Our First Day

After writing this, I realized it turned into a novel and I am not sure all of my posts will be this long but I hope you enjoy it. I will be not be hurt at all if you only look at the pictures or a couple of the paragraphs. Also, I apologize ahead of time for any grammatical mistakes or typos and hope you will forgive me. In writing blogs, I am attempting to go for quantity over quality since there is so much that we are doing and I want to put as much as I can up here. 

Yes, Jack and I have survived our first day in Cairo. We had a couple of missteps, but nothing major, and in doing so we definitely learned some things or reinforced stuff we read about but did not consciously do. But before I discuss the first waking hours we spent walking the streets of Cairo, I should describe our trip to get to Cairo.

If you have looked at the itinerary, you know that Jack was supposed to meet me in Heathrow when I arrived. Since Heathrow is big, as in 1800 flights a week big, you do not know your gate until an hour before it leaves. Now this could have made it difficult for us to meet up, but Jack being the smart man he is realized that every single person departing from terminal 5 must first go through a security checkpoint. So there Jack was standing waiting for me, and there began my six hour layover in Heathrow (Jack had already been there for about five hours). We wandered about, went into shops, sat in different areas and had lunch. I opted for a chicken ceasar (I know my nutritionist is happy about my choice but more on that later) and Jack decided on a hamburger. My salad was decent for airport food and Jack described his as “not Kansas City” which I think means less than par. After eating, we did some more wandering and came across Harrods as you can see in the picture. 

Eventually it was time to board and leave Heathrow behind, but unfortunately, our flight sat on the tarmac for an hour and a half. Jack and I both slept for the entire time, however, so it was not too bad. After a nice two and half-hour nap, I awoke and decided to watch The Usual Suspects which I had not seen in a while. Then I watched Great Soccer Goals until we landed. We paid $15 for a Visa, got our luggage, went through the easiest customs ever and found the man holding the “Windsor Hotel, Patrick Muller” sign. He drove us to the hotel and it took around 20 minutes. Although I think if he had gone the speed limits and followed any remote driving law it would have taken at least 35. Let me explain this further as driving will come up again later. In Cairo, there are no lanes and zero respect for other drivers. So if the car in front of you is only going 20 kph over the speed limit and you want to go 40 over then you either hold your horn down or turn your brights on until they move (Jack forgot we were not in the US at one point and thought the speedometer was in mph haha). One other option is to just weave in between cars. This option is easier to do at night when there are less cars on the road so of course our driver decided to turn on his brights and weave in between cars. This was all very fun to do with no seatbelts and a great welcome to Cairo.

Nevertheless, we survived the cab ride and arrived at our hotel around 3 am local time. There was still a man awake at the metal detector and someone behind the front desk. We checked in and headed up to room 14. Jack called his mom and I emailed my family and we headed to bed. The pictures do a better job of showing what the room looks like then I could describe. Although I am not sure you can see how well the beds have been used in the pictures. They are slightly hard and the sheets are not too bad. My question, however, was how come if Egyptian cotton is so nice you do not have it for all the beds? Oh, one other thing to note about the Hotel Windsor. It was built in 1908 I believe, and I am pretty sure they have not changed the elevator so that is kind of fun to ride.

Our lovely sink, probably won't drink the water though...

We woke up at 9:20 am local time, just in time for breakfast. It consisted of bread, jam, cantelope and some orange juice. It was fine, but I do not think it was free so we might look for other options later in the trip. After that, we went to purchase some ISIC cards, which makes many tourist sites around the world 50% off. On the card, it says we are from Davidson University (this person had definitely never heard of our school) but I was not about to correct her and say “college” which I might do back in the states. It only cost us 100 EGP (the exchange rate is $1=5 EGP) but the cab ride to get over there cost us more than we thought which brings us to our first mistake of the day. The hotel told us it should be 60-70 but when we got out I asked the driver. He told us 85, which we did not have in exact change because we had not been to the bank yet. So in the end we gave him 100, which is much more than it should have been. Next time we will make sure to stick to the original price, which sounds stupid but I guess it takes one time to really reinforce what it is like here. Needless to say, we immediately went to the bank and got lots of small bills. One nice thing at least about money is that there are basically 5 notes and one coin, so you do not have to worry about lots of change (Quick side note: I am in favor of removing the penny). 

