Last Days in Cairo: 4

Thursday (May 28) of my last week in Cairo Jim and I made our last trip into Islamic Cairo. I had been looking through my trusty National Geographic Traveler guide to Egypt for facts for my posts on touring Islamic Cairo and came across some things that I had missed those first two times around which I felt merited a third and final trip. The first was the Museum of Islamic Art and the second the Gayer-Anderson Museum. The Gayer-Anderson Museum was connected to Ibn-Tulun, which made it even more disappointing to miss since I had just been to Ibn-Tulun the week before.

The Museum of Islamic Art

Jim and I took a cab to Opera Station on Zamalek and took the metro from there to Attba, then walked to the Museum of Islamic Art. This walk was exciting because it was through a part of the city that I really had not been in at all. Spencer and I had walk from Attba to the Khan a couple days before but that was in a completely different direction. It was one of my last days in Cairo and I was excited to again be finding my way around by map in a completely foreign place. We walked to Midan al-Attba and from there the museum was a straight shot down Sharia al-Qal'a. Not too much past an outdoor furniture market was Midan Bab al-Khalq and our museum. The building was a massive tan and brown striped stone structure. We walked up to the entrance on Qal'a Street and were turned away. The guys working the desk inside told us to walk around to the other entrance for the museum. Well the main entrance, facing the square (midan), was bordered up. We walked around the entire perimeter of the building as far was the fences would allow and could not find any alternative entrances. We went back to the first one, on Qal'a Street, and again asked how to get into the museum. It was only then that they told was that the museum was closed and wouldn't reopen for another three months. I'm not exactly sure why they couldn't have told us that the first time around.

I was disappointed about the museum being closed, but this did leave as more time for the rest of our day. Ibn-Tulun, where the Gayer-Anderson museum was located, had to be accessed from either Sharia Bur Said or Sharia Muhammed Ali, both of which met at Midan Bab al-Khalq. We chose Bur Said and walked a distance away from the traffic of the square before hailing a cab. He dropped us off at Ibn-Tulun and we made our way into the mosque. Just like last time, the guards at the entrance were at great pains to emphasize that Ibn-Tulun had no entrance fee and that no one was owed any baqshish. Once inside the outer wall of the mosque complex and in the area between the outer wall and the walls of the mosque proper we took a left. At the corner was the entrance to the Gayer-Anderson Museum, which did require an entrance fee and baqshish paid to the tour guide. The museum was a 16th century house owned by an eccentric British lawyer/doctor/officer in the late imperial period. The interior decorations were preserved, complete with secret passageways, intricate wood lattice work, separate men's and women's lounging areas, isolated courtyards and gardens, rooftop patios looking over the mosque walls, and indoor fountains. Each room had a different purpose and different theme. There was the miniature art gallery and a miniature museum of ancient Egyptian artifacts. Various rooms were Syrian, Turkish, and Chinese themed. There were also the standard sitting, reading, and drafting rooms of such aristocratic British homes, as well as a library. The authentic Islamic architecture and interior decorations made the museum well worth the trip and price.

The Gayer-Anderson Museum from the garden in the back

An interior room of the Gayer-Anderson

A fine example of Gayer-Anderson's eccentricity (that's him in picture if you didn't get the hint)

Jim needed to go to the Khan to pick up some more gifts for family members and I still had two taola boards to pick up from my guy at the woodworking shop. We decided to walk there from Ibn-Tulun and retraced much of the route the taxi had taken us on from the Islamic Art Museum. Again, I really appreciated the opportunity to walk through a part of Cairo so devoid of tourists and people looking to sell to tourists. It felt nice to be in a place where Cairenes went about their daily lives without the intense focus on the tourist economy. We walked northwest on Qadri street, with Ibn-Tulun's distinctive minaret at our backs, until we met up with Bur Said. Here we took a right and walked up to Midan Bab al-Khalq. On the corner of Bur Said and Sharia Ahmad Mahir we found a small, grimy koushary shop and grabbed a cheap lunch. From here we took a right on Ahmad Mahir until we reached Bab Zuwayla, the southern medieval gate of Islamic Cairo. It was refreshing to enter the Khan from such a strange direction. I had been to this part of the bazaar before and had even climbed the western tower of Bab Zuwayla, but I had always come from Midan Hussein and al-Azhar in the north. I had never entered the bazaar from its southern edges, actually entering through that massive stone gate through which so many medieval travelers and merchants must have entered the the old city as well.

