I've been sick the past few days, so I haven't had any adventures of note. Instead, I'm going to post a few of the comments over the past few weeks that I've made in the notebook that I carry around with me during the day:
No one in Cairo walks on the sidewalk. At first, I assumed that most Egyptians feel they are not cheating death enough by merely driving in their traffic, so they choose to subject themselves to it when they are even more vulnerable. After a few blocks of walking their streets, I begin to understand - Cairo's sidewalks are barely paved, even in the wealthy area where I live. Some patches are dirt, some have stone paving, now a buckled mess to trip over, and the entrances to driveways are a good two-foot curb to climb over every few meters. During the summer, the condensation from the air-conditioners above drips down in a slimy rain at random intervals on the sidewalk. Near the embassies and government buildings, the guard stands impede traffic, forcing anyone on the sidewalk to edge his way around a guard with a Soviet-issue rifle or a police dog wearing a muzzle.
Dodging traffic looks appealing.
All of the girls that I went to the pyramids with tried to dress conservatively despite the heat. We got there at the same time that a tour bus let of a group of German tourists - wearing beach-wear.
At dinner the other night, one girl complained that every time she gets into a taxi, it tries to take her to Zamalek (the neighborhood where I live and the most Westernized part of the city). another girl told her that she was lucky, she got proposed to by the driver on most cab drivers. I can't imagine that conversation taking place in any other city: "Every time I get in a cab, I tell it to take me to Harlem, but he gets on the bridge to Jersey City instead, but at least the driver doesn't propose to me."
"Tomorrow" is a loose concept. Apparently, it means "Sometime in the future, not today, probably not the day after today, or the day after that. Come check back with us in about a week and we'll see if we've learned anything new."
The primary export of America to Egypt is bad pop music. No wonder we aren't that popular in the Arab world.
What exactly are cow-heads used for that merits them being the most common item for sale on the street in old Cairo?
Coptic Christians write in Greek. My Latin seems even more useless now.
In Egypt, you are not required to pay taxes on a building until it is complete. Almost all apartment buildings have scaffolding on the top floor, even if the building is thirty years old. I thought this was ridiculous until I remembered highway construction in Alabama consisting of only a few barrels for years after the actual work is done.
No one in Cairo walks on the sidewalk. At first, I assumed that most Egyptians feel they are not cheating death enough by merely driving in their traffic, so they choose to subject themselves to it when they are even more vulnerable. After a few blocks of walking their streets, I begin to understand - Cairo's sidewalks are barely paved, even in the wealthy area where I live. Some patches are dirt, some have stone paving, now a buckled mess to trip over, and the entrances to driveways are a good two-foot curb to climb over every few meters. During the summer, the condensation from the air-conditioners above drips down in a slimy rain at random intervals on the sidewalk. Near the embassies and government buildings, the guard stands impede traffic, forcing anyone on the sidewalk to edge his way around a guard with a Soviet-issue rifle or a police dog wearing a muzzle.
Dodging traffic looks appealing.
All of the girls that I went to the pyramids with tried to dress conservatively despite the heat. We got there at the same time that a tour bus let of a group of German tourists - wearing beach-wear.
At dinner the other night, one girl complained that every time she gets into a taxi, it tries to take her to Zamalek (the neighborhood where I live and the most Westernized part of the city). another girl told her that she was lucky, she got proposed to by the driver on most cab drivers. I can't imagine that conversation taking place in any other city: "Every time I get in a cab, I tell it to take me to Harlem, but he gets on the bridge to Jersey City instead, but at least the driver doesn't propose to me."
"Tomorrow" is a loose concept. Apparently, it means "Sometime in the future, not today, probably not the day after today, or the day after that. Come check back with us in about a week and we'll see if we've learned anything new."
The primary export of America to Egypt is bad pop music. No wonder we aren't that popular in the Arab world.
What exactly are cow-heads used for that merits them being the most common item for sale on the street in old Cairo?
Coptic Christians write in Greek. My Latin seems even more useless now.
In Egypt, you are not required to pay taxes on a building until it is complete. Almost all apartment buildings have scaffolding on the top floor, even if the building is thirty years old. I thought this was ridiculous until I remembered highway construction in Alabama consisting of only a few barrels for years after the actual work is done.
posted by David at 3:06 PM
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