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Published: October 8th 2007
All I can say about this weekend is WOW! It feels like our weekend started last wednesday with our BCCIS If Tar. I have mentioned before that If Tar is the daily breaking of the fast. It is very family oriented and even if families are busy the rest of the year, the month of If Tar requires dinners together with family and friends every evening. On wednesday we set up a huge pot luck, or dish party as they call it, where all the children and their families come with a dish to share. The food was unreal, but gone in an instant...I have never seen a buffet like this before. There were about 6 tables of food and another 3 for dessert!!! It was an experience trying to get some food on my plate because there was no line up whatsoever. It was a giant free for all, elbows and all trying to reach in and get some food, which I might mention had no serving utensils. Anyway, the food was delicious and I was painfully stuffed by the end of it of course. We had stayed at the school after school for a staff meeting at 330, If
Tar was at 530 and we left the school at 730pm, arriving home by 830pm, and up again the next day at 530am to get back on the bus and head back to school. OUCH!
Thursday night we went to Ace club for a beer, this is quickly turning into a weekly event! Its startiing to feel a little like a place where everybody knows your name, and your always glad you came..sorry cheezy but true. After that I went on another tour with my egyptian friend to....the bowling alley!!! HAHAH it was hilarious, a little taste of america. Brunswick bowling proram just like home, same graphics on the TV and everything. CHeezy english music, the whole works. If it wasnt for the people bowling in their regular street shoes, and one even in bare feet, I would have forgotten where I was. Next we went to an area called Zamalek, where we walked around and looked at all the embassys. There are a million of them, and they are all beautiful, old french style buildings. Very, very pretty. I was informed that president mubarak's son had recently moved into the area, and so a bunch of the streets had
If Tar
not a very clear pic, but this is the gardens where we had If Tar dinner with all the kids and parentsbeen changed to one-ways to make it easier for him to get to his home. hahah Oh to be egyptian royalty...
Friday night was our canadian thanksgiving...another dish party...we had a couple of Hallel (no idea how to spell it) turkeys and tons of amazing food, including pumpkin cheesecake and pecan pie. I must say everyone did an amazing job creating thanksgiving in a country that doesnt celebrate it. To go back to this Hallel turkey...it is the only way that a muslim will eat meat. It means that the animal was killed humainly. So it never sees the knife,and it is blood-let so that death is quick and painless. even the vegetarians in the group were tempted!
Saturday morning was the big day. We had prearranged for our private taxi to pick us up at 645am to take us to the train station. We arrived with our backpacker backpacks ready for our adventure. Some wonderfullly helpful man at the station offered to read our tickets for us and show us exactly where to go to get on our first class train. Of course, we demanded moola for this service and balked when we gave him 3 pounds...but we got
on our "first class" train and then the man who showed us our seats, with the sweep of a hand, also asked for a bakshish....He was pretty persistant but I had noticed that he didnt do that to anyone else, so I said NO! hahah The train ride was nice, we got to see the farmland all along the nile. The train is only 2 hours, and it takes like 6 to drive, despite the fact that the highway is right beside the train tracks for most of the way. Traffic is apparently a little slow.
The adventure really begins when we get off the train. I had checked out the map and was on a mission to walk to our hotel, because it was quite close, so we brushed past the onslaught of taxi drivers with a quick "La shokrun" (no thanks) and we get outside and there is a very weird energy in the air and a helicopter in the sky. People start running to the square iin front of the station. Like Im talkin women, children, men everyone is running towards this courtyard area in the middle of a rotary. They are all looking up and motioning
for the helicopter to come towards them. Im thinking, ok this heli is gonna land in the middle of the city..cool! NOPE! all of a sudden a huge flutter of money drops from the sky and people all over are scrambling to pick it up!! hahah it was hilarious, I got a decent video of the whole affair and a few pics, but im not sure if you can really see what's going on.
So we walk for a bit, and realize that a map is useless in a country that doesnt use street signs!! SO were kinda wandering around the edge of this rotary when this guy is walking behind us and saying something to us. As usual, we ignore, but he persists and I realize hes saying a few english words that I dont care to repeat!! So I yell get lost and we walk a little quicker, he follows, I give him another mean look (oh boy was he scared! haha RIGHT!) so we quickly decide to hop in a cab ASAP and jsut as were about to step onto the road, he walks by and does a quick little boob grab of one of the girls
our hotel room
cute little room, they put a third single bed on the far right and we all slept side by side, sleepover style im with...she was so shocked that all she could manage was a girlie slap on his back and a swear word! We quickly hopped into the cab and things were fine. It was an interesting experience and we learned a new word from our dictionary that day Imshi (go away!) it was a bit uncomfortable at the time, but we giggled about it by the time we were in the cab!
