El Qahira

Cairo is an intense experience. The city is massive in terms of size and diversity. There's the crowded movement of El Tahrir Square, the noise and activity of the Khan El-Khalili Market, the quieter urban setting on Zamalek, and the never ending sprawl of the outskirts. You see modernity and antiquity, wealth and poverty, all in the same frame. For about 10 dollars US you can eat a full meal in one of the fanciest restaurants in town, or you can grab Koshari for four Egyptian pounds (maybe $0.70) at a place you can literally call "a hole-in-the-wall." The traffic makes New York and Rome look tame, but there's a certain order underlying the chaos that makes the system work for the Cairenes. You just pray when you get into a cab or cross the street.

Kara studies at the American University in Cairo. I also planned the trip with Greg, my roommate from last year. I arrived the night of Wednesday, May 16. Buying a tourist visa, changing money, and going through customs was a breeze (benefit of being a tourist...the Egyptians behind me in line took much longer). Kara and Greg met me at the airport and Greg and I checked into our hotel. We stayed on Zamalek, on an island in the middle of the Nile. It's home to a lot of embassies and foreigners, so it's a little more relaxed than downtown Cairo. It's also where the AUC dorms are, making it easy to meet up with Kara and her friends.

Thursday morning we started with the Pyramids, which was a surreal experience. Though we spent most of our time turning down camel/horse/donkey rides and avoiding scams, we did a quick camel ride out to a good point to take a panorama of the Pyramids. I felt that 25 minutes on the camel for the rest of the week. Camels are uncomfortable, smelly, ill-tempered creatures and I really don't care if I ever get near one again. But I'm glad to have the experience. We took a cab ride back into downtown, had Koshari for lunch near AUC, and then Greg and I saw the Egyptian museum while Kara had class. After seeing the British Museum, the Vatican Museum, etc, I really wasn't sure if there was any Egyptian stuff left for their museum, but there was plenty. We saw the mummy of Ramses II, among many others, and saw all the sarcophagus, gold, and jewels from King Tutankhamen's tomb.

That night we went to dinner with a group and had feteer, a stuffed flat-bread-ish stuff that comes in sweet and savory varieties. After dinner, we went to the Khan El-Khalili, a huge market, to do some shopping. Buying anything is no simple task, as it requires a careful strategy and drawn-out negotiation. Luckily Kara has experience and speaks Arabic. All the shop owners can speak English to a certain extent, but she could get a better price speaking Arabic. When we found something we wanted we let her step up to the plate. In a lot of cases you can expect the first price given to be four to five times more than what it's worth, and often times we were walking out the door or were half-way down the block before the shop owner finally relented. The whole thing was a lot of fun, and I could write several more posts on this process.

I'll have some pictures from the Pyramids up soon!