sightseeing
Time is ticking and I still have so much sightseeing left to do. That's why I decided to get tickets to the opera Aida, which is playing all this week. I've never been to the opera, so this will be a great chance to get some culture while experiencing something new, I suppose. We had to buy the tickets (super cheap, only 15 pounds) at the Dar al Opera box office, so we headed there after school today.
The place is such a gem. We didn't go inside the House, but we did view the grounds. It's in a complex with these other newly built buildings right next to downtown Cairo, and all together they make up this hidden reserve of art at its best. The Opera House sits next to the museum of modern art, the music library, and a few other buildings that we didn't have time to explore.
We decided to peek into the Fine Art Museum where there happened to be a photo exhibit going on. Of course, we were enthralled, not only by the amazing pictures of everyday life, portraits, Egyptian scenery, etc, but also the fact that this whole place (all free of charge) was unknown to us before.
An international film festival is also going on this week, so hopefully, we'll be able to make it to a few screenings.
It's stuff like that that adds to the attraction of Cairo, and will make leaving hard. But usually, some bizarre truly Cairo experience will shake you out of that reverie. Like the cab system.
The place isn't that far from the dorms, and traffic was super light when we went, so we paid the driver 3 and a half pounds. This was not deemed suitable by him (to get to school from the dorm is 4 to 5 pounds, and the opera house is closer to us than the school is)and an argument ensued, though luckily, it finished with us just walking away.
The meters in the taxis don't work, but even if they did, the system that they're based on completely out of date. So when you pay a taxi, you give based on recommendations of others who regularly go the same way, or on what you deem fair based on distance and traffic. Completely arbitrary so it definitely leads to complications. Such as the major one me and a few friends experienced two weeks ago.
The day had started off bad, because it was jumuah and we wanted to go to a new mosque for prayer. We tried to visit Qaitbey, supposedly an architectural delight, but no taxi driver we could find knew where it was. We ended up going to the Citadel to pray at the Mohammad Ali Pasha mosque. Only when we got there (late, by this time)tons of tourists were there, so we had to push our way to the front where we were told we couldn't enter the complex without paying the entrance fee, even though there was a sign telling visitors that the mosque would be closed for tourists during jumuah prayer times. We were clearly not tourists, dressed in hijab and abayas, but they refused until we paid.
So, since we have residence visas, we are supposed to be able to get Egyptian prices on things (every tourist site has an Egyptian/Arab price and a foreign price) We bought our 2 pound tickets, chalking it up to sadaqa for the mosque and tried to go in. By this time the iqama, signaling the end of the khutbah and the beginning of prayer, had started. Yet, the woman at the ticket window wouldn't let us in, because she said we were not Egyptian, thus we had to buy the foreign ticket (at 20 pounds!!). We explained to her, in Colloquial Egyptian Arabic no less, that we were students, yada yada, but she refused, causing us to be turned away from prayer and off in search of a "free" masjid.
Words can't even describe how mad we were, and even writing about it makes me angry at this dumb system. It turned out okay though because we ended up going to Masjid al Rifai, a beautiful place next to the Citadel. My lonely planet book said that there were a bunch of religious icons buried here, so we asked one of the ladies who in turn told us to ask the sheikh.
I was definitely impressed, because though it should always be this way (that three girls with a question can feel free to go up to the imam of the mosque) it's usually not. So we entered his office, just wanting to know who was buried here and he went into an explanation of the history of the masjid and then had one of the mosque workers show us around to all of the different areas. That's how we came to see the beautifully elaborate tombs of the Shah of Iran, King Farouk of Egypt, and a lot of others.
But I digress from the cab story. So afterwards, we decided to go to Karfour, this amazing WalMart-like story in Ma'adi. I step inside the door and I was at home: its got clothes, food, jewelry, electronics, basically everything you could ever need. The cab ride from Midan Tahrir to Ma'adi wasn't too long, and one of our Egyptian friends who goes there alot was with us, so even though I was a little wary when we paid the driver 7 pounds, I figured it didn't matter that much. He shook his fist at us and threw the money back when we left the cab, but this is standard procedure, so we hurried into the store.
It only got weird when we were stopped by this man in a leather jacket with a silver necklace, smoking his cigarette, inside the women's pajamas section. We didn't know who he was or what he was talking about until it dawned on us that he was our taxi driver!! Madness ensued. We ran, he ran after. We tried to find security, but there was none. He got on his cell phone, talking to who knows who that he had found us. The place was pretty packed so we decided to split up and hope he wouldn't find us again. This was confounded by the fact that I was wearing a black abaya and a bright pink scarf and one other friend was wearing her abaya and a bright red scarf, plus she's about 5'8.
We finally decided it would be best to buy some new clothes to change our look, because we didn't really want to leave this place yet, just because we were being harassed. One stayed at Karfour to buy our purchases, and the other two went to the hijab store all the way across the mall. We're inside the store, hurriedly searching for a cheap, cute scarf, when who do we see outside the door but him. We were pretty much trapped. Our last hope was to tell the guys in the scarf shop about our dilemma. But when we told hims how much we had paid, he sighed and informed us that, indeed, we should have paid about 15-18 pounds.
The shopkeepers agreed to take our money and give it to the guy for us, while we stayed in the store. He finally went away, content with his extra pounds and we left the mall (after each buying something to show our gratitude!)
