Made it to Egypt, and the food is yummy!

Got through airport security in Seattle quickly which is always good. The first flight which was only 4 hrs wasn’t too painful. The 2nd flight which was 8 hrs long was however quite painful, even though I did get to select between 20 different movies to watch on my personal seat back mini tv screen, and had my palm pilot with me full of songs. Then there was the severely painful 9 hour wait at the Amsterdamn airport. I was far too tired to go traveling into the city, and unfortunately also too tired to enjoy the art museum in the airport, or the meditation room. It was mostly sleeping and using their overpriced wifi during the airport visit. I bought a very small lunch and mentioned to the person beside me that this was the most expensive food I had ever seen. He looked shocked, then said “welcome to Holland” LOL. I skipped the $50 lunch at the restaurant, and went for the $15 rice bowl at the asian place instead. At least the food in the airport is a hair better then the food on the airplane. NWA’s attempt at curry was pathetic.

If I had known about it, and had a bit more spare money, I would have been seriously tempted to stay in the hotel here at the airport! It is quite handy, you don’t even have to leave the airport, and you don’t even have to go through security again, the hotel is right here in the main area of the airport. However at $120 for a few extra hours sleep I would likely to have to be more tired then this to not just grab one of the lounge chairs and call it good. It is 3 degrees here in Amsterdam, and will be at least 20 when I get to Egypt. So now I only have 6 hrs to go until I am standing in Egypt! I can’t wait, but do hope I will get some more sleep before then. I will be arriving at 2am Egypt time, so unfortunately most everything will be closed. I will want to find a restaurant asap to make up for the past 24 hours of food horror. I’m sure sleeping will be a chore since I know as soon as I wake up I’ll be able to see Cairo properly. On a side note, my inflatable travel pillow was well worth whatever I paid for it :).

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Well I made it across the Egyptian border just fine, and fortunately had the help of the hotel I’m staying at. It’s awfully nice here, marble tile floors, marble counters, nice furnishings and so on. I can only imagine what the nice hotels are like! This is one of the budget lowest cost hotels in Cairo, well the one with air conditioning *and* your own toilet that is lol. I decided to splurge a little and not get the $2 per night place.

I just love the hotel’s version of their wifi lounge ;>. It’s basically a few chairs and tables and a nice couch up on the 13th floor of the building, and very nicely breezy on a hot day. However wifi in north America and wifi in Egypt are 2 completely different things. This wifi makes dialup seem luxurious lol. Apparently they also serve breakfast up here, but I wouldn’t know about that yet as I got up too late today to enjoy it.

I made a trip around downtown walking around enjoying the sites. Apparently you can purchase any and every sort of tool, or piece part for machinery from people who put down blankets full of stuff for sale on the sidewalks. You can also get lunch (the largest meal of the day) for around $2-$5! I managed to have an “essential oil” dealer try to rip me off, and some other guy swear at me and threaten me worse then I could have managed! I walked out of the first shop after making some rude comment, and tried my best to give the second guy the evil eye. The perfume dealer even went so far as to lie about the closing time of the Egyptian museum to get me to visit his shop instead. He apparently sells his oils to the body shop. From what I have seen of the body shop they are fake shit. I’m pretty sure what he was trying to sell me was fake as well, even though he had pretty pictures of his supposed flower farms.

Lunch was some lamb and ochre. It was OK, and I probably could have done better if I had chosen one out of the guide book instead of just randomly walking into a place that looked busy with locals. The guide books seems to exaggerate about everything in Egypt, both good and bad. There are not fresh squeezed fruit juice stands everywhere, I only saw 3 on a several hour walk, and I didn’t see any pomegranates or mangos. The men aren’t quite as bad here as people make out, and only 1 in every 100 Egyptians tried to offer to be my tour guide. The best thing is that I haven’t been asked for bakshish even once yet! Even the people who picked me up from the hotel, and the hotel staff didn’t ask. Needless to say I gave them more then I would have if they asked.

Cairo looks much like any other large city accept you have to be pretty careful crossing the streets, there is Arabic writing on all the storefronts, and the woman walk around wearing far too much for weather this warm. Fortunately it’s not all that hot yet, more about just right. However 2 months from now I’m thinking it might be too hot.

Apparently 3am is a prayer time (they are crazy!) as well as 6am, and a few other times. I hear them during the night since I leave my balcony door of my hotel room open to get the nice breeze in my room. I find this to be much nicer (and quieter) then the AC. The AC does work, but is a bit loud. However a nice breeze in a dark place seems to be the best way to beat the heat around here.

I haven’t taken any photos yet, I was too busy finding my way around and thinking about the dozen new blisters on my feet from these damn fancy sandals lol.

I went out for dinner, as there really is no point trying to cook for myself when dinner is only $4 with the special tourist price I’m sure I was charged. The price on the menu was $1.50 for dinner, and I of course did ask for a special order, but still how it went from $1.50 to $4.00 I’m not so sure. Anyways, it was the best beef kofta I have ever had, so I will live with the price.

I haven’t yet seen any tourist items accept for a couple of small statues and a few papyri, but I’m sure I’ll find it all soon enough. I only packed a few t-shirts for my trip thinking I could purchase a few here. I’m hoping to find some that aren’t cheesy! This country has a LOT of clothing stores! I mean even more then the US. You find about 20 clothing stores per block if you count both sides of the street. Aside from the clothing stores there seems to be store after store that is trying to sell you luggage. In north America the shopkeepers generally sit inside the store and wait for people to come in; well in Egypt aggressive salesmanship definitely seems the way to go. I’m hoping I will find some essential oils that aren’t just fake perfume oil soon.