One day in the life of an Amerian tourist in Egypt! CRAZY!
That's one GREAT thing about working in a foreign country; when I'm not working I'm playing tourist.
Yesterday Kate & I decided to venture off to see some cool sights and try the public transportation. There is no subway system here (only in Cairo) and the only modes of transportation are taxis, buses, mini buses, service-taxis, painfully slow moving tram and...well...walking. Taxis are sketcy and really expensive and the drivers are mean, buses are okay but they are packed with people sitting down and standing up. The mini-buses are the same except they are like mini-vans packed with people. I haven't figured out the service-taxis yet and the tram is a rickety old train thing like in San Francisco that looks like it's chuggin along on it's last leg. I guess it's okay if you want to see the sights, but it's not exactly the touristy thing...I'd rather walk.
We live down the street from a train station so Kate & I went there to see if we could catch a bus. It's utter chaos on the bus side and we had no idea which bus to take. One guy stopped and asked if we needed help. We asked him how to get to Kom-Al-Shuqqafa (the catacombs) He had no idea what we were saying because our accent is really bad! hahaha We showed him a map and he said it's really far away and that we had a couple of different options. He said that he would call his friend to take us there. We were like "Well, we want to get there on our own...how do we get there?" He told us that if we took a taxi it would cost 3-4 pounds. I laughed and said, "Yeah, for YOU! How much for a foreigner?" (Foreigners ALWAYS pay twice as much because drivers assume we don't know how much it should cost. There are no meters in taxis...prices must be negotiated before getting into the car, and hopefully the driver will keep his word). Anyway, the guy caught a taxi for us and worked out a deal of 7 pounds ($1.25) It was twice what he would pay, but still not bad. Oh and we found out that Kom-Al-Shuqqafa is pronounced (kom al shuwayfa) Who would have thought? There are two q's in it! I guess the two q's are realized as a w. I'll have to look that up.
So we got dropped off safely at one place and we had to walk up a really busy, dirty, disgusting street to get to the catacombs. The street people had furniture (nice looking, too) set up on the side of the road next to a HUGE open garbage dump with the chickens & sheep standing on top of it and eating. The sheep were laying and eating out of trough down one of the side roads. Little kids were running around us saying "HI! What's your name?" It's cute because that's the only words they know. They say "What's your name?" and look shocked when we actually respond. The kids and adults were yelling after us "Welcome in Egypt!" That is actually quite a comfort. They LOVE Americans. I told so many people I was from America yesterday and they were all soooo happy. People would ask "Where are you from?" and I say "Ana min amreeka" (I'm from America) and Kate would say "New Zealand." People would ignore Kate and say to me, "Amreeka good. Amreeka very good." It's comforting to know that they love Americans. And they really do love us. They know that America gives loads of money to Egypt for tourism and Egypt would be nothing without tourism. Plus they watch American movies and know about American culture through movies, TV shows, and music. Through those mediums they see how important it is to know English. It's good to know English to be able to be like the people on TV, which they see as good.
I digress! So we went to Kom-Al-Shuqqafa which was really really cool. It's an underground city of catacombs (Christian tombs) from about 1,000 B.C. up until like 400 B.C. They found this sight in 1900 and they only reason they found it is because a donkey was walking along and suddenly fell through the earth. Another archaeological sight was found that same way...hmmm...that's why I avoid walking on grates in the street. I'm totally paranoid now. Anyway, the catacombs were underground and showed the little spaces in the walls where the bodies were buried. It's was interesting because it showed a mix of Greek, Egyptian, and Roman funerary art mixed together. They were all such powerful civilazations during their times and the times that their civilizations existed overlap each other back in the day and it's funny to see how they thought that each one borrowed stuff from each other and thought higly of the other civilazatins. There were cool statues and paintings on the wall showing the different gods taking the organs out of the bodies and weighing them and then mummifying the bodies. The Egyptians were polytheistic (they worshipped many gods) but these paintings were found in Christian catacombs so I'm wondering why there are images of the gods mummifying people. There is also evidence that Jews were buried there and there was a Star of David painted on the ceiling of one of the chambers. A lot of the catacombs were flooded because they are all underground. It was creepy to think that there were hundreds of dead bodies in there at one time. We were down underground for about an hour and the air was definitely different. Needless to say when we got back to the surface it was nicer to breathe the polluted outside air!
