yes, ladies and gentlemen, last weekend i was in, well, Cairo.
Hamdul'lah!
After a mayhem-filled experience getting to the plane I finally boarded an Air Sinai flight where the flight attendants looked straight out of the 1950s. There was a crying baby on the flight and everyone banded together to calm the baby down and I was sitting next to a fascinating and friendly Palestinian woman and her daughter who was my age. They ran a theater in Ramallah and both of them were in university and they invited me to an Egyptian wedding (alas I didn't make it, but that would have been quite an experience). I arrived in Cairo around 1:30 in the afternoon and met up with Elie and after buying my visa we took a taxi back from Heliopolis, where the airport is, to his neighborhood. I can't really say it was in downtown because there really is no such thing. Cairo is HUGE. And when I say huge I mean it is one of the biggest cities in the world, both physically and population wise. There are tons of people and they are everywhere at all times. At 4 in the morning the traffic and people on the streets aren't quite as intense as they usually are, if that gives you any idea. We went to his apartment to put my stuff down and the
boab (the doorman, every Cairo apartment building has one, they get paid 7 dollars a month by each tenant to drink tea and do nothing) was mightily confused by this white female presence (which got more hilarious with each day as the next day another girl was entering the building with us and the second day there was a 3rd girl so the
boab probably thought Elie was running a harem; but it's Egypt). Both of us were feeling a bit hungry so I had my first taste of
fuul falafel which was tasty and then we did the most Cairo ; we went to a cafe for tea and sheesha. The sheesha cafes are absolutely prolific. Every street you walk upon you can see men in either secular dress or a
galabiya puffing away at their water pipe and imbibing a nice cup of tea or some fruit juice. (Remember it is a Muslim country, alcohol is technically
verboten but that doesn't stop most people, you can buy cheap knock off brands in sketchy corner stores or go to a hotel if you can afford it. But mostly people drink a lot of tea and coffee.)
Following this we went to the Ibn Talun mosque. It's one of the biggest mosques in the world and it is in the Islamic part of Cairo. We took off our shoes and were promptly charged money for Allah but whatever, and then we went to the very top of the minaret. Getting up was extremely "Vertigo" but once we were at the top we had spectacular views of Cairo and the mosque is stunning. Then we walked through Islamic Cairo, through alleyways of the
souq where everything is sold. In Cairo, there is a shop for every item one can imagine. There is the egg shop. Then there is the pickle shop. Then the chair shop. Then the roasted nut shop. And so on and so forth. Specialization to the MAX! I particularly liked the chair shop. This guy sits out in front of his shop weaving chairs all day. All shops are mostly open 24/7 (except during prayer times on Friday and such) probably because, like in Greece, no one really seems to work. It's a Mediterranean/Middle Eastern thing, what can I say. I would probably do the same, I suppose. Also many shops will have 5 or 6 people doing what one person could easily do. At one point we had to buy baby powder and this woman just followed us around, reading aloud the names of the baby powder brands.
We went over to Elie's friend's house where her
boab taught me how to count to ten in Arabic. Arabic is somewhat similar to Hebrew so the numbers weren't too hard and I could pick up other words here and there. Mostly though my Arabic knowledge is limited to a vivid slew of Allah-related phrases and "no," "thank you", "where" and "yes." Then we all ate yummy food at a Yemeni restaurant where we were the only non Egyptians or Yemenites there. Clearly we were such an oddity that everyone stared at us the entire time and one guy even took our picture. (I particularly stood out a lot in Cairo in many parts often being the only white, secular girl around). And for such a delicious meal it was super cheap; being a foreigner in Egypt works in your favor in terms of the exchange rate. Later that night i got to see Makan, where Elie is shooting his film. It's a cultural center for traditional Egyptian music and it's a pretty cool place.