I wished to come in this way because I wanted to purchase something from a man whose stall was located just inside the gate, opposite the white and pink striped mosque, and we otherwise had no other reason for being this far south of the main bazaar. It would have been a long side trip had we come in through the more centrally located Midan Hussein. What I wanted to purchase was a yard or so of that diversely multi-purposed and colorfully patterned cloth that was so ubiquitous throughout Cairo. Cloth of this type could be seen draped across the scaffolding of building under repair protecting the workers, decorating the tables of vendors in the bazaar, and even on the gates of Versailles Palace, the cafe right next to our dorm. After buying some fabric for myself and Spencer we walked north past Qasr al-Ghuri, through the tunnels of the pedestrian underpass, and into Khan al-Khalili proper. Merchant stalls run from Bab Zuwayla all the way north to Bab al-Futuh, but as far as I know only anything north of al-Azhar is considered an official part of Khan al-Khalili.

Approaching Bab Zuwayla on Sharia Ahmed Mahir

Thankfully my guy at the woodshop had my taola boards in. I had requested three wood-grain boards. Unlike the one I had purchased earlier, which was decorated with colored in-lays, the ones I had commissioned were decorated with different shades of wood stain. This is the type that had caught my eye before but had so upsettingly been sold to a high-bidding tourist the day before I promised I would come in to buy it. Finally I purchased the three boards: two for myself and one I for Spencer who had to take an exam that day. I also impulsively bought a framed ancient Egyptian scene painted on Papyrus, my one kitschy purchase of the trip. These were the last of many items our group purchased from the man in this shop. I know that Mark bought at least one taola board, a mother-of-pearl inlaid Quaran, a book stand, and possibly a mirror. Jim bought some mother-of-pearl inlaid jewelry boxes. We said our goodbyes to the man who had been a continuous part of our Egypt experience. Mark and I discovered his shop on my first trip to the Khan one day in February, less than a week after the bombing, and I had stopped in to say hello of trip to the Khan since then. On the way out he gave each of us a gift: a small box decorated in the same style as the taola boards I had just purchased. I was touched by the gift. This man, just like all the others in the Khan, was in the business of selling items, mostly to overpaying tourists. Very rarely did they just give anything away that wasn't included as an incentive in some sort of haggling deal, no matter how small the item. This gift was completely unexpected.

Down the main street of the Khan, the one that ran north to south between the two medieval gates, Jim found a lady selling ladle-shaped metal cups for making Turkish coffee. They were beautiful and graciously priced, but I was running out of room in my luggage and out of money. Jim crossed one more item off his list and we were then off to find him a galabiya. Here we walked west down a very long and very crowded street mostly selling clothing items, the same street where I had bought a Zamalek football jersey for my brother on my first trip to the Khan, and the same street where I first noticed the hissing/kissing sound Egyptians use instead of saying "watch out, get out of the way, wide load, beep-beep," etc. as some guy was trying to plow through the crowd with a cart laden with sacks of who knows what. Looking at my map now this must have been Sharia al-Muski, although the name is really irrelevant since we never needed it to navigate our way around and most Egyptians don't really use nor need street names to navigate either. There are just streets and landmarks. Names are useful only in conjunction with a map, and this is if you are lucky enough to find the street name posted anywhere; most Egyptians wouldn't know the name of the street they took every day to work unless it was one of the few major thorough-fares in the city. For some smaller streets I feel as if the name exists only on the map, as there are in realy life no signs indicating the street's name or people aware of such a name. Anyway, this portion of the Khan I always remembered for its crowds and proliferation of clothing products, and we soon found a vendor willing to Jim a decent galabiyya in the 40-60LE range.