So after Kom-Al-Shuqqafa we ventured to the Graeco-Roman Amphitheater. We weren't sure how to get there and it was really hard to catch a taxi so we started walking. We walked down a street that was like a HUGE open market. It was like a flea market in the U.S. except it was only on one side of the road and there was nothing covering stuff for sale. We walked down this street and EVERYONE was shouting out "Welcome in Egypt!" and "HI! How are you?" It's only men that do that. The women just look. One man walked past as said, "Can we f$%&?" I said, "Im shee, hanwen!" (Get away animal!) I was really happy that I got to say it! yay! I felt so much better being able to say rude back to them. It's actually more frustrating telling someone to f-off in a language they don't understand. They guy just kept walking and didn't bother us anymore. They say those things just to be rude. One guy walked past and said something rude and I said, "it derem nafsack!" which means behave yourself and the a bunch of guys sarcastically said,"oooooooooooh". Yeah, so I guess that phrase isn't harsh enough. One of Patrick's guy friends is going to teach me how to cuss people (guys) out in Arabic. I really need that for defense. Once they know (think) I speak Arabic they pretty much back off. One guy came up and was walking beside me and kept asking "Inglaizi bass? Tekelem Inglaizi bass?" He was asking if I only spoke English. Then he said something about Arabic and English and he wasn't asking if I spoke English. I think he was asking if I would only have sex with someone who is English or with Arabs. He kept asking and saying the same thing and finally I just grabbed Kate and told him "Im shee hanwen" (get away animal). So, that was our experience walking down just one street in Egypt for like 5 minutes. People were selling little chickens, dogs, cats, birds, rabbits and stuff. It was funny because when me & Kate walked past people stopped shopping and looking at the animals to watch us walk past and say "Hi. Welcome in Egypt!" We heard 'welcome in Egypt' so many times yesterday we were kind of sick of it.
So we got to the Roman amphitheater and of course, people everywhere in Egypt want to work and the tourist sights are no exception. Me & Kate bought our tickets and a guy who was at the counter said, "You need a separate ticket for the Mosaic of the Birds." So, okay, I bought another ticket and I asked him where the mosaics were? He said, "I'll show during our tour." I was thinking "hmmmmmm, I'm not letting this guy show me around." So I went inside and the guards who sign people in pointed for me to give my ticket to the guy who was playing guide (dressed in plain clothes.) I said "You're the people I give my ticket to and YOU'RE just the guide." He took my ticket anyway and ripped it and said, "Okay, let's go." I said, "No WAY I'm not paying you to show me around here so you can just forget about it." He said, "No it's okay, we can negotiate a deal now. However much you want to pay." Me & Kate both told him that we have a guide book and knew what we were looking at. The guy kept insisting and I told him that I wasn't paying him anything and I grabbed Kate and we walked away. Luckily there was a HUGE group of people not far from the entrance and the guy giving the tour was speaking English. So me & Kate joined the tour. It's a good thing because the wanna be money makin tour guide had followed us and I know was going to hassle us but I started talking to someone in the tour and the annoyer backed off. We got there at just the right time because the guy giving the tour turned out to be a professor of Egyptology from the American University in Cairo and he brought all of his students to Alexandria to see some sights that they had been studying. I started talking to one guy and he invited us to join the tour. I asked if it was okay and the guy said, "Yeah, the prof won't even know the difference anyway." Which is funny because that's pretty much how it is in college. The profs don't even know most of the students' names, much less faces because classes are so huge. So we followed them around and got a nice, monetarily and hassle free tour of the ruins. Plus, the guy I was talking to was able to tell me & Kate all the places he's been to in Egypt and Israel. He gave us some good ideas about places to go to and how much time to spend there.
