Day 13 - End? No, the journey doesn't end here.

I'll add more pictures later; I was finishing this in a bit of a rush before we left for the airport.

Today was extremely different from every other day, except maybe day 3.  We got up about 9:30 and walked down to breakfast, and then came back upstairs and rested for a while.  We also spent a significant amount of time packing and organizing for our flight to Vienna tomorrow.  In the middle of all that, we watched a couple of episodes of How I Met Your Mother (which we’ve almost finished) and I finished my book, Open by Andre Agassi – I started it pretty much on our trip to Luxor and was almost done by the end, and then we got a little busy back here so I just now got all the way through it.  But it was a really good read.  Unfortunately now I don’t have another book to read, and I have to carry around a big hardback I’ve already read.

This is the view of the cafe in front of our hotel from our window.  It's a little blurry, but you can see all the tables
and people outside.

 About 2:30 we went out to eat lunch.  Since we discovered yesterday that nearly everything is closed during Ramadan we went to the Peking Chinese restaurant again.  I had fried fish and Pat ordered a certain type of chicken but they brought him beef instead.  Which wasn’t a giant deal but we weren’t particularly pleased.  Afterwards we needed to break a few bills for the next day, so Pat went to the bank while I wandered across the street to a men’s clothing store.  I realized that after having packed my suit and a variety of shirts, new and old, I don’t believe I packed a single tie.  Maybe I’ll find out I’m wrong when I open that part of my suitcase, but I don’t recall pulling one out of my closet.  Plus, ties at this store were only 15 L.E. (livre egyptienne), or 15 Egyptian pounds - about 3 dollars.  So I bought 4.  I probably won’t have 4 reasons to wear a tie in the next year, but whatever.  I expanded my color and pattern collection, and it set my back $12.  So sue me.

The upwards view from our window at night.  Our last night there was a bright half-moon.

 And then, in the traditional Egyptian way, we decided to continue to stay out of the heat as long as possible.  Tonight we went to the light show at the Sphinx, so before that we decided we would just sit inside, pack a little more, and just relax.  We watched another episode or two (we’re one away from being done), and spent some time “blogging”.  Finally, at about 7, we decided it was time to actually start our day.

We went downstairs at 7:30 to take an arranged cab/bus to the Light and Sound Show at Giza narrated by the Sphinx.  It was pretty neat to see all of the pyramids in the dark – their grandeur struck even truer at night.  Then used a variety of colors, patterns, and designs to illuminate the pyramids and tell the story of ancient Egypt for about an hour.  Like I said, it was cool, but pretty cheesy at the same time.  I’m not sure how you would make something like that not cheesy, and I’m not complaining; it’s something that I can say I’ve done and was cool and I won’t ever do it again.  Which isn’t saying a lot because we leave tomorrow.  But you get the point.

Everything all lit up at the Sound and Light show

Afterwards we had our driver drop us off at a new restaurant (for us) named Abu al Sid.  This place was great.  The atmosphere Egyptian, it was a social restaurant and bar, and the food, at least what I ordered, was supreme.  I don’t remember the name but it was some kind of chicken in a walnut sauce, and on the menu it said in parentheses: A very old recipe.  So I ordered it, and it was great.  After we ate we ordered some tea and sat for a little bit.  There were people playing cards, tables gathered just socializing, and a couple other duos scattered around the room.  Most people were smoking sheesha.  We pretty much enjoyed people watching for the better part of the hour and a half we were there, and we wondered what it’d be like if they were serving alcohol and it wasn’t during Ramadan.

The restaurant we ate at. Quite the atmosphere

After we left, we took a cab back to the Khan al-Khalili market.  Even just on the drive there, there were people everywhere.  Most nights of Ramadan so far we had fallen asleep early, but determined tonight to stay awake (plus we needed to buy a trinket or two), we got to see what Ramadan is like into the early hours of the morning.  And boy is it a sight to see.

Khan al-Khalili bazaar. Soooo many people.

