Cairo - The Travel and Day 1 - "The beginning of 9 months of roommates"

It should be noted from the onset of this blog that it is at least primarily intended for my own personal use so that I may one day look back on these next five months and remember everything I want to from this trip.  For that reason, any stories that may cause me to look somewhat silly or foolish may be edited (or completely left out).  Anyway, here goes.

I arrived at the KC airport on Tuesday, August 3rd only to find that my first flight had been delayed an hour.  Eventually i took the short trip to Chicago where I had to change terminals to get to British Airways from American Airlines.  I got to the gate as it was boarding, then spent 7 hours sitting/kind of sleeping.  I did get to watch Date Night and Valentine's Day, which we're both ok (Date Night saved mostly by my love of Steve Carell and V-Day seems pretty much like a remake of Love Actually).  Upon arrival in London, I went through security then proceeded to nap for about 45 minutes, then spend the next 3 hours exploring while waiting for Patrick (for those of you at home, Patrick is the friend from Seattle with whom I am traveling).  Eventually he showed up, and we ate lunch then lounged around until our flight boarded at 5.  Apparently we took off an hour and 20 minutes late, but I guess I slept that entire time because I woke up when we were taking off and thought it had been 5 minutes until we landed an hour late - at 2 a.m. local time.

In Cairo we got our Visas, went through customs (by which I mean the guy looked at Pat's passport, waved him through, and didn't even ask to see mine), and found the man holding the sign labeled "Patrick Muller".  As it turns out, there are almost no traffic rules as long as you are on the correct side of the road.  At points there were no lanes, a honk simply means "I'm right here and I want to pass you so don't hit me," and at night honking is replaced with flashing one's brights.  Anyway, we got to bed around 3 and woke up about 9 to get breakfast at our hotel.  That was the first night we spent together in a 9 month roommate stint only to be interrupted by winter and potentially spring breaks.

Our room has two twin beds, a bathroom, a sink, and a tv.  Fortunately we get wireless in the room.  This morning we ate breakfast, took an overpriced taxi ride to get our ISIC cards, then, as our itinerary said, we went to "explore the surrounding area."  Evidently what that meant was make one giant loop around a reasonably large area.  We simply took a wrong turn out of our hotel to find the bank and ended up just wandering, but we met a few nice people and actually ended up figuring out where a lot of things are.  For lunch we stopped at a place called "Mo'men" which was just a fastfood sandwich place.  We then took a nap, and got up and went to the Cairo Tower.  This cost more than expected since they did not accept our ISIC cards, and the guy at the top didn't accept coins as a tip, so I gave him a five (about a dollar) and then he asked for more. When I truthfully told him I didn't have any more cash, he asked Pat how much his sunglasses cost.  The view was fantastic though, so I guess it was worth it.

We ate at a restaurant near our hotel for dinner.  We both ordered strawberry juice (which turned out to be pretty much as smoothie) and the Khofra and Kabob.  I actually enjoyed it, except what I think was the khofra which was a little on the mushy side (it looked like very soft celery in squash).  The meat tasted good though and looked reasonably normal.  The rice tasted like it had been soaked in butter, and the bread (of which I can't remember the name) was also very good.  Unfortunately, it too was over priced, though I think we started to see a pattern of people trying to charge us more cause they know we're not from here.  So at least now we know and the rest of the time we can be on guard.

Some general notes to finish up - the female dress code has been fairly interesting.  Some women (but not a lot) are dressed in what is most easily described as "western" clothing.  Others (reasonably more common) are dressed in western clothing but also wear the abayah (head scarf).  Most common seems to be flowy garments that are all one color with the abayah, but there are some who still wear the full veil, and then a few who wear it in all black.  The people here so far have been very friendly.  Some have approached us and asked where we are from either just to be nice or to practice their own English (or both).  A couple guys just approached us while we were standing on a corner and asked us if we needed help getting somewhere (though ironically they didn't really understand when we asked where a place to eat was, nor did they know how to say their colors in English when we were looking at the Metro board).  There are shops everywhere, lots of clothing and shoe stores.  The people here love football just like every other country in the world, shocking.

Tomorrow we are getting up early to go with the hotel to the Pyramids at Giza and the Step Pyramid at Saqqara.  This first post is WAY longer than the others will be, sorry, but it is covering many more hours.  Also, there should be pictures up fairly soon to accompany these posts on Facebook.  Goodnight.