After that we went walking to try to find a way to get home. At this time it was already like 4 p.m. I was so exhausted and cranky, thirsty, hungry, and tired. We ate lunch, but it was so hot and I didn't have enough water with me. So we walked and decided to hit the library because it was on the way back...well...it was in the direction of the sea, which is our landmark and makes it easy to not get lost when we know where the sea is. Anyway, we went to the Alexandria Library which is one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) library in the world. Alexander the Great founded the city of Alexandria and he established the world's first library in Alex. Of course this isn't the same library but they certainly have a lot to boast about. We had to pay to get into the library and walk around ($2.00) and then we saw a museum inside with Greek and Roman statues and really well preserved mosaics and sarcophogi and mummies. I'm beginning to think that the Egyptians were really small people because I saw a mummified woman and she was only about 4'5" tall. I thought it might have been a child but the tag said it was a woman. I was extremely excited about all the Graeco-Roman art they had in there. There was a huge bust of Socrates and one of Alexander the Great. Egyptian art is interesting, but only the stuff in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo because they have King Tut's mask and other stuff like that. I didn't have a chance to see that museum while in Cairo but I might go back to Cairo next weekend to see the museum. It's a 2 1/2 hour train ride and I'm more familiar with the train now so it's not a big deal.
I digress again! In the museum I was not feeling very well AT ALL! It was already like 7 p.m. and we had been running around all day long in the sun and wind and the heat. I felt like I was going to pass out and I told Kate that I needed water ASAP or else things were gonna get bad. She didn't understand and I was like, "No, you don't understand, I need water NOW!" We had already been in this little museum for like 1 1/2 hours...enough for me to look at a lot of things twice. It wasn't that big to begin with! So, I was really annoyed and cranky and tired and hungry and thirsty. I was not a happy camper and Kate kept wanting to see EVERYTHING around Alex as if we were leaving for another the next day and would never be back. I said, "Kate...we LIVE here. Get over it! We can come back!" I think she's wanting to get everything in because she's planning on leaving in January. The school doesn't know it, but she's not staying. I don't blame her. This place is not for her. I plan on making the best of it and using my experience to get a little niche here. The director listens to me and respects me as a professional. Mish mush killuh! :-)
So, the story isn't over yet. The day before the adventure Patrick invited me & Kate to go to a Chinese restaurant in a really old, fancy, westernized hotel on the Corniche (sea side road). He wanted us to go at 8 p.m. and it was like 7 p.m. when we got out of the library. We only left because it was closing then (thank goodness!) So I called Patrick and he said that he and Sameh would meet us at the restaurant. I asked Patrick exactly where the Hotel Cecil was and he said near the library but he wasn't sure how far. So I was able to get some water when we left & me & Kate headed down the Corniche in the direction we thought the hotel was in. Well, we walked and walked and walked and I was like "Where the HELL is this place? I'm exhausted and can hardly take another step!" So I stopped at a little convenience store and asked the guy "Feyn Cecil Hotel?" (Where is Cecil Hotel?) The guy pointed in the direction we had just come from. I asked if it was past the library and he said yes. SHIT! We had walked the wrong way. At that point a guy who had been driving a horse and carriage walked up next to us and joined the conversation. He said he would take us to the hotel for 20 pounds ($4.00). I was like "no way! 20 pounds is too much!" The convenience store guy said, "Take a taxi for 5 pounds." So I hailed a taxi and asked if he could take us to the Cecil Hotel. Then I asked "Bi kam, khmamsa pounds?" How much, 5 pounds? He said "La'a" which means no and I grabbed Kate again and left all the guys standing there arguing over who was going to take us and how much they were going to charge. They were LOUD too and the horse guy was totally pissed at the taxi driver. I don't know why but I grabbed Kate & we got out of there. As we were walking a guy was standing on the corner waving emphatically at us and saying "Hi! Hi!" We were like "Hi" and smiled. The next thing we knew the horse & buggy guy came flying up beside us (going the WRONG direction of traffic) almost running over the poor waving man and the driver was shouting something in Arabic. Me & Kate started running and I grabbed Kate's arm and took her down the stairs to the underground to that takes people to the other side of the street. It's a good thing that was there or we would have been in trouble. We came up on the other side of the Corniche and we peeked around the corner before going up the stairs. The horse & carriage guy had turned his horse around and was walking back the correct way. WHEW! That was a close one. I don't even know how I had the energy to run and go up the stairs to the other side. When I got up the stairs my legs felt like