The next day we were planning to go to the Museum of Islamic Art but alas it was closed for renovations. But no matter. We went off to the Citadel. The first thing we saw there was the mosque of Mohammed Ali. (No, not the boxer!!) Again, another gorgeous mosque. Some woman put a cape over me because I guess I wasn't being modest enough. I love the shoe removal thing. I think every time I enter any building I would like to take my shoes off, but I don't think people would understand. There was another great view from the balcony outside the mosque; you could see the pyramids in the distance. Then we saw the Military Museum which aside from Prague's National Museum (funny in a different way) was the most hilarious museum I've ever seen in my life, mostly due to the English "translations" of things. We paid a stop at the most famous bazaar in the city and at one point in a rather surreal manner as we were walking through, buying chickpeas, suddenly we were the only foreigners for the rest of our market stroll. It was incredibly bizarre. The tourists literally disappeared; it was like some invisible wall had been crossed.
We met up with Elie's friend Aisha for some more sheesha and a delicious fruit shake. Fruit in Egypt is scrumptious, particularly the melons. Every street has a juice stand where they will make any fruit into juice. I tried sugarcane juice and really enjoyed it. Later on the other friend, Grace, joined us and we all went out to a fancy and scrumptious Indian meal. Luckily being Egypt, it wasn't very expensive and it was my first Indian meal this entire semester. YUM. After hanging out with Elie's friend Mahmoud, who was quite the character, we finally went to sleep.
We woke up earlyish the next morning because it was pyramid day. Getting there was quite the adventure. We took a taxi to the metro--taxis worldwide are always a crazy experience--then took the metro to Giza and walked to the pyramids at Giza. This year has definitely been a year of seeing all this architecture I have learned about my whole life and it's always very different to see something in person. It was a bit trippy to see the pyramids by that reasoning. We even went inside of one, Khufu's pyramid (I apologize to Elie because I know Khufu is some Anglicized pronunciation). Inside the pyramid it was cramped and humid. It was my favorite pyramid at Giza because of its white cap. The Sphinx was striking to see in person too. So many tourists though! It's funny, because though I am a tourist, I guess I never actually feel like one. The only time I really felt like a tourist was in Petra. Hmmm, something to contemplate.
Then we had another crazy adventure getting to Saqqara. First we walked the long path to where the microbuses go. (Yes, microbuses. No, not minibuses. MICRO. Yes.) Then we boarded a microbus. Ah, the madness of Egyptian driving. Ah, the Middle East.
Allah u akbar. I love it. Eventually we got somewhere that pointed to Saqqara. The drive was beautiful, filled with agricultural landscapes and plenty of donkeys. (Seeing donkeys, camels and horses walk in the streets is now incredibly non-exotic in my eyes.) We ended up walking two miles or so to the Saqqara site and finally made it to the step pyramid. Gorgeous! I actually liked it better than Giza. We went inside 2 tombs, one with old style hieroglyphics and pictures which was very cool to see. The other was the Titi Pyramid. Unfortunately, I am still too immature not to laugh about its name, but it was also fun to see. The sand was like sand on the beach. I like pyramids. Elie and I talked about how concerned the ancient Egyptians were with the afterlife and compared it to modern religions today. Jews-not concerned, Christians-concerned, Muslims-concerned, Eastern religious a different story altogether. There were a lot of good conversations about religion, definitely a topic thrust into my face all year.
After some bargaining and further escapades we made it back to Elie's apartment and rested a bit, had some more cafe time with Aisha and went to do the koshari thing. Koshari is Egypt's unofficial national dish, sort of like falafel in Israel. Koshari is lentils, chickpeas, pasta, fried onions and tomato sauce mixed together and you can put chilli oil and lemon juice on it too. Filling and cheap. We ended the weekend with felucca, which is ingenious. A felucca is a small catamaran you rent with some other people and go out on the Nile. It's about 40 pounds overall for an hour, which is basically renting a boat for 7 dollars total. It's very chill and relaxing and seeing Cairo at night was great. Our boat driver blasted the usual Arabic pop music and we shared our drinks and snacks with him and just had a nice time. Though Cairo is loud and polluted and insane, I really liked it a lot and it was great to spend quality time with a good friend and be in another country. I was sad to leave, but that's always a nice indicator of time well spent. Salaam and good night.
