Day 1:
I flew out of Dubai on December 23rd with 3 other classmates, Kristin, Alli, and Nina. I was the only guy, so I had done intense training the previous weeks to ward off any attackers or kidnappers. Leaving Dubai, we flew over Palm Jumira, the man-made islands shaped like a palm tree, which was pretty cool because an aerial view is needed in order to see what they actually look like. We landed in Alexandria, Egypt in the afternoon; the landscape looked essentially identical to Dubai, although we had flown over partitioned farmland that was fed by irrigation channels from the Nile. The Nile plays a huge role in sustaining Egyptian life, and as I found out later, a lot of the Egyptian hyrogliphics depict scenes about the Nile.
We were met by our cab driver to take us to our hostel. Leaving the small airport, I immediately noticed two things. The airport security in Egypt doesn't carry pistols, they carry Ak-47s. (Mental note: do not get into any disputes with law enforcement.) The second thing I noticed were the cars and road system (or should I say lack of). The majority of cars there were tiny black and yellow cabs that appeared to be from the 70's. They were old, slow, loud, and smelled. If pollution drove a car, it would drive one of these. But there was something about them; they all had character. Each driver had decorated their car with colored flashing lights and "Westernized" bumper stickers. I say "Westernized" because they were supposed to be American phrases but most were poorly worded and didn't make a whole lot of sense. A common bumper sticker depicted a pink cowboy hat with the words "Cowboy Up" scrolled underneath. Also, these cars don't die; we passed several broken down cars along the side of the road. Their drivers would work on their cars (sometimes while in the middle traffic lane) until they were in drivable condition and go on their way again. Apparently stopping in the middle lane was OK because there wasn't much of a traffic system. Actually, lanes appeared to be more of a guide-line. At one point, there had to be at least 7-8 cars crammed next to each other in a 3 lane highway. Cars would dart in and out of lanes suddenly, but would beep their horn before passing, while passing, and after passing somebody. To add on to the noise, the driver's being passed would also beep, whether to acknowledge the other car or to say "Don't pass me!" or some obscene phrase, I'm not sure. Essentially there was lots and lots of beeping. All the time.
We arrived at our hostel in the middle of the city, and proceeded to take the elevator up to the 4th floor. Words don't do justice for how sketchy this elevator was. There was no door on the elevator, and also no roof. Which would have been pretty cool had this elevator not been ancient. The counterweight was connected by one rusty steel chain, which I could both watch and hear clank and creak the entire way up. My first trip up, the elevator got stuck on floor 3.5. At which point it went back down to the ground floor before going back up. I don't mind heights, but my engineering senses were going off like crazy. I felt like I was riding the tower of terror, just waiting to fall at any second. Luckily, I didn't plummet to my death, and I arrived on the 4th floor still alive. The hostel was on one half of the floor, and my room was pretty nice. It had two beds, a bathroom, and a pretty nice view of the city. The hostel staff greeted us with a drink, which I think was Tang. We unpacked, blah blah blah, and ended up walked around aimlessly in the city.
Deciding we should actually go somewhere, we attempted to find the train station to purchase our tickets to Cairo for the next day. Unfortunately, we couldn't get help from any of the locals, as they all spoke Arabic, and the one lady who did speak English only wanted to know whether we could stay in Alexandria for 3 months to teach her son English so that he would have an "American" accent. We ended up at the local Alexandria train station (as I found out later is the oldest running train in all of Africa). Turns out it does not go to Cairo but it took us a while to figure out because nothing was written in English. We then set out in search of food, but we were promised by several of the Egyptian RIT Dubai students that we would get food poisoning. Determined to prove them wrong, I decided not to eat. Or at least not at any of the local food vendors. Not finding any "real" restaurants (except for KFC), we went back to the hostel to come up with a plan. By this point, all of us were somewhat overwhelmed and hungry.
Here's why: After our short walk, I was beginning to already loath Alexandria. The entire city made a bad first impression on me. There was trash, stray cats, trash, pollution, and trash everywhere. At one point I saw a guy attempting to sweep a pile of dirt with a broom but all it did was rearrange the dirt into different piles. Also, we were constantly stared at. I don't mean quick glances. I'm talking obvious, 180 degree head turns. Some people would call out "welcome to Alexandria." Sometimes they were being friendly, but usually they would turn to their friends and laugh. As I found out, there are 3 English phrases everyone knows how to say. "Welcome to Egypt, where are you from, and what is your name." Sometimes even these 3 phrases were spoken in broken English, so at one point one of the locals thought Alli's name was America.