lead! We stopped and Kate had a banana left in her bag so we shared it and guess what I found in my bag that I had forgotten? Yellow steaks! (cheese & peanut butter crakers!) Thanks Zack for introducing those to me & thanks mom for sending them to me! :-) They saved me! So we re-energized and got walking again. People sitting along the Corniche were going "pssss psssss" all over the place. That's how they call people around here when they want someone's attention. It was sooo annoying because we heard it ALL day and "Welcome" "Welcome in Egypt." We weren't in the mood, plus there were rats everywhere down by the sea where people were fishing. We were watching the rats running around and thinking "Where the HELL is this hotel?" So we kept walking and walking and walking (plus it was cold because it's fall here and we were by the water so I was freezing. Kate was okay)and I had like 2,000 year old dead people dust on me and I smelled sooo bad! We walked to the area where the nice hotels were and I saw the Windsor Palace Hotel which is the one I got confused with the Cecil Hotel. Therefore, I didn't know where the Cecil Hotel was. So I asked someone on the Corniche. This one woman just looked at me like I was crazy and then a young kid came up and asked if we needed help. We asked where the Hotel was and he pointed in the direction where we had just come from. "!@#$%^&*()_+@#$%^&*()_#$%^&*()_+" I was sooooooooooooo angry. Not angry at anybody, just angry that we coulnd't find it! So, who walks up behind us but a horse and buggy driver (not THE horse and buggy guy, but A horse and buggy guy) I asked him where the hotel was and he said 5 minutes the other way and he would take us there for 5 pounds. At that point I was exhausted and just wanted to be at the place. Somehow Kate wasn't exhausted then(she is today though, hehehe) and I said, "Fine, let's go." So we got into the buggy with this poor bony horse pulling it. I wanted to give him a 100 pounds of carrots and hay and feed. I felt so bad for him. I was a little skeptical of the guy to begin with and then he said, "I'll take you to Fort Qaiteby" and then back to Cecil Hotel. I was shouting, "La'a! Cecil Hotel dilwatee." That means, "No, Cecil Hotel NOW!" He didn't listen and I was PISSED! He took us like 10 minutes away by buggy to the fort and said, "I get out and I wait here. I and I get out and I wait here." I knew what he meant and I said, "La'a...we're not moving. Yella (let's go)" Me & Kate just sat there & wouldn't get out. Then the guy said okay and we started moving again. Then he said, "I go around for an hour and back to Cecil Hotel." I told him "Cecil Hotel dilwatee!" (now) Then he tried to stop at the mosque for us to look around and right then I got on the phone with Patrick who was waiting for us at the restaurant/hotel with Sameh. When I got on the phone the driver shaped up and didn't try to stop at the mosque. He booked it down the street with us to get to the hotel. I told Patrick we were whisked away by some freaking horse & buggy guy & Patrick was like " WHAT? Don't go with those guys, they're mean!" SHIT I wish I would have known that before! He kept asking where we were and my plan was to give the guy the 20 pounds once we passed the Windsor Palace Hotel and push Kate out and jump out of the moving buggy. That's the only way we would have gotten off if it weren't for my phone call to Patrick. So, Patrick was on the phone with me and said, "Wait, I think we see you!" I started shouting "Hena" in Arabic which means "here" and buggy guy pulled over. I gave him the 20 pounds and jumped out and ran up to Patrick and Sameh and was frantically telling them the story about what happened. They were like "Slow down it's okay, you're safe now." The buggy driver was lurking around and Sameh (who is Egyptian) gave the buggy guy a look like "Don't come near us" because the buggy driver was hanging around as if we wanted to try to talk to us or see if we really knew those guys. We finally went inside the hotel/restaurant and I felt safe. Oh by the way, Sameh is Patrick's American/Egyptian friend. He's got an American and Egyptian passports but came back to Egypt for about a year now to see his family and start grad school. He's really cool and really really hot. I met him once before and was glad to see him and Patrick standing on the street. I'm sure the buggy driver backed away because he saw us with an Egyptian. If it was just Patrick I don't think it would have been as easy. So we ate at a really nice Chinese restaurant in the hotel. Yes, Chinese. The hotel is a very westernized hotel and people from America & Europe stay there. I don't know why they don't have Egyptian food there. Egyptian food is really good! Oh well, the Chinese food was okay...it was Chinese food. I was starving and would usually not eat all the food on my plate, but since I've been here I've lost weight, I had been walking all day, and since I've seen how poor many people are here...I always eat everything on my plate now.
We ate Chinese, had ice cream, and then headed back to the apartment. By the time we got back it was midnight. I was soooo exhausted I could barely even walk. Plus I had a back pack on my back ALL day and there is nooooo hot water in our apartment so I had to take a freaking cold shower. The heater should be fixed this week. Thank goodness because exploring Egypt requires a looooooong hot shower afterwards.