We taxied back to Zamalek, careful as usual to walk a short distance away from the Khan before grabbing a cab. This decreased the likelihood of getting a cabbie with unreasonable price expectations. I usually paid 15LE for the ride from the Khan back to the dorm on Zamalek. I know this is a little high, but it is by no means exorbitant and it's almost always accepted without protest. You can pay 10LE if you are willing to haggle, but never did I leave the Khan in the mood to haggle. The Khan is compact, crowded, and at that time of year hot and sweaty. When it came time to leave I had always had my fill of haggling and felt physically drained. Any extra haggling effort to me just wasn't worth it, especially when that extra 5LE amounts to only $0.90US split between a couple of riders. Some of us fought for the cheaper rates on principle: "I'm not an ignorant foreigner. I'm not a tourist just passing through for the week. I can speak Arabic and I've been living here for months. I know the fair Egyptian price just as well as you do and I will not bet taken advantage of." I totally agree with the viewpoint in other circumstances, but again, fighting for $0.90 just wasn't a battle I was willing to fight. Besides, I was making almost 4 times more per month in my monthly stipend from ND than a government-employed Egyptian doctor. That extra $0.90 is worth a lot more to him than it is to me.

We found a cab parked along the curb and said Zamalek. He asked how much up front and we said 15LE. He shook his head and pulled forward a bit. Then another cab swooped in and took his place. We made the same offer and he gladly accepted without protest. This seemed to be a common practice around tourist areas. Some of the cabs sit and wait for the unwitting tourists willing to pay the high prices. This is obviously more profitable, but sometimes I wonder how many takers they actually get. Jim and I would run into this one more time before we left, outside the Egyptian National Museum on Friday, our last day in Cairo.

Last Days in Cairo: 1

First off, there will most likely be a couple more posts coming over the next few days. There's more that I want to cover about my experiences in Cairo that I haven't gotten to yet. I had meant to take care of them last week, but oh well. We'll start with the last night in Cairo...

Actually we'll start a little earlier than that. My last exam and paper were due Monday, May 25th. I didn't have to stay up terrible late to get them taken care of, so that was nice compared to the previous week where between four papers, an exam, and seeing people off I had to pull a couple all-nighters. The building's on AUC's campus are mazes, and the winding stairways, random lookouts, and split-level floors reminded my of an M.C. Escher sketch. Almost all have some complex network of halls and corridors that eventually lead to roof accesses with great views of the campus. You can spot these from the ground while walking about campus, and the gazeebo type structures on the roofs cleary indicate that they were meant to be used, but finding your way up there can be difficult. One of my friends did however know how to get to the roof of the adminstration building, and from here three of us on the last day of exams on the New Campus enjoyed Stellas and looked over the campus we had called ours for the past four months. In fact, many of us hated our experiences on this campus. We all had our reasons: for some it was dealing with the ridiculous bureaucracy, or the biases of teachers, snobby students, or maybe just the long bus rides to and from campus, among other reasons. But its strange how knowing that you will never see a place again encourages you to forget the negatives and look on the place with a sense of sentimentality.

We had a nice little party the night before Sara and Ed left, although I forget exactly which day that was. It was at Mikey and Ben's apartment in Metro Towers, the giant apartment complex above the Metro Mart grocery store which I had probably been to at least once ever single day either to buy food or pull money from the ATM. The place had a wonderful view from the roof which was especially nice at night. Unfortunately I never brought my camera up there and have no pictures. The next night we met Mikey at the apartment to help him carry all of his stuff down to meet the cab. He was insistent that he leave the same way the show "Cheers" finally ended; that is, by giving the place one last hard look, turning off the lights, and closing the door for good. And then everyone fought over who got to hit the tweeting door-bell the last time.