Our hotel lent us a guide book on Alexandria, which listed restaurants that did not give people food poisoning. We decided on a Greek restaurant that was near Fort Qaitbay, a huge fort only a few kilometers from us that could be seen from our hotel, and figured that a cab driver would be able to take us there. The one nice thing about cabs in Egpyt is that they are everywhere. It actually takes more effort to not get a cab than to get one. Being tourists, cab and horse-draw carriages seemed to magically draw towards us. Cabs would flash their lights while blowing their horns and start pulling over to the side of the road. At which point I would have to shake my head "No" so that they would keep going. Many times throughout the trip, drivers would see us, pull over, walk across the street, and ask us if we needed a ride. Most of the time if we said "No" they would still hang around anyway, just in case. Anyway, we found a cab with a meter inside, the driver rolled down the window and I asked if he knew where the restaurant, was. It took a few tries because he didn't speak English but finally he nodded his head and we squeezed in. I say squeezed because cabs in Egypt are smaller than subcompacts in America. Luckily for me, the custom is for men to sit in the front, so I got shotgun seat for our entire trip.
I learned several things about driving in Egypt this trip. First, as we started driving away out of instinct I reached to buckle my seatbelt. The driver yelled something in Arabic to me, and held his hand over my seatbelt buckle. Confused, I finally figured out that he didn't want me to buckle. This happened with my next cab encounter as well. Whether it was considered an insult to the driver's road skills or whether the ancient seatbelts just didn't work I never figured out. For the remainder of the trip, I never got buckled in any cabs.
Also, this was my first encounter with driving at night with no lights on. This is where I experienced what I will call the Alexandria light show. Although drivers didn't leave their headlights on, they would have different color taillights (such as green, blue, yellow: essentially all of the cool colors banned in America), neon lights underneath and inside their cars, and flashing red and blue LEDs in their rear windows that looked like police lights at night. Drivers would partake in the same beeping rituals as in the day, but this time accompanied with headlights. Our driver constantly turned his lights on and off, and flashed his high beams. I was told later that it was considered courteous to other drivers to leave lights off, and only turn them on as needed to prevent from crashing. However, the fact that drivers would flash their high beams in other driver's eyes seemed to me more distracting than just leaving the normal lights on in the first place. To each his own.
Lastly, I got my first experience with bartering for a cab ride. There are two sets of cabs in Egypt, one set government owned, one not. It turns out that the black and yellow cabs are NOT government owned. Although there was a meter inside, it looked like it hadn't worked in 30 years. I had been told that if I had to barter for a cab, to set a price before getting in. Otherwise the driver could charge us whatever he wanted. I was also told that it should cost no more than 15 pounds to travel across the entire city of Cairo. Since we were going a few kilometers and there were four of us, I offered 10. I was expecting an insulted look on the driver's face for my offer of less than $2 for a cab ride, but fortunately he nodded his head in agreement. We drove for a few minutes, then the driver pulled over to the side of the road in front of a restaurant called Fish Market. Turns out, he had misunderstood me because Fort Qaitbay could still be seen several kilometers away. Prying ourselves out of the cab, we decided to take a look at the restaurants near Fish Market.
Stumbling upon Tikka Grill, which was mentioned in the guide book, we decided to give it a try. It was an excellent choice. Great food, great service, and some kind of puffy fried bread that tasted like the dinner version of a donut. After dinner, we decided to walk back because our cab had only driven about 1km from the hostel. Walking back, I noticed that people in the city stay up late. Street vendors were still selling food, fresh beans and grilled corn were everywhere, and the sidewalks were still filled with people. Oddly, most locals dress very nicely in name-brand clothing. Strange for a poor country. Upon closer inspection, it turns out the the clothing were fakes, some better than others. At one point, I saw a PUMA jacket that looked identical to a real one except that the letters were rearranged to spell PAMU.
Well that's way more than enough writing for one day. Congrats to those of you who read the entire blog! My visit to Egypt lasted 10 days, which may or may not be good news to you!
Here's why: After our short walk, I was beginning to already loath Alexandria. The entire city made a bad first impression on me. There was trash, stray cats, trash, pollution, and trash everywhere. At one point I saw a guy attempting to sweep a pile of dirt with a broom but all it did was rearrange the dirt into different piles. Also, we were constantly stared at. I don't mean quick glances. I'm talking obvious, 180 degree head turns. Some people would call out "welcome to Alexandria." Sometimes they were being friendly, but usually they would turn to their friends and laugh. As I found out, there are 3 English phrases everyone knows how to say. "Welcome to Egypt, where are you from, and what is your name." Sometimes even these 3 phrases were spoken in broken English, so at one point one of the locals thought Alli's name was America.