Yesterday Kate & I decided to venture off to see some cool sights and try the public transportation. There is no subway system here (only in Cairo) and the only modes of transportation are taxis, buses, mini buses, service-taxis, painfully slow moving tram and...well...walking. Taxis are sketcy and really expensive and the drivers are mean, buses are okay but they are packed with people sitting down and standing up. The mini-buses are the same except they are like mini-vans packed with people. I haven't figured out the service-taxis yet and the tram is a rickety old train thing like in San Francisco that looks like it's chuggin along on it's last leg. I guess it's okay if you want to see the sights, but it's not exactly the touristy thing...I'd rather walk.
We live down the street from a train station so Kate & I went there to see if we could catch a bus. It's utter chaos on the bus side and we had no idea which bus to take. One guy stopped and asked if we needed help. We asked him how to get to Kom-Al-Shuqqafa (the catacombs) He had no idea what we were saying because our accent is really bad! hahaha We showed him a map and he said it's really far away and that we had a couple of different options. He said that he would call his friend to take us there. We were like "Well, we want to get there on our own...how do we get there?" He told us that if we took a taxi it would cost 3-4 pounds. I laughed and said, "Yeah, for YOU! How much for a foreigner?" (Foreigners ALWAYS pay twice as much because drivers assume we don't know how much it should cost. There are no meters in taxis...prices must be negotiated before getting into the car, and hopefully the driver will keep his word). Anyway, the guy caught a taxi for us and worked out a deal of 7 pounds ($1.25) It was twice what he would pay, but still not bad. Oh and we found out that Kom-Al-Shuqqafa is pronounced (kom al shuwayfa) Who would have thought? There are two q's in it! I guess the two q's are realized as a w. I'll have to look that up.
So we got dropped off safely at one place and we had to walk up a really busy, dirty, disgusting street to get to the catacombs. The street people had furniture (nice looking, too) set up on the side of the road next to a HUGE open garbage dump with the chickens & sheep standing on top of it and eating. The sheep were laying and eating out of trough down one of the side roads. Little kids were running around us saying "HI! What's your name?" It's cute because that's the only words they know. They say "What's your name?" and look shocked when we actually respond. The kids and adults were yelling after us "Welcome in Egypt!" That is actually quite a comfort. They LOVE Americans. I told so many people I was from America yesterday and they were all soooo happy. People would ask "Where are you from?" and I say "Ana min amreeka" (I'm from America) and Kate would say "New Zealand." People would ignore Kate and say to me, "Amreeka good. Amreeka very good." It's comforting to know that they love Americans. And they really do love us. They know that America gives loads of money to Egypt for tourism and Egypt would be nothing without tourism. Plus they watch American movies and know about American culture through movies, TV shows, and music. Through those mediums they see how important it is to know English. It's good to know English to be able to be like the people on TV, which they see as good.
I digress! So we went to Kom-Al-Shuqqafa which was really really cool. It's an underground city of catacombs (Christian tombs) from about 1,000 B.C. up until like 400 B.C. They found this sight in 1900 and they only reason they found it is because a donkey was walking along and suddenly fell through the earth. Another archaeological sight was found that same way...hmmm...that's why I avoid walking on grates in the street. I'm totally paranoid now. Anyway, the catacombs were underground and showed the little spaces in the walls where the bodies were buried. It's was interesting because it showed a mix of Greek, Egyptian, and Roman funerary art mixed together. They were all such powerful civilazations during their times and the times that their civilizations existed overlap each other back in the day and it's funny to see how they thought that each one borrowed stuff from each other and thought higly of the other civilazatins. There were cool statues and paintings on the wall showing the different gods taking the organs out of the bodies and weighing them and then mummifying the bodies. The Egyptians were polytheistic (they worshipped many gods) but these paintings were found in Christian catacombs so I'm wondering why there are images of the gods mummifying people. There is also evidence that Jews were buried there and there was a Star of David painted on the ceiling of one of the chambers. A lot of the catacombs were flooded because they are all underground. It was creepy to think that there were hundreds of dead bodies in there at one time. We were down underground for about an hour and the air was definitely different. Needless to say when we got back to the surface it was nicer to breathe the polluted outside air!
