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Cairo Tower
Your tax dollars at work! A word on Arabic class: so far we have learned how to greet someone, how to ask a person's name and respond, how to say where we're from, and how to count. We also learned to write our names, and mine is quite pretty! It's pronounced Keelley though, because Arabic doesn't have a keh sound, evidently.
Today in the cab on the way to the Fulbright commission, we sat in a traffic jam and I realized how hot I was. Today has been the first day that was really bad, and here's why: it was 107! Whew! I've been guzzling water like it's my job, but I still feel sick. But we entertained ourselves while sitting on the hot pavement breathing in exhaust fumes by trying to read the numbers on the license plates. Some of the letters are difficult to pronounce - lots of hacking up a lung noises - and hard to differentiate, but hey, a challenge is good, right?
Later, we went to Cairo Tower, which is a 15 storey tower. It's only purpose is to be a look-out point. Here's the best part: it was built shortly after the Aswan Dam because since the
A view down the Nile
This is looking north, along the flow of the Nile. Clearly this is a gargantuan city! Russians helped build the dam, Amrika (as they call America here) was worried Russia would draw Egypt into its fold. America upped the funding here - your tax dollars at work! - and one of the results was a rather useless observation tower! But hey, it's a great vantage point and I took some nice picture of the city.
Oh!!! And we were able to see the pyramids from the tower, to which we go on Friday. I'm excited!
Tomorrow we are meeting a prominent Egyptian blogger is very opposed to the government. His moniker is the Sand Monkey (hardee har har), and he's actual had to stop blogging for fear of being arrested! I'm really beginning to see what they mean by totalitarian government!
I also think that the government must have issued a state-wide decree that it is required of all male Egyptians to smoke heavily EVERYWHERE. Perhaps this is secretly a plan to kill everyone off young and bring down the population. I can't say I would mind. This city is unbelieveably crowded! We've been playing real-life Frogger games when walking down or crossing the street.
And I think the most important part
of any car here is the horn. I've begun to think that the cars wouldn't work without their horns for how frequently they're used. And different honks mean different things. There's the "I'm coming up, watch out" horn, and the "move!" horn, and the "hello!" horn, and even a "I sure like the beat of this song, I think I'll honk along to it!" horn. The drivers here are incredible. I can't even begin to fathom how they all do it. They must have a spidey-sense! They zoom through the narrowest of spaces and lane-lines mean absolutely nothing.
We also went to the embassy yesterday and talked with the Public Affairs officer and a consular officer. Who knows, the foreign service might be a lot of fun! You are taught to be fluent in a language of your choosing and oh, the travel opportunities!
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Nick
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wonderful pictures
Great comments, beautiful pictures, keep it coming, tell us more of what you see as common and different!