Our hotel lent us a guide book on Alexandria, which listed restaurants that did not give people food poisoning. We decided on a Greek restaurant that was near Fort Qaitbay, a huge fort only a few kilometers from us that could be seen from our hotel, and figured that a cab driver would be able to take us there. The one nice thing about cabs in Egpyt is that they are everywhere. It actually takes more effort to not get a cab than to get one. Being tourists, cab and horse-draw carriages seemed to magically draw towards us. Cabs would flash their lights while blowing their horns and start pulling over to the side of the road. At which point I would have to shake my head "No" so that they would keep going. Many times throughout the trip, drivers would see us, pull over, walk across the street, and ask us if we needed a ride. Most of the time if we said "No" they would still hang around anyway, just in case. Anyway, we found a cab with a meter inside, the driver rolled down the window and I asked if he knew where the restaurant, was. It took a few tries because he didn't speak English but finally he nodded his head and we squeezed in. I say squeezed because cabs in Egypt are smaller than subcompacts in America. Luckily for me, the custom is for men to sit in the front, so I got shotgun seat for our entire trip.
I learned several things about driving in Egypt this trip. First, as we started driving away out of instinct I reached to buckle my seatbelt. The driver yelled something in Arabic to me, and held his hand over my seatbelt buckle. Confused, I finally figured out that he didn't want me to buckle. This happened with my next cab encounter as well. Whether it was considered an insult to the driver's road skills or whether the ancient seatbelts just didn't work I never figured out. For the remainder of the trip, I never got buckled in any cabs.
Also, this was my first encounter with driving at night with no lights on. This is where I experienced what I will call the Alexandria light show. Although drivers didn't leave their headlights on, they would have different color taillights (such as green, blue, yellow: essentially all of the cool colors banned in America), neon lights underneath and inside their cars, and flashing red and blue LEDs in their rear windows that looked like police lights at night. Drivers would partake in the same beeping rituals as in the day, but this time accompanied with headlights. Our driver constantly turned his lights on and off, and flashed his high beams. I was told later that it was considered courteous to other drivers to leave lights off, and only turn them on as needed to prevent from crashing. However, the fact that drivers would flash their high beams in other driver's eyes seemed to me more distracting than just leaving the normal lights on in the first place. To each his own.
Lastly, I got my first experience with bartering for a cab ride. There are two sets of cabs in Egypt, one set government owned, one not. It turns out that the black and yellow cabs are NOT government owned. Although there was a meter inside, it looked like it hadn't worked in 30 years. I had been told that if I had to barter for a cab, to set a price before getting in. Otherwise the driver could charge us whatever he wanted. I was also told that it should cost no more than 15 pounds to travel across the entire city of Cairo. Since we were going a few kilometers and there were four of us, I offered 10. I was expecting an insulted look on the driver's face for my offer of less than $2 for a cab ride, but fortunately he nodded his head in agreement. We drove for a few minutes, then the driver pulled over to the side of the road in front of a restaurant called Fish Market. Turns out, he had misunderstood me because Fort Qaitbay could still be seen several kilometers away. Prying ourselves out of the cab, we decided to take a look at the restaurants near Fish Market.
Stumbling upon Tikka Grill, which was mentioned in the guide book, we decided to give it a try. It was an excellent choice. Great food, great service, and some kind of puffy fried bread that tasted like the dinner version of a donut. After dinner, we decided to walk back because our cab had only driven about 1km from the hostel. Walking back, I noticed that people in the city stay up late. Street vendors were still selling food, fresh beans and grilled corn were everywhere, and the sidewalks were still filled with people. Oddly, most locals dress very nicely in name-brand clothing. Strange for a poor country. Upon closer inspection, it turns out the the clothing were fakes, some better than others. At one point, I saw a PUMA jacket that looked identical to a real one except that the letters were rearranged to spell PAMU.
Well that's way more than enough writing for one day. Congrats to those of you who read the entire blog! My visit to Egypt lasted 10 days, which may or may not be good news to you!
haha, Kristin's retelling of the same day had a much more optimistic perspective on everything. I guess that means you did a good job warding off the bad guys so everyone could have a good time. Cool stuff, and I'm looking forward to hearing more about the trip.
ReplyDeleteyou gonna finish the story?
ReplyDelete