But before Mikey left, we managed to play our first and only round of golf in Egypt. We made a tee-time at the Hilton Hotel and Dreamland Golf Resort in October City at 11 on what must have been Saturday morning. Of course, we followed the usual script when taking a cab some place we'd never been before. This always involves some poor cabbie agreeing to take you to (insert name of place) even though he has no idea where it is. He gets to the general area, follows ten sets of conflicting directions from various police officers, fellow taxi drivers, and haggs on the street, before finally finding someone who isn't merely pretending to have heard of the place, gives accurate directions, and then thirty minutes after this final set of directions you arrive. Arriving isn't always easy either because you just kind of have to assume "well this must be the place" when you pull up.

Anyway, we made it the golf course and greens fees, renting clubs, and buying balls was cheap as dirt considering we were playing on lush green fairways, at the Hilton, in the middle of the desert. We also decided to have a little fun by putting on galabiyyas and kufiyyas after we got off the first hole. Once during our nine hole round the course marshal even pulled up to us while Mikey was hitting out of the fairway thining we were Arab from a distance. I did look the part of a Saudi oil barron if I do say so myself, with my clean white galabiyya and red and white kufiyya, so I can understand his confusion. The round naturally ended at the 19th hole, where we struck it up with the bartender. We told him we were the guys out there wearing the Arab clothes and he got a good kick out of hit. He had seen us coming in since the bar's panoramic windows overlooked the 9th hole's approach to the green and he had thought that some of the groundskeepers had taken a break to play a few holes! We discussed America for a bit too and he professed his love for the culture. He liked rap and mentioned that Akon was one of his favorite artists. He also showed us a picture of his Russian girlfriend on his camera phone.

So this all happened over the weekend and by Monday I was completely finished with school. I made a trip down to campus the next day to turn in all my library books, clearing all debts to the university and allowing me to get my transcript sent to ND. Unfortunately I forgot one book and had to make the hour and half bustrip to and from school the next day, but finally all paperwork was finished and I would never be back to AUC again. At least not in the foreseeable future. At this point Julia and Jessie had left. The only remainging people were Spencer, Jim Genovese, and Ali. Taz and Michele weren't leaving until Friday, but they were in Luxor for the week. Chris was leaving with me on Saturday (the only other person of the eight from Notre Dame who did, for whatever reason, move his flight up from the Saturday May 30 flight given to us by Anthony Travel) but he was spending the week in Spain visiting some friends. Although I knew I was finishing my exams well before my flight, I had no intentions of getting the flight bumped up a couple days. I had planned on taking full advantage of a whole week with nothing to do but explore Cairo, and that's exactly what I did.

Spencer and I made a trip to Khan al-Khalili on Tuesday. It was his last I believe. He had a few items to pick up still, including a galabiyya, and I just wanted to go check on my taola (backgammon) boards. Before this day I had only ever cabbed to the Khan, but we took a route I had never taken before. We decided to take a cab to the nearest metro station, Opera, and then take the metro to Attba station. From Attba it was a twenty minute walk to the Khan. Partly I wanted to save money (a cab straight there costs 15LE, but the cab to the metro plus the metro ticket only costs 6LE) but I also wanted to do more walking in the city before I left. I find it to be a much better experience to see something on foot than by car. You are in it rather than passing through it.

After much searching, harrassment from ignored vendors, and of course bargaining, Spencer found his galabiyya. He felt he had paid way to much for it, which was probably true, but he did not pay nearly as much as I had for mine. Mark and I in Luxor, for whatever reason, decided to buy cusom-tailored galabiyyas made from the Egyptian cotton of our choosing from a tailor operating right next to the Winer Palace. Spencer's Galabiyya turned out to be pretty nice, and the more he looked at it the more he liked it. I visited Ahmed, the guy who owns the wood-working shop, and he told me the boards would be ready ba'da bookra, after tomorrow.

And now for some pictures!



Me and my Stella, from the roof of the Administration Building
View from the roof of the Admin Building
Jim, happpy to be leaving AUC for the last time ever.
The last night at Cafeteria Huria
Mark and Julia at Huria
Ed and Sara at Huria

Mikey at our Egyptian Golf Adventure

And me

Walking from Attba to the Khan

In the Khan

Catching Up

I finished my last exam yesterday. These last few weeks have gone by extremely fast. I finally have time to catch up on all of these posts I meant to be doing but passed up on to instead pretend to study and do homework.

