyramids. So cool.
By the way, some geeky trivia for you via Dr. Hawass: If you ever need to remember how to pronounce Queen Hatshepsut's name, just think "HotChickenSoup" and you'll have it. Told ya it was geeky.