So after Kom-Al-Shuqqafa we ventured to the Graeco-Roman Amphitheater. We weren't sure how to get there and it was really hard to catch a taxi so we started walking. We walked down a street that was like a HUGE open market. It was like a flea market in the U.S. except it was only on one side of the road and there was nothing covering stuff for sale. We walked down this street and EVERYONE was shouting out "Welcome in Egypt!" and "HI! How are you?" It's only men that do that. The women just look. One man walked past as said, "Can we f$%&?" I said, "Im shee, hanwen!" (Get away animal!) I was really happy that I got to say it! yay! I felt so much better being able to say rude back to them. It's actually more frustrating telling someone to f-off in a language they don't understand. They guy just kept walking and didn't bother us anymore. They say those things just to be rude. One guy walked past and said something rude and I said, "it derem nafsack!" which means behave yourself and the a bunch of guys sarcastically said,"oooooooooooh". Yeah, so I guess that phrase isn't harsh enough. One of Patrick's guy friends is going to teach me how to cuss people (guys) out in Arabic. I really need that for defense. Once they know (think) I speak Arabic they pretty much back off. One guy came up and was walking beside me and kept asking "Inglaizi bass? Tekelem Inglaizi bass?" He was asking if I only spoke English. Then he said something about Arabic and English and he wasn't asking if I spoke English. I think he was asking if I would only have sex with someone who is English or with Arabs. He kept asking and saying the same thing and finally I just grabbed Kate and told him "Im shee hanwen" (get away animal). So, that was our experience walking down just one street in Egypt for like 5 minutes. People were selling little chickens, dogs, cats, birds, rabbits and stuff. It was funny because when me & Kate walked past people stopped shopping and looking at the animals to watch us walk past and say "Hi. Welcome in Egypt!" We heard 'welcome in Egypt' so many times yesterday we were kind of sick of it.
So we got to the Roman amphitheater and of course, people everywhere in Egypt want to work and the tourist sights are no exception. Me & Kate bought our tickets and a guy who was at the counter said, "You need a separate ticket for the Mosaic of the Birds." So, okay, I bought another ticket and I asked him where the mosaics were? He said, "I'll show during our tour." I was thinking "hmmmmmm, I'm not letting this guy show me around." So I went inside and the guards who sign people in pointed for me to give my ticket to the guy who was playing guide (dressed in plain clothes.) I said "You're the people I give my ticket to and YOU'RE just the guide." He took my ticket anyway and ripped it and said, "Okay, let's go." I said, "No WAY I'm not paying you to show me around here so you can just forget about it." He said, "No it's okay, we can negotiate a deal now. However much you want to pay." Me & Kate both told him that we have a guide book and knew what we were looking at. The guy kept insisting and I told him that I wasn't paying him anything and I grabbed Kate and we walked away. Luckily there was a HUGE group of people not far from the entrance and the guy giving the tour was speaking English. So me & Kate joined the tour. It's a good thing because the wanna be money makin tour guide had followed us and I know was going to hassle us but I started talking to someone in the tour and the annoyer backed off. We got there at just the right time because the guy giving the tour turned out to be a professor of Egyptology from the American University in Cairo and he brought all of his students to Alexandria to see some sights that they had been studying. I started talking to one guy and he invited us to join the tour. I asked if it was okay and the guy said, "Yeah, the prof won't even know the difference anyway." Which is funny because that's pretty much how it is in college. The profs don't even know most of the students' names, much less faces because classes are so huge. So we followed them around and got a nice, monetarily and hassle free tour of the ruins. Plus, the guy I was talking to was able to tell me & Kate all the places he's been to in Egypt and Israel. He gave us some good ideas about places to go to and how much time to spend there.
After that we went walking to try to find a way to get home. At this time it was already like 4 p.m. I was so exhausted and cranky, thirsty, hungry, and tired. We ate lunch, but it was so hot and I didn't have enough water with me. So we walked and decided to hit the library because it was on the way back...well...it was in the direction of the sea, which is our landmark and makes it easy to not get lost when we know where the sea is. Anyway, we went to the Alexandria Library which is one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) library in the world. Alexander the Great founded the city of Alexandria and he established the world's first library in Alex. Of course this isn't the same library but they certainly have a lot to boast about. We had to pay to get into the library and walk around ($2.00) and then we saw a museum inside with Greek and Roman statues and really well preserved mosaics and sarcophogi and mummies. I'm beginning to think that the Egyptians were really small people because I saw a mummified woman and she was only about 4'5" tall. I thought it might have been a child but the tag said it was a woman. I was extremely excited about all the Graeco-Roman art they had in there. There was a huge bust of Socrates and one of Alexander the Great. Egyptian art is interesting, but only the stuff in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo because they have King Tut's mask and other stuff like that. I didn't have a chance to see that museum while in Cairo but I might go back to Cairo next weekend to see the museum. It's a 2 1/2 hour train ride and I'm more familiar with the train now so it's not a big deal.
