El Fishawy and Downtown Alleys

In alley one block west of Midan Hussein is an Ahwa (cafe) called el Fishawy as denoted by the sign above. It's supposedly been open continuously for over 200 years. The walls are hung with huge mirrors, archaic chandeliers, a leather stuffed alligator, and black and white photos from the 30’s and 40’s doting famous Egyptian artists and pseudo intellectuals. Inside it's packed with people smoking sheesha and drinking coffee.

Me smoking sheesha.

Paul smoking sheesha.

Another view of the alley directly outside el Fishawy. You can tell these people think I'm photographing them. Oh well.

This is the fruit and veggie market Paul and I stumbled upon while meandering downtown. They still use the old scales with weights. I bought one kilo of tomatoes and cucumbers for 4 LE (less than a buck). Smaller versions of this stand can be found on just about every street corner in Cairo.

This is just to give you an idea of how packed with traffic the tiny streets downtown are...beware, drivers will not hesitate to run you over.

This is a Fiat, an italian car that you see absolutely everywhere! I think they are so cute. Can't you picture me driving this?

These are the sheep I mentioned in a previous post. We are drinking coffee at an open air shop when these guys come strolling by.

Another downtown street packed with people and cheap clothes.

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Pretty Things

This is the Mosque of Amr-Ibn Al-As. The mosque itself is a large square with a central open air plaza flanked on all sides by immense hallways with a wooden roof. Glass oil lamps float from all of the rafters…its a very simple masque…the walls block out the chaos of the buzzing traffic, merchants, and crowds and leave you with quiet and a pleasant breeze. No one is allowed to enter any mosque with shoes and women are required to cover their heads with a scarf.

More of the Mosque. Apparently the general who erected the mosque was an eccentric…one of the laws he tried to enforce was that women were not allowed to buy shoes, so merchants were also forbidden from producing or manufacturing women’s shoes. This is because women were meant to stay in the home.

This is just a guy wearing a traditional galibaya pushing a cart. Galibayas can be seen everywhere in Cairo, but are far more prevalent in Old Cairo/Islamic Cairo.

This is the outside of the Merchant's House. It's basically a very old house which has been maintained over the years. An entire family lived here once upon a time. Really it's just a very pretty house with a lot of traditional furnishings.

Me sitting in the Merchant's house...isn't this room so pretty!

Another room in the Merchant's house. I thought mom would appreciate the antique tile, ceramic bowls, and antiques.

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The Tower of Glass

So this is the tower of glass from the outside. It's basically a house, where people do actually live, but filled with glass. There are four floors which you clamor through on a tiny, tiny staircase. The top floor has an amazing view of a cemetery.

This is just one example of the amount of glass items you'll find here. It makes for the most surreal scenery. Imagine relaxing in a room like this, smoking sheesha, and looking out from the fourth floor.

More and more and more glass.

This is what you see from the top floor if you stick your camera out through all the hanging glass fixtures. It's a cemetery, but not like you and I would imagine. These are more like tombs than graves. I'm really excited about visiting "The City of the Dead." It's a cemetery where people live and have created a kind of community.

This is me desperately trying to make my way down the staircase without breaking anything...if you know me, you know this is very, very difficult.

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Blogging Bonanza: Random Bits

Argh…whenever I start my blogging bonanza I have no idea where to start. Paul and I have been adventuring around the winding alley’s of Cairo the past few weekends, and we’ve seen so much stuff it’s making things difficult…in a good way of course.

School has been the usual. It’s still terribly scattered and unorganized, but I’m feeling much better about my teaching abilities. It’s funny though, I thought that once we started working out of the workbook I’d like it better since the pressure would be off me. Wrong. Many of the kids are still grasping how to hold a pencil and they really don’t get the concept of following directions. This is probably partially due to the fact that they don’t understand a word I’m saying. I’m pretty sure I’ve become the grand master of charades.

So about the workbook thing…my classes keep getting larger; I have about 25 in each. Once I start to pass out the workbooks the kids start opening up and tearing up each others books. Then come the pencils, I get about halfway around the room before they start beating or poking each other with them. Then once I give them an idea of what they’re supposed to be doing (like writing the letter ‘B’) they do one little thing and all start crying “mees, mees, mees” (“miss, miss, miss”). If I hear one more “mees” I think I might explode. I’ve tried to make it like a follow the leader game by drawing the book stuff on the board and having them copy me, but I’m still not having much luck. They do seem to really like the sound effects I’ve given them for the letters though. ‘B’ for example, I’ll start at the top and say “DOWN, Down, down, down, down….STOP! Woosh, Woosh.”