This past week has been pretty tough. Between doing a paper and an exam this week, I had two exams and four papers due last week. This past week I had to finish my last two assignments while dealing with the departure of many of my good friends. Some people were finished with all of their papers and exams on the last day classes and people began leaving Saturday night. Sara and Ed left Friday night, followed by Ben and Jarvis early Saturday morning. Saturday night Jim Napier and Mark left. Julia left Monday morning while I was on campus turning in an exam, and David left that night. Basically, that aren't many of us left. Most of the people who I have grown close to over the course of this semester are now gone. Its strange how close you can get to people over the course of a semester, but I suppose a study abroad experience, especially one here, forces people to let their guards down and just be themselves. Travelling, getting lost in strange citites, trying to make sense of a different culture, these things all allowed us to really get to know each other. Without getting too nostalgic, its just a little weird being in Egypt with a good portion of the people that I spent my time with here gone. Many of us became just as close to each other as to friends at home. It feels like we've known each other for years.

The study abroad experience is much like high school or college, but fast-forwarded. We all got to know each other pretty quickly, developed inside jokes, and now at the end of it all we leave and go on to other things. Mikey and Jessie go to Navy and BC, repspectively, and they are planning on coming up to ND for those football games this upcoming season. Many of our other friends live in the North East as well, so they plan on tagging along or making sure we get together when our schools play each other in Big East basketball.

Today Spencer and I went to Khan al-Kahlili again to pick up some of the last remaining items on our souveneir lists. When I went to Islamic Cairo last weekend, I wanted to pick up another taola set. I had been there the previous Wednesday and saw one that really caught my eye, but was not planning on buying anything so did not have the money. I told the guy to hold the set for me, which he said he'd do, but when I came back last weekend he had sold it. I then commissioned a set, and hopefully it will be finished by Friday. Spencer and I paid him a visit today, just to say hi. I'm not sure if I have told this story yet, but the first time I went the Khan I was very interested in finding a taola set. After looking at a number of souvenir stalls, mark and I stumbled upon a shop stuck just below ground level built into the side of a building. It appeared though this shop made the sets, among many other wooden products, themselves and then sold them through third parties throughout the rest of the bazaar.

Mark and I probably spent a good hour in there that first day, just talking to the guy and perusing his collection of hand-made woodcrafts. Which each left with a nice taola set and from that time on, this guy has been our guy for wood products. We always make sure to stop by and say hi anytime we go to the Khan.

I've been to the Khan three times in the past three weeks. I always get really excited to go because its in the heart of the old Islamic part of the city and I like looking at all the shiny trinkets. I always leave with a headache, wondering why I was so excited to go in the first place. A trip to the bazaar takes a lot out of you. Its impossible to just walk and look, and windowshopping is always a hassle. The stall owners all interprety looking at a product or handling a product as a sign of general interest in purchasing the product. When they give you a price, unsolicited, there is always a disconnect when answering "I don't want it." They always think you don't want it because their price is too high, so they lower it. They don't understand that often the price is not the problem; the problem is that you simply don't want to buy that item.

Besides this, all the item-hawkers are pretty pushy, and haggling takes a lot of energy, especially if you want to get a good price. Anything can be obtained cheaply, but there is a standard theatere one must "perform" to make haggling work. First you have to absurdly low-ball the guy, then work your way back up to a normal range of prices. This low-balling counteracts his ridiculous mark-up, placing summer in the middle of that range the actual price you want. He'll usually come down to within a couple increments of the price you want, whether you're working in 5's or 10's or whatever. At some point he will give his so-called "best price," usually an increment or two or three above what you really want. You then restate what you want it for, he says no, and you walk away. He may call you back right away or he may let you walk a bit before catching you and bringing the price down again. You can usually walk away twice, sometimes three times, and get the price lowered further. Now you have a good price! Then you realize that you just spend the last ten minutes arguing over a 5LE difference, which amounts to $1.75. Then you feel like an idiot. Anyway, I went to the Khan the last two weekends because I was touring Islamic Cairo, where the Khan is locate. This is the oldest Islamic part of the city.