I digress again! In the museum I was not feeling very well AT ALL! It was already like 7 p.m. and we had been running around all day long in the sun and wind and the heat. I felt like I was going to pass out and I told Kate that I needed water ASAP or else things were gonna get bad. She didn't understand and I was like, "No, you don't understand, I need water NOW!" We had already been in this little museum for like 1 1/2 hours...enough for me to look at a lot of things twice. It wasn't that big to begin with! So, I was really annoyed and cranky and tired and hungry and thirsty. I was not a happy camper and Kate kept wanting to see EVERYTHING around Alex as if we were leaving for another the next day and would never be back. I said, "Kate...we LIVE here. Get over it! We can come back!" I think she's wanting to get everything in because she's planning on leaving in January. The school doesn't know it, but she's not staying. I don't blame her. This place is not for her. I plan on making the best of it and using my experience to get a little niche here. The director listens to me and respects me as a professional. Mish mush killuh! :-)
So, the story isn't over yet. The day before the adventure Patrick invited me & Kate to go to a Chinese restaurant in a really old, fancy, westernized hotel on the Corniche (sea side road). He wanted us to go at 8 p.m. and it was like 7 p.m. when we got out of the library. We only left because it was closing then (thank goodness!) So I called Patrick and he said that he and Sameh would meet us at the restaurant. I asked Patrick exactly where the Hotel Cecil was and he said near the library but he wasn't sure how far. So I was able to get some water when we left & me & Kate headed down the Corniche in the direction we thought the hotel was in. Well, we walked and walked and walked and I was like "Where the HELL is this place? I'm exhausted and can hardly take another step!" So I stopped at a little convenience store and asked the guy "Feyn Cecil Hotel?" (Where is Cecil Hotel?) The guy pointed in the direction we had just come from. I asked if it was past the library and he said yes. SHIT! We had walked the wrong way. At that point a guy who had been driving a horse and carriage walked up next to us and joined the conversation. He said he would take us to the hotel for 20 pounds ($4.00). I was like "no way! 20 pounds is too much!" The convenience store guy said, "Take a taxi for 5 pounds." So I hailed a taxi and asked if he could take us to the Cecil Hotel. Then I asked "Bi kam, khmamsa pounds?" How much, 5 pounds? He said "La'a" which means no and I grabbed Kate again and left all the guys standing there arguing over who was going to take us and how much they were going to charge. They were LOUD too and the horse guy was totally pissed at the taxi driver. I don't know why but I grabbed Kate & we got out of there. As we were walking a guy was standing on the corner waving emphatically at us and saying "Hi! Hi!" We were like "Hi" and smiled. The next thing we knew the horse & buggy guy came flying up beside us (going the WRONG direction of traffic) almost running over the poor waving man and the driver was shouting something in Arabic. Me & Kate started running and I grabbed Kate's arm and took her down the stairs to the underground to that takes people to the other side of the street. It's a good thing that was there or we would have been in trouble. We came up on the other side of the Corniche and we peeked around the corner before going up the stairs. The horse & carriage guy had turned his horse around and was walking back the correct way. WHEW! That was a close one. I don't even know how I had the energy to run and go up the stairs to the other side. When I got up the stairs my legs felt like lead! We stopped and Kate had a banana left in her bag so we shared it and guess what I found in my bag that I had forgotten? Yellow steaks! (cheese & peanut butter crakers!) Thanks Zack for introducing those to me & thanks mom for sending them to me! :-) They saved me! So we re-energized and got walking again. People sitting along the Corniche were going "pssss psssss" all over the place. That's how they call people around here when they want someone's attention. It was sooo annoying because we heard it ALL day and "Welcome" "Welcome in Egypt." We weren't in the mood, plus there were rats everywhere down by the sea where people were fishing. We were watching the rats running around and thinking "Where the HELL is this hotel?" So we kept walking and walking and walking (plus it was cold because it's fall here and we were by the water so I was freezing. Kate was okay)and I had like 2,000 year old dead people dust on me and I smelled sooo bad! We walked to the area where the nice hotels were and I saw the Windsor Palace Hotel which is the one I got confused with the Cecil Hotel. Therefore, I didn't know where the Cecil Hotel was. So I asked someone on the Corniche. This one woman just looked at me like I was crazy and then a young kid came up and asked if we needed help. We asked where the Hotel was and he pointed in the direction where we had just come from. "!