On the weekends, I have a routine that’s working quite well for me. Thursday (which is like Friday for the rest of you) everyone gets all dolled up and we head over to a friends house, and then out to whatever new club we've decided to go to. I mentioned Mojito already, which we’ve been continually frequenting, but we recently went to another place called Absolute which sits right on the Nile. It has a beautiful garden and inside they play loud Latin music. Upstairs is another bar called Sangria which is supposed to be pretty classy as well, but we haven’t made it there yet. I miss the dive bars though. Music isn’t my fave. Lots of house/trance/techno stuff. Good news is my roommates and I have invested in a pretty decent set of speakers, and with Paul’s dance selection we’re set for a real party. Then on Friday we spend the day recovering, maybe going out to an ahwa to smoke sheesha, and on Saturday we get up, hail a cab to Midan Tahrir and start stumbling about the windy bustling alleyways of downtown.

Midan Tahrir is basically a central square downtown. The Egyptian Museum is only a few blocks away and there are shops everywhere. Awhile ago we went to the museum, but it was excruciatingly hot and there is so much to see we’ll definitely have to make another trip. The experience itself is different from other museum experiences I’ve had in the States. It’s basically a giant building with rooms and rooms of stuff. There aren’t many signs for anything, so Paul and I were smart enough to invest in a Lonely Planet Egypt which has a section that helps guide you through the rooms giving you an idea what things are and where they’re from. Things are displayed in a kind of haphazard way in big wood and glass boxes protected only by the tiniest of padlocks. Often they are dusty and covered with fingerprints. I was also surprised by the complete lack of security. I feel like whenever I’ve been to a museum in the States there’s always a guard in every one of the rooms. As for what’s in it…everything! I’ve seen more mummies now than you would believe. I’ve even seen a crockadile mummy!

One of the most amazing things I got to see though was the infamous King Tut mummy mask. They also have oodles and oodles of the most beautiful jewelry you’ve ever seen. Unfortunately photographs are forbidden. Well they say forbidden, but what they should say, is for a price. Faye decided to sneak a few pics since security is pretty lax. Busted! A guard simply walked up and took her camera…oops. She followed him around apologizing until the guy turned around and said “don’t you know how we do it here…Baksheesh!” so she gave him a few pounds and successfully retrieved her camera. They have a scanner when you get in and supposedly check for cameras in your bag, but didn’t happen to find any of ours. Our theory is that they let you in with the camera so you’ll take pictures and they can collect when they catch you. So tip: when in the Egyptian Museum, feel free to take pictures, just be prepared to pay.

Once you’re back on the square, if you cross the street people start accosting you with “what are you looking for, I know the best ________. Don’t worry I’m not a guide.” So, they may not be a guide, but they work for whatever store they’re taking you to. Paul and I humored these guys twice. Basically they talk to you and tell you about themselves and ask what you’re doing here, and then once you’re in the shop, they disappear to the back so the guy up front can sell you stuff. In our case it was perfume. Perfume is quite popular here; it’s basically essential oils that you can use in a bunch of different ways and they sell beautiful glass bottles to store it in. The first guy that stopped us took us to his family’s perfume shop which has apparently been around for more than 130 years. Typically I’d think it was a load of bull, but the store itself and the furniture inside looked more like artifacts than stuff you should actually sit on. We were offered tea and cigarettes which is all part of Egyptian hospitality (you really wouldn’t believe the absolute genuine generosity you experience here). The next guy that snaked us in took us into a less enticing shop, but the guy was entertaining. He made sure we were anti-Bush, and was really excited to show us his Obama sticker on the store front. He also had some fun pictures of him hanging out with Mohammad Ali (Cassius Clay) in his shop. Paul and I smelled like a conglomeration of every scent you could imagine with ancient names like Cleopatra, Papyrus, Lotus, and Amber.

After that we made our way through the windy back alleys all the way to Attaba. Each area is sectioned into districts. There’s an entire street dedicated to shoes, one for car supplies, another for chandeliers, and another for carpets, watches, clothes and so-on. It’s less about displaying items in an aesthetically pleasing way, and more about “how much stuff can we cram in one place.” It’s difficult to shop though since it’s sensory overload. There’s colors everywhere, tons of people, people shouting and going “tssssssk, tssssssk”, along with carts with donkeys, bicycles, taxi’s, trucks, scooters, and people carrying large baskets of stuff on their heads. When we were tired of walking we stopped at an outside ahwa (café) to “people watch” and recoup. While we were sitting there, I had to chuckle when two shepherds wearing traditional galibayas walked by herding a flock of about 20 sheep.

After a lot more walking and gawking we hailed a cab and I handed him the address for Abu Tarek which the gentleman at the perfume shop had given me. Abu Tarek is a famous Koshary place that claims to serve the best Koshary in Cairo. It also has a sign on the front that declares it has “no other branches” which I thought was funny. We ate on the fourth flour in an entirely too ornate room. They only serve Koshary so your waiter simply asks you what size you want. I don’t want to go into entirely too much detail as to what Koshary is because I’m planning on dedicating an entire post to Egyptian street food, so for now I’ll just tell you it’s really cheap and really tasty!