At the bazaar we both were looking for a small pyramid, I was half-heartedly keeping an eye out for an Egyptian national jersey, and Pat was looking for an elephant.  We decided to wait and buy a pyramid at the bazaar because we wanted the experience of walking around the different shops and bartering for what we liked.  It turned out a little differently.  Most of the owners have figured out that the bazaar is now a definite tourist destination, and they all give you similar prices for the same item.  Only instead of bargaining, they just say that’s the price, they can’t go any lower.  Which was actually kind of nice to discover that there was consistency around the entire place, and that when we went back to the man who offered the lowest price we knew we weren’t getting hoodwinked.  At the same time though, we didn’t really get to barter…

Unfortunately, there was no suitable elephant to be found.  We both bought little pyramids (which usually come in sets of three and no one really wanted to just sell one), but since we aren’t in the elephant section of Africa, the elephant selection wasn’t particularly high.  We did, however, eventually see a shop that had Egyptian football jerseys, so we went inside.  I ended up getting an Abou Trika jersey, Egypt’s star player and pretty much plays the same position as Landon Donovan, so I left satisfied.  We walked around a bit longer and Pat ended up replacing elephants with a shot glass that had a camel on it and another that had a cat.  By the time we were finished and returned to the hotel, it was past 1:30 a.m.  I’m not sure there were any fewer people out than there was when we started at 11.

Our experience with the man yesterday was at least helpful last night.  Every time someone asked to show us something in their shop we turned them down, and on several occasions people “just wanted to give us their card” so we walked away.  Any time you stop in front of a store to look at something owners just immediately hover, which is a little annoying and intimidating (and also one of the reasons I bought 4 ties – no one said a word to me in the shop before I was ready to check out, which I appreciated).  They try and guess what you want to see and then say they have more varieties and start pulling boxes out of the woodwork.  Fortunately, it was late, and I was still mad at that other guy, so I didn’t have much of a problem brushing people aside.  And any time someone so much as mentioned papyrus, I immediately left their store.

I think I should make it clear – I’m not mad that the man we met yesterday scammed us.  Quite the opposite, actually: I’m reasonably impressed at how fluid and well it was run until Pat finally put up a stand at the end and he had to resort to pulling the “geez, Americans” card.  If I’m mad at anyone for the scam, it should be me for falling for it (but I’m not: 1 – it’s a good story, 2 – you have to learn somehow, and 3 – I still got two papyrus paintings for cheaper than I did at other places).  I’m mad at him because I wanted, really wanted, for someone like that to pull us off the street, serve us tea, and be genuinely about knowing someone from a place near where his “son lives”.  I’m glad I’ve had contact with people like Hoda (thank you again by the way) and Yehia because they both have been quite helpful, and Yehia’s tour program was great.  In addition, the man who arranged our tour in Luxor (Mohammad) was also sincere.  But they work in professions that deal almost exclusively with tourists, so they have to have set prices, etc.  For once I wanted someone who pulled us off the street to “not care about money” like this man said.  Alas, it was not to be.  I didn’t even need more papyrus; I would have been content to sit and sip tea and talk.  But oh well.

Tomorrow we’re getting up, eating breakfast, and then packing and leaving for Vienna.  I think we got the timing of the trip exactly right.  Most of the things to do in Egypt that we haven’t done are either day trips or places much farther away (oases, the Red Sea, Aswan, etc.), so I think we’re both a little ready to head to Vienna and be with a bunch of other students.  We’re staying tomorrow night in the “Pension Dr. Geisler” or something like that, and it is possible we won’t have an internet connection.  Thursday starts orientation, and we’re staying in a hostel that night, so we probably won’t have internet then either.  Thus, the next post will probably go up sometime Friday evening/night, or maybe even Saturday depending on how tired we are.

We have had a very enjoyable time.  I’ve seen things I likely won’t ever visit again; I’ve seen things that are thousands of years old (and will remain for another thousand years); I’ve had the pleasure of spending two weeks with Patrick; I’ve stood where a variety of important historical and biblical figures and stood and observed the world.  It has all been fantastic, and despite the sickness and trauma in the early days, and despite all I’ve whined about the bartering stuff, if you told me ahead of time how the trip was going to go, I wouldn’t hesitate for one second. I’d definitely still go and do it all over again.  Many thanks to Patrick for all the planning he’s done, to Hoda for all her help, to my Uncle David for helping connect us, to everyone for reading this (I’ve cracked triple digits on the number of hits on my blog), and finally to my parents for being supportive and encouraging me to go.  I’m sorry if this was one of those times you thought you would just let me talk about something because you didn’t think it would actually get planned, but I’ve had a great time, and I’m getting to see the world.  So thank you.