Tourism

After much resistance to the typical touristy sites around Cairo, I've finally given in and hit some of the best. Yes, I did go to the Pyramids within my first three days here, but I went with an Ma'andi, who is an Egyptian, so I didn't look quite as touristy and lost as the other foreigners there. Earlier this week, Maddie from @GT arrived for study at AUC, and we hit up Khan al-Khalili, the outdoor market place in Cairo. It sounds like a pretty authentic Egyptian place to go, but it's targeted mainly towards tourist, who wander aimlessly through the streets buying up overpriced souvenirs. The shopkeepers stand by the street and advertise their products, which include mini pyramids, sphinxes, little beanie baby looking camels, along with clothing, sheeshas, jewelry, and a variety of other things. The shopkeepers don't all speak English, but most of them know a few pickup lines that they use on any white girl that walks by. The funniest one I heard was "Hey honey, I don't know what you want, but I've got what you need!" I didn't buy anything because it was my first time and I didn't want to make any impulsive and confused purchases and end up paying way too much. Don't worry, I'll go back to get souvenirs for everyone back home.

I also played tourist at the Egyptian Museum yesterday, where they house tons and tons of ancient artifacts, including the mummies! We (me, Maddie and her AUC friends) spent a good 4 hours walking around the museum, and only saw half of the material there. We fit right in amongst the swarms of scandalously dressed (by Egyptian standards) tourists trailing behind a tour guide. Unfortunately, they wouldn't allow us to bring cameras inside, so I don't have any pictures to show. The mummies were absolutely disgusting, but really cool at the same time...some of them even still had their hair. Yuck.

Aside from my life of tourism, I've been working away at SilverKey, and mostly enjoying what I'm doing. I've had some strange food cravings this week. I had a hankering for some lemonade on Monday (probably because it's so hot), but I couldn't find any in the supermarket, so I bought some lemons and made it myself. Another strange craving I had was for a caesar salad from Longhorn (I hope you're reading this Mr. Yergey!). The food is so heavy and greasy here that I probably just needed something lighter, so I made myself a sorry excuse for a caesar salad and threw a half of a grilled chicken on top.

Today I spent a lazy afternoon at home with Harrison, and Salman, and then we went bowling this evening. I also managed to get the motivation to take some pictures of the apartment and put them up on "flickr." I'm not exactly sure of the URL yet, but I'll post it as soon as I figure it out. Tomorrow is Sunday, and I don't have to be to work until noon, so I'm planning on finding my way to the Anglican Cathedral here in Zamalek to see what time they hold their Sunday service. No plans for this week yet, but I'm hoping to get out of Cairo ASAP for a relaxing weekend trip.