Walk Like an Egyptian

Maike says that in order to remember my travels better, I need to write them them down. I think it's worth a try, so even if this ends up being more of a list than a narrative, I'd like to share my experiences with whatever readers I still have.

We are staying in Maadi, a suburb of Cairo. It's the greenest part of the area, with several small parks and a few more open spaces. The apartment building we're staying in is lovely, and there are a ton of expats there who have been very helpful as we've planned our adventures.

Day 1

After sleeping in a bit to recover from our 18 hour journey, we started at the Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo. It is massive, but almost none of the artifacts contain text labels. We did not hire a guide, so we found ourselves playing a lot of guessing games and relying on Maike's art history knowledge to decipher the importance of various pharonic items. The best part of the museum was the Royal Mummy Room. There are approximately 20 of the actual pharoahs' mummies in the museum. It's a little bit grotesque but we all found it fascinating. Best part of the museum, hands down.

Next we headed to the Cairo Opera House to look around, then we found ourselves in a garden (for which we had to pay an entry fee!) eating Egyptian potato chips. Afterwards, we took a half hour boat ride on the Nile with a crazy captain who kept leaving his post to ask us questions. We ran into another boat during this short journey.

Dinner was quite an ordeal. We had some very confusing directions to get to a "wonderful" place called Abu Sid. However, after an hour of searching, we discovered we needed reservations, so we headed to La Bodega (which we thought was a hotel, but it turned out to be an international restaurant).

After dinner, we went to Khan El-Khalili, an enormous outdoor market, and tried our hands at bartering. I have no idea if we're any good, but I think we're improving as time goes on. Everything is far more expensive at the Khan El-Khalili, we've discovered, so I doubt we'll be returning.

On the way home that evening, we had a highly entertaining taxi driver who "helped" us learn Arabic. I think we amused him at least as much as he amused us. Lovely.

And speaking of taxis, I would swear there are no traffic laws here at all. I have only seen one traffic light here all week, and the cars get so close to each other! Lanes don't seem to matter at all, and pedestrians endanger themselves every time they try to cross the street. It's insane. Really.

I have more to write, and I will try to be good about catching you all up, but I have a lot more exploring to do. :)