After the bank, we tried to go to Ezbekiyya gardens but they did not look very nice at all. I guess it is hard to have a garden in the middle of downtown Cairo which is located in a desert. From there, we walked to Abdeen Palace, but because it was lunchtime, we did not go in the museum. So we wandered around looking for food options but could not find anything. Eventually a young Egyptian man wanting to practice his English walked by and said, “Welcome to Egypt”. He seemed friendly and so I asked him where the closest metro station was. At that point we had decided to just go back to hotel since we knew food was near the hotel. We ran into our friend again at the metro and this time we just decided to try our luck at a nearby square. So he pulled out his phrasebook and I pulled out my Lonely Planet guide and together we figured out how to get there. We found a little fast food restaurant (I will put info on meals at the bottom of posts) and then headed back to the hotel. We napped for an hour and so began our ritual of roommate afternoon naps that will probably happed the majority of days in the next 9 months. We both like sleeping.

Cairo Tower from below

After waking up, we decided to get some perspective on the city and went to the Cairo Tower. Apparently, the Cairo Tower is one of the only places that does not accept ISIC cards so we had to pay the full price. As you can see, Cairo is huge and even 137 meters up you can not see the edges of it. One thing to note: At the top, there are “guides” who take a couple pictures and point out basic landmarks. When he was through, Jack pulled out some coins to tip him. He said “no coins” and walked away. Then 10 seconds later he came back and said, “Picture good? Information good?” and then paused waiting for us to do something. Jack pulled out a five and gave it to him. He then asked for more and Jack told him he had spent all the money in his wallet (which was true, already paying off to have a money belt). After being denied by Jack, he turned to me, and I did not do anything since he had already refused coins from us. Because I did tip him more he asked to see my sunglasses and asked how much. Luckily, I do not think he had ever heard of the brand Gill (a sailing brand that I bought because the glasses float) and so he gave them back and moved on.

(Facing South)

Can you see the Pyramids? (Facing West)

The big castle like thing in this picture is known as The Citadel and we are visiting it later in the week. (Facing East)

After the tower, we went for dinner near our hotel at a place recommended by Lonely Planet. They had a football game on so we watched that as we ate. Once we were done, we headed back to the hotel and our now relaxing. Tomorrow we wake up at 8 am and head to the Step Pyramid in Saqqara and the pyramids of Giza. Yes, this is different from our itinerary but it seemed like a good deal. The less haggling we have to do with cab drivers the better. The metro is actually really useful (only 1 EGP) so I think walking and taking the metro will be our main form of transportation.

A couple of general cultural notes:

We have not seen a single person wearing shorts and many of the women we encounter are covered. Some women wear the abaya, but have their face showing. Others are head to toe in black with only slits for their eyes. It is still strange not being able to see much of the population, but it is surprising how quickly you adapt and no longer consciously think about it every time you see a women. And as Jack and I learned in our Islamic Civilization class with Dr. Berkey last semester, a woman being allowed to walk the streets (even covered) is a huge step forward.

On other note on gender, on the metro the ratio of men to women is about 50:1.

One thing I find astonishing is the lack of shorts. No one wears shorts. I do not think I have seen a single persons leg.

Right now, there are prayer chants going on outside our window. They are not that loud, and Jack and I managed to sleep this morning without waking once to the chants. That might have been due to our exhaustion though.

Now to discuss the food. As some of you might not be aware, Jack and I have a nutritionist. Her name is Katie Lovett and she has great credentials. If you need proof, watch her make a salad in commons (Davidson’s cafeteria) or basically any meal. She is also the one who treats Jack and I Kraft Mac and Cheese from time to time. Anyways, she wants to keep track of what meals we are eating while abroad. So take a look at the pictures. The dinner was more like local food and one thing I should note is that it was spicy, especially the hummus. The bread was good and we ordered smoothies for fun. We also got some khababs and khafre, which you can not actually see in the picture. You can also make out the cucumber, and yes Katie if you are reading this I ate my cucumber. 

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