Two weekends ago Sara, Ed, and Sophie came along with me to Islamic Cairo. We only made a half day of it so we covered the northern end. The cab dropped us off near al-Azhar mosque and university and we began our tour here. As is usual in mosques, we had to take off our shoes and Sara and Sophie had to cover their heads with their scarves. Al-Azhar University is the world center of Sunni Islamic learning and is also a very important mosque. From here we continued to the al-Ghouriya mosque, a Mamluk era mosque at the head of the southern market. One time when we were in this area a guy pointed us back north, saying "There Khank al-Khalili, this not the tourist market." Egypt is frustrating at times. Very often we know what we are doing and where we are and have to put up with people trying to point is in the direction we are already going or trying to lead us to some touristy site we are totally uninterested in. Anyway, we continuted south down this street, Al-Muizz li Din Allah, until reaching Bab Zuwayla. This is an old medieval-era gate, complete with towers and parapets and giant wooden doors. We climbed the tower, which required some athleticism at the top, and got a wonderful view of Islamic Cairo. We could see north to Al-Azhar and south to the Citadel.

Sophie and Sara stopped in the market to buy some of the colorfully patterned cloth used for decoration in Egypt. After this we walked back north past Al-Azhar and followed the street through Khan al-Khalili. We stopped at the mausoleum and madrassa of Al Nasir Muhammad and of Sultan Qalawun, then continued north to the mosque of Al-Hakim, the Caliph of the Fatimid Empire who proclaimed divinity for himself and whose heterodox religious teachings helped foudn the Druze faith. We then finished our day at the medieval gate of Bab al-Futuh, counterpart of Bab Zuawayla. This all occurred three weekends ago, so I'm hazy on the details still unfortunately...

Last weekend I tagged along on Jessie and Julia's Islamic Art and Architecture field trip to the citadel. I had not toured any of Islamic Cairo at that point and needed to fit it in before leaving. The fieldtrip was a great opportunity because I got into the complex for free and their professor's lectures at each site essentially amounted to a free tour for me. She also got us access to some places tourists couldn't normally go. It was also a good opportunity because all of my other friends here had already gone earlier in the semester. The field trip kind of ensured that there would be people to come tour with me. Spencer and Jim came too, because they never made it this far when they came to Islamic Cairo. They were accused of being Jews by an old hagg and watched her chew out the guy who had let them into a mosque. They called it at day after that. So Spencer, Jim, and I walked the half-mile to the mosque of Ahmad ibn Tulun, the oldest mosque in Cairo. Its doors opened in 876. Disappointingly, I left my Egypt guidebook behind this day. I knew where I wanted to go and how to get there, so I saw no sense in taking along anything other than a street map. Had a brought the book, I would have known that we missed the best part of going to ibn-Tulun mosque: the adjacent 16th century house-turned-museum. The book calls it an Orientalist's fantasy almost more worth seeing than the mosque itself, complete with intricate artwork, secret viewing galleries, porticos looking over open courtyards with fountains, and winding passageways. We also passed up the worth-while Museum of Islamic Art due to time constraints. I didn't sense much interest in going there anyway (as I said, being in this area for too long, including the Khan which we were headed to next, makes for a very long day). Perhaps I will go back to these places in these last three full days I have here. The mosque was impressive considering the time period in which it was built and the fact that Christians were still a vast majority in Egypt at the time of its construction.

We cabbed from ibn-Tulun to Midan al-Hussein, the starting point for all of our ventures into Khan al-Kahlili. Spencer and Jim had not been to Al-Azhar yet, so we stopped here one more time. Then I showed them how to get to a book-binding store Mark, Mikey, and I had found the preceding Wednesday. They sell leather- and cloth-bound books and custom engrave them with gold leafing. Thus began another tiring day in Khan al-Khalili. It was these day that I found out our friend in the woodshop had sold the taola that I promised him I would return for. He apologized, saying the guy gave him a very generous offer. Oh well.