Instead of risking that again, we took the bus home, which is 75 piasters (.75 of a pound) and an adventure in itself (it doesn't stop. ever! you have to run and then jump to get on it, and brace yourself and jump to get off, all while its hurtling through the busy streets of Cairo). But that's a story for another time.
The place is such a gem. We didn't go inside the House, but we did view the grounds. It's in a complex with these other newly built buildings right next to downtown Cairo, and all together they make up this hidden reserve of art at its best. The Opera House sits next to the museum of modern art, the music library, and a few other buildings that we didn't have time to explore.
We decided to peek into the Fine Art Museum where there happened to be a photo exhibit going on. Of course, we were enthralled, not only by the amazing pictures of everyday life, portraits, Egyptian scenery, etc, but also the fact that this whole place (all free of charge) was unknown to us before.
An international film festival is also going on this week, so hopefully, we'll be able to make it to a few screenings.
It's stuff like that that adds to the attraction of Cairo, and will make leaving hard. But usually, some bizarre truly Cairo experience will shake you out of that reverie. Like the cab system.
The place isn't that far from the dorms, and traffic was super light when we went, so we paid the driver 3 and a half pounds. This was not deemed suitable by him (to get to school from the dorm is 4 to 5 pounds, and the opera house is closer to us than the school is)and an argument ensued, though luckily, it finished with us just walking away.
The meters in the taxis don't work, but even if they did, the system that they're based on completely out of date. So when you pay a taxi, you give based on recommendations of others who regularly go the same way, or on what you deem fair based on distance and traffic. Completely arbitrary so it definitely leads to complications. Such as the major one me and a few friends experienced two weeks ago.
The day had started off bad, because it was jumuah and we wanted to go to a new mosque for prayer. We tried to visit Qaitbey, supposedly an architectural delight, but no taxi driver we could find knew where it was. We ended up going to the Citadel to pray at the Mohammad Ali Pasha mosque. Only when we got there (late, by this time)tons of tourists were there, so we had to push our way to the front where we were told we couldn't enter the complex without paying the entrance fee, even though there was a sign telling visitors that the mosque would be closed for tourists during jumuah prayer times. We were clearly not tourists, dressed in hijab and abayas, but they refused until we paid.
So, since we have residence visas, we are supposed to be able to get Egyptian prices on things (every tourist site has an Egyptian/Arab price and a foreign price) We bought our 2 pound tickets, chalking it up to sadaqa for the mosque and tried to go in. By this time the iqama, signaling the end of the khutbah and the beginning of prayer, had started. Yet, the woman at the ticket window wouldn't let us in, because she said we were not Egyptian, thus we had to buy the foreign ticket (at 20 pounds!!). We explained to her, in Colloquial Egyptian Arabic no less, that we were students, yada yada, but she refused, causing us to be turned away from prayer and off in search of a "free" masjid.
Words can't even describe how mad we were, and even writing about it makes me angry at this dumb system. It turned out okay though because we ended up going to Masjid al Rifai, a beautiful place next to the Citadel. My lonely planet book said that there were a bunch of religious icons buried here, so we asked one of the ladies who in turn told us to ask the sheikh.
I was definitely impressed, because though it should always be this way (that three girls with a question can feel free to go up to the imam of the mosque) it's usually not. So we entered his office, just wanting to know who was buried here and he went into an explanation of the history of the masjid and then had one of the mosque workers show us around to all of the different areas. That's how we came to see the beautifully elaborate tombs of the Shah of Iran, King Farouk of Egypt, and a lot of others.
But I digress from the cab story. So afterwards, we decided to go to Karfour, this amazing WalMart-like story in Ma'adi. I step inside the door and I was at home: its got clothes, food, jewelry, electronics, basically everything you could ever need. The cab ride from Midan Tahrir to Ma'adi wasn't too long, and one of our Egyptian friends who goes there alot was with us, so even though I was a little wary when we paid the driver 7 pounds, I figured it didn't matter that much. He shook his fist at us and threw the money back when we left the cab, but this is standard procedure, so we hurried into the store.
It only got weird when we were stopped by this man in a leather jacket with a silver necklace, smoking his cigarette, inside the women's pajamas section. We didn't know who he was or what he was talking about until it dawned on us that he was our taxi driver!! Madness ensued. We ran, he ran after. We tried to find security, but there was none. He got on his cell phone, talking to who knows who that he had found us. The place was pretty packed so we decided to split up and hope he wouldn't find us again. This was confounded by the fact that I was wearing a black abaya and a bright pink scarf and one other friend was wearing her abaya and a bright red scarf, plus she's about 5'8.
We finally decided it would be best to buy some new clothes to change our look, because we didn't really want to leave this place yet, just because we were being harassed. One stayed at Karfour to buy our purchases, and the other two went to the hijab store all the way across the mall. We're inside the store, hurriedly searching for a cheap, cute scarf, when who do we see outside the door but him. We were pretty much trapped. Our last hope was to tell the guys in the scarf shop about our dilemma. But when we told hims how much we had paid, he sighed and informed us that, indeed, we should have paid about 15-18 pounds.
The shopkeepers agreed to take our money and give it to the guy for us, while we stayed in the store. He finally went away, content with his extra pounds and we left the mall (after each buying something to show our gratitude!)
Instead of risking that again, we took the bus home, which is 75 piasters (.75 of a pound) and an adventure in itself (it doesn't stop. ever! you have to run and then jump to get on it, and brace yourself and jump to get off, all while its hurtling through the busy streets of Cairo). But that's a story for another time.