katie in cairo, egypt: 09/20/05

I have so many things to write about. Last weekend after I got out of class Thursday night around 7pm I headed to the train station to meet Krystina, Nick, and Matthew to hop on a train to Luxor. Talk about no planning. Despite the inefficiency of just about everything else in Egypt, apparently the trains leave on time here and people buy their tickets early. Having been denied our tickets once, however, we were delightly surprised to be able to land the 8 o'clock train to Alexandria, which is a mere two hours away. We arrived in Alex around 11pm, excitement and lust for freedom having taken over our exhaustion, and immediately dove right into the streets crawling with Egyptians sporting the latest fashions out for a night on the town. Though it is the second largest city in Egypt, Alex is far less densely populated than Cairo, something which is immediately noticeable by just looking at the cleaner streets, real street lamps, and fresh air. Around 2am we began searching for a hotel, and though we met dead ends on our first couple attempts, we finally crawled into our beds in our sexually segregated two rooms at the Hotel Crillon. We really shouldn't have expected much, considering we payed a measely LE 80 Egyptian pounds (about $14 USD) per room. And we certainly didn't get much. The bathrooms were pretty horrendous and we were stranded without towels to bathe (and we weren't about to go back to the utterly confused hotel reception staff to get them) , but all in all it worked out fabulously.

We woke up Friday morning early enough for a breakfast of old bread and jam and set out to see the sights, Egypt guidebook and colloquial phrasebook in hand, backpacks with our one change of clothes tightly strapped behind. To our dismay, nearly nothing was open because Friday morning is mostly dedicated to praying and going ot the mosques for prayer, though we were able to see a few cool things. Namely we went to the Citadel of Qaitbay, constructed by 'Ali from the remains of the famous Alexandrian Lighthouse (one of the ancient 7 wonders of the world) and the new Bibliotecha Alexandria, perhaps the most astounding and magnificent library on the planet.

Later on we met up with my Egyptian friends Sayed and Hesham for endless hours of coffee drinking and sheesha smoking. That night we stayed at the New Cadbury hotel, a huge step up in quality though not in price, and finally caught up on some sleep. Saturday we witnessed the first rainfall since arriving to Cairo, as it poured for about 2 hours. We spent some more time touring the sites, and for dinner Sayed bought and cooked fresh fish at the market and we ate in another cafe. Feeling like the ultimate free and invincible vagabonds with the know-all, we chose not to heed Sayed's advice of buying train tickets in advance. Four hours and about a thousand coffee cups later we found ourselves stuck on a dark bus with crackling Egyptian movies playing over and over and movile phones buzzing endlessly on our way back to Cairo.

So perhaps we could have done a little better planning, but all in all I had a fabulous time. Alexandria is beautiful. It was nice to breathe fresh air for the first time, look out past the Mediterranean to the distant lands of Turkey and Greece, and escape the sights and smells of Cairo. However, in a way, I was glad to get back. Funny how such a strange and foreign place can so quickly take on the familiarity of being home, even if it's just navigating a few streets, seeing a few recognizeable faces, and knowing that you have a bed waiting for you to come sleep in. It feels good to be here, to be home.