I have three more days here and lots of packing to do. I hope to see some of these last few things on my list before leaving, never knowing when or if I will ever return. Well I guess that last statement was a little dramatic but I probably won't be back for a while and I don't want to leave with any regrets.

Khan al-Khalili and My Birthday

I only had one class today, and since we went out late last night for a friends birthday, I decided to take the day off and go to the famous Khan al-Khalili bazaar instead. Really, it would have been a waste to get up at 7 to make the 8 o'clock bus to get to campus in time for one class from 9:30 to 10:20, and then have to wait around to take the first bus back to campus at 12:45. I would have spent more time on the bus than in class.


Mark, Sonja, and I took a cab out there and it dropped us off near the Hosayn Mosque. Khan al-Khalili is in Islamic Cairo, which has many famous Mosques. Our cab was surprisingly nice; it had leather seats, air conditioning, and an actual meter (although we payed more than the metered price anyway. The cabbie was nice enough to help us with our Arabic during the ride). We began near the Hosayn and Al-Azhar mosques. The bazaar fills the surrounding streets and narrow alleys. It is open air, but people have built makeshift rooves over the alleys throughout the years. The area used to be a major thouroughfare in Cairo, which led to the setting up of shops. Its growth over time led to the bazaar that it is today. Now it mostly sells tacky touristy items, like sphynx busts, bellydancing outfits, papyrus, and t-shirts, but in the heart of the bazaar you can still find spices and well crafted hand made goods. The bazaar is usually pretty clausraphobic, but crowds were light this afternoon. Perhaps the minor bombing outside of Hosayn mosque last week had something to do with it. Just for convnience's sake, we now respond to mineen (where are you from) with Ana Irlaandee (I am Irish), which isn't technically a lie for those of us who go to ND.



I was primarily there to price backgammon sets. Many of them are inlaid with mother of pear. We found quite a few places that sold them among other souveneirs, but we eventually found the origin of many of the sets. This little workshop specialized in woodwork inlaid with mother of pearl. We spent close to a half hour there looking at all they had to offer, and I finally left satisfied with my purchase.

We walked through more of the bazaar and found ourselves three floors up some building where a guy produces some of the silverwork sold at street level stalls. Mark went into the stalls first, but wanted something slightly different than what they were offering. The guy made a phone call, and we wove our way through the bazaar, following him to a small production house three floors up one of the buildings. Mark got his card so he could come back later.

We made the twenty-five minute walk back to dowtown and got koushary for dinner and followed it was shisha, tea, and coffee at a cafe. We have a caffe here in Zamalek right next to the dorm, and we thought the prices there were pretty reasonaby when converted to USD. Tea, coffee, hot chocolate, and shisha are all 10LE each, and right now the USD is worth 5.6 LE and rising. But at this cafe downtown we got two teas, a coffee, and two shisha for a TOTAL of 23LE, or about $4. Total. Today I bought a delicious and filling lunch of two kofta sandwiches for 8LE ($1.50), and koushary costed 6LE ($1). Living here is heartbreakingly cheap. I'm upset with myself when I eat luxuriously for the day and set myself back a whole $10.

Then again, my thriftiness today was offset by last nights cash hemmhorage (I don't fell like cheching the spelling). We had three birthdays this week, so we went to Club Purple, which was located on a big boat on the Nile (it was much like a casino boat in size and layout). Cover was an outrageous 150LE, and alcohol was very expensive. I don't think anyone drank very much. We've adjusted pretty well to viewing things here in their Egyptian prices, relative to the cost of things here in general, and have mostly stopped converting everything to American prices. I think this will make transition back to American life pretty tough, where the cost of getting dinner at Applebee's is euqivalent to an upscale resaurant here.

On my actualy birthday I just met some people at Versaille. I splurged for a Heinekin and got a shisha, but kept it short and simple since I had an exam the next day.