@#$%^&*()_+@#$%^&*()_#$%^&*()_+" I was sooooooooooooo angry. Not angry at anybody, just angry that we coulnd't find it! So, who walks up behind us but a horse and buggy driver (not THE horse and buggy guy, but A horse and buggy guy) I asked him where the hotel was and he said 5 minutes the other way and he would take us there for 5 pounds. At that point I was exhausted and just wanted to be at the place. Somehow Kate wasn't exhausted then(she is today though, hehehe) and I said, "Fine, let's go." So we got into the buggy with this poor bony horse pulling it. I wanted to give him a 100 pounds of carrots and hay and feed. I felt so bad for him. I was a little skeptical of the guy to begin with and then he said, "I'll take you to Fort Qaiteby" and then back to Cecil Hotel. I was shouting, "La'a! Cecil Hotel dilwatee." That means, "No, Cecil Hotel NOW!" He didn't listen and I was PISSED! He took us like 10 minutes away by buggy to the fort and said, "I get out and I wait here. I and I get out and I wait here." I knew what he meant and I said, "La'a...we're not moving. Yella (let's go)" Me & Kate just sat there & wouldn't get out. Then the guy said okay and we started moving again. Then he said, "I go around for an hour and back to Cecil Hotel." I told him "Cecil Hotel dilwatee!" (now) Then he tried to stop at the mosque for us to look around and right then I got on the phone with Patrick who was waiting for us at the restaurant/hotel with Sameh. When I got on the phone the driver shaped up and didn't try to stop at the mosque. He booked it down the street with us to get to the hotel. I told Patrick we were whisked away by some freaking horse & buggy guy & Patrick was like " WHAT? Don't go with those guys, they're mean!" SHIT I wish I would have known that before! He kept asking where we were and my plan was to give the guy the 20 pounds once we passed the Windsor Palace Hotel and push Kate out and jump out of the moving buggy. That's the only way we would have gotten off if it weren't for my phone call to Patrick. So, Patrick was on the phone with me and said, "Wait, I think we see you!" I started shouting "Hena" in Arabic which means "here" and buggy guy pulled over. I gave him the 20 pounds and jumped out and ran up to Patrick and Sameh and was frantically telling them the story about what happened. They were like "Slow down it's okay, you're safe now." The buggy driver was lurking around and Sameh (who is Egyptian) gave the buggy guy a look like "Don't come near us" because the buggy driver was hanging around as if we wanted to try to talk to us or see if we really knew those guys. We finally went inside the hotel/restaurant and I felt safe. Oh by the way, Sameh is Patrick's American/Egyptian friend. He's got an American and Egyptian passports but came back to Egypt for about a year now to see his family and start grad school. He's really cool and really really hot. I met him once before and was glad to see him and Patrick standing on the street. I'm sure the buggy driver backed away because he saw us with an Egyptian. If it was just Patrick I don't think it would have been as easy. So we ate at a really nice Chinese restaurant in the hotel. Yes, Chinese. The hotel is a very westernized hotel and people from America & Europe stay there. I don't know why they don't have Egyptian food there. Egyptian food is really good! Oh well, the Chinese food was okay...it was Chinese food. I was starving and would usually not eat all the food on my plate, but since I've been here I've lost weight, I had been walking all day, and since I've seen how poor many people are here...I always eat everything on my plate now.
We ate Chinese, had ice cream, and then headed back to the apartment. By the time we got back it was midnight. I was soooo exhausted I could barely even walk. Plus I had a back pack on my back ALL day and there is nooooo hot water in our apartment so I had to take a freaking cold shower. The heater should be fixed this week. Thank goodness because exploring Egypt requires a looooooong hot shower afterwards.