That's all for now. Salam Alaikum!
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Photos from Marsa Alam

This is a prime example of the over-booked bus situation.

Arty picture of the only road that runs through Marsa Alam.

Me standing in the middle of the desert.

Part of a panorama that should be up soon.

Beachy night hang out at Deep South dive camp on the Red Sea.

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Swimmin' and Boozin'

So we just made it back from Marsa Alam which was fun but not quite what I was expecting. When I think beach I think palm trees, sand, fancy hotels, tourists…this was not at all like that. First off, in typical Egyptian fashion the bus arrived hours late and instead of two there was only one; this meant that 25 seats had to fit 34 people. Cramming people into cars and cabs is typical in Egypt, but the trips are usually short...this was a 12 hour trip. Anyway, it all worked out, people took shifts standing and sitting on the floor.

When we finally arrived instead of two person huts with high class amenities, we stayed in clay mosquito infested boxes with 4 beds. Paul looks diseased at the moment. He has 78 mosquito bites on one arm (yes, I seriously counted). Poor thing tried to use his sheet as a mosquito net, but alas, to no avail. Really not so bad though, most of our time was spent at the beach anyway.

So minus the bus ride and the bug bites, Marsa Alam is a pretty interesting place. I would describe it as ecotourism. When you looked out from our porch the scenery was nothing but desert and sea. And when I say desert, I mean nothing but sand and dust. I’ve never seen such an expanse of nothing. You would not believe the wind! I was in charge of carrying our flippers for snorkeling, and for a minute or two, I seriously thought I could use them like wings and take off.

There was a really beautiful sunset the first night we were there. The Red Sea is the bluest body of water I have ever seen. Paul and I kept arguing over whether or not it was Jesus or Moses who supposedly parted it. I’d look it up on the net but I’m pre-typing this because the net is not available from home (oh internet how I miss you!). Looking out from shore you could sea the dark squiggly outline of the reef we swam around. On the shore there were piles that looked like small pebbles at first glance, but if you scooped some up, it was like you had a handful of hidden treasures; bits of coral, tiny seashells, polished stones. While on the beach I acquired a really beautiful shell collection and some great pieces of driftwood.

Snorkeling was loads of fun. We went twice a day bumbling around the house reef. It was nice because you didn’t need a guide or a boat. You just went to the beach and got in. Paul really liked swimming with the fishes. On the last day we were there we saw these really long fish with attenuated snouts resting at the bottom of the reef. I immediately dubbed them creepy and swam as quietly as possible over them which was smart since we later found out they were Barracuda. Apparently even the not so big ones could chew your arm off pretty quick. The rest of the day we spent napping in hammocks or on beach chairs.

At night we would stumble back down to the beach bar to hang out. I immediately befriended Monty the bar owner who proceeded to give me a 50% discount on whatever I ordered. I tried the infamous Egyptian beer Stella….not great, but still beer…the first beer I’ve had since I got here. It’s weird, the only beer you really see around in Egypt is Stella or Heineken and they sell it by the can. And get this, while you can buy booze around town, we’ve been told the best way to get liquor is to have a dealer. A booze dealer? Really? Bootleg booze is cheaper I guess.

On the last day in Marsa Alam our bus decided not to show up, so we ordered 3 vans to take us back. I thought driving in Cairo was crazy, but it’s a walk in the park compared to the road from Marsa Alam. There's literally a road called “the road of dangerous curves” which the drivers insisted taking at lightning speed. Needless to say I left claw marks in the headrest in front of me. Also, along the way they have check points where the police usually just wave you through…that is, unless you’re toting a bunch of foreigners. We tried to sit all the Egyptians in window seats which worked on the way there, but we got busted on the way back. We had to give them our passports and do a lot of waiting in the hot desert sun. Weird part is they decided to give us an escort all the way back to Cairo. My conversation with Nour went something like this:

Katie: why do we need an escort?
Nour: To protect you guys.
Katie: from who? You guys? (referring to Egyptians)
Nour: Haha. No, to protect you from the other guys.
Katie: Who are the other guys?
Nour: haha. Ummm…no one really knows who the other guys are.

Speaking of booze, Ramadon is officially over. Thank Allah! So yesterday night we went to Raf’s and celebrated. Cocktails were made, glasses were clinked! Eventually we made it to a sweet club called Mojito which is a classy joint on the roof of a building in the middle of downtown surrounded entirely by glass walls. So while you’re doing your funky thing on the dance floor you can look over the city. We had a great view of the Cairo tower decked out in all its purple glowing glory.

Well I’m pooped and school starts tomorrow. My students are counting on me. I wouldn't be surprised if they've forgotten everything we learned over vacation...I mean, I always did :)
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