We checked into the Windsor Palace hotel, a great hotel with British decor as you may have guessed. The room was really cute, 3 single beds all in a row and an unreal view of the med sea. We felt like 3 girls having a sleepover with these little beds all together. After dropping our bags off we decided to get exploring. That lasted about 20 minutes before we were so uncomfortable with all the stares and comments, that we went back to the hotel. We hid in our room for a bit, before deciding that we had to get back out there somehow. We asked the guest relations girl, who spoke fabulous english, about how to get to the alexandria library. We took a taxi there and I
royal elevator
our beauty, old fashioned elevator in the hotel. think I actually said " oh thank god white people taking pictures!!!" thankfully there were tourists around, so we felt much more comfortable there. Unfortunately, the library is no ancient relic. It is a beautiful, modern building that the nearby Alex university uses for its students. There were some areas with manuscripts and an old papyrus machine, but other than that it was a really new library. The highlight was that we used our newly acquired work visas to get a resident entrance price. It was the holiday though so it closed down at 3pm. We went back to the hotel and learned that most touristy stuff would likely be closed now because of the holiday. GREAT! However, guest relations girl said that the Citadel might be open. So we decided that the walk along the conriche would be nice regardless. We braved the streets yet again, and tried not to respond to the frequent comments of "welcome to egypt!" and "I think that I know you from somewhere" and sometiimes just a lovely "hello! how are you!" I know your probably thinking, Leah cmon these people are just trying to be nice...the truth is some of them likely are,
posing
joanna and melissa posin in the hallway but it is impossible to tell which ones are trying to scam you into buying something or doing something with them and which are genuine, so you just keep on walking.
The Citadel was open thankfully and it was amazing. A huge castle that was built on the sight of the old Pharos Lighthouse that crumbled during an earthquake long ago. The castle was built with some of the same rocks. The view from the top of the castle was unbelievable!!
We ate dinner at the FIsh Market, which was unreal and cost about 40 dollars for 3 person seafood feast!.
The next day, we had the Catacombs (ancient burial site), the greco-roman amphitheater, and the beach on our list of things to-do today. After our all inclusive buffet breakfast of various sugar coated or deep fried items, we were offered a tour guide for 100 pounds ( 20 bucks) We were told he spoke very good english and would take us around wherever we wanted to go and then back to the hotel for 12pm to check out. Karim, our guide, was a real character. He was a 28 yr old lawyer, and aspiring judge who did tours every
library
our first touisty stop...to our disappointment not an old, roman library but a very modern, university library...still cool but not exactly what we were lookin for week for fun..and money of course. His english was heavily accented and hard to understand, and jsut when we thought was had explained to him where we wanted to go, he was dropping us off in front of a museum..WAIT!! we wanted the catacombs and the amphitheater...OH! ok as you like..he says.
So We got to see both places which were very cool and very indescribable. In between visits we were peppered with questions about Canada and love. haha yes he wanted us to explain why Canadian girls dont get married, what religion we were and if we had ever been in love. I wont go into detail, but I figured the more extreme I was from what I figured he believed the more entertaining it would be...at the end of the Q and A period, he says to me " you crazy!"
Last stop, he took us to check out at the hotel and then to the sister hotel about 20 mins away that had a private beach and pool that we could use for 50 pounds. We paid him and he said he would call later and let us know if he could pick us up and drive
arrival in alex
the square where everyone was running to when the helicopter dropped tickets or money or something us to the train station for 7pm.
So the next 5 hours were spent on a beautiful beach lying in the sun, fully lathered in sunscreen dont worry, and drifting in and out of sleep. The med sea was amazing to swim in and crash around in the waves. I was able to do a little belly riding on the mini waves into the shoreline...sort of a skimboarding, surfing hybrid..but without the board. When we were all tanned, tired and full of sand, we walked back to the hotel for a pool-side dinner.
I recieved a phonecall from Karim, informing me that he would be unable to pick us up but that the hotel would have a cab waiting for us at 6pm! He also informed me that he comes to Cairo every week and that he wanted to see me..I tried to remain oblivious with a response of..OH! you want to take US on a tour? but being a very straightforward egyptian, he replied..not us..YOU! hahah so I quickly informed him that I was not interested and that WE would call him the next time we were in Alex and in need of a tour.
Just after dinner we
planetarium
outside the library was the planetarium. we didnt get a chance to go in though were approached by an egyptian man who was canadian and was visiting with his egyptian wife...they lived in Montreal. So I brushed up on my francais un petit peu and by the end of the 15 min convo hes giving me his number so we can meet them in Cairo next week. Very lovely and typical egyptian offer, but not likely to happen
So the taxi was waiting after dinner as promised and as we were waiting for the train, we met some teacher from the American International School who had stayed at the same hotel as us. They have been here for 4 years and love it but were very cynical towards Egypt.
The train ride was uneventful, we bartered hard for our ride home to ensure that we didnt over pay for our cab and arrived safely at home, very relaxed, happy and ready for another school week. I will publish the pics to go along with the adventure ASAP.
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Mar
non-member comment
Fun-tastic
Leah, again I have had a great time reading your adventures. I know how you gals might have felt. When I worked in Perú was the same thing (although there was no boob grabbing). Have you tried belly dancing classes yet??? Look forward to the pics! Weather here is no-so-wet today. I can actually see the blue sky. We have had one stuffing dinner yesterday, and preparing for another tonight (I am just having café and a smoothie until supper!) Wish you all a happy thanks giving (count your blessings and good luck). Keep enjoying yourselves!