Siwa

I’ve been remiss in not writing these last few days about my trip to Siwa, which was probably the highlight of my time in Egypt.  The plan is to correct that.
After driving through the desert, all the sudden there are palm trees by the thousands.  Then there are small buildings and dusty roads.  And then [...]

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Ice Cream

Lizz and I went to Zamalek tonight to meet a friend for dinner, and afterwards we decided to go to this really good ice cream shop for desert.  While we were walking, a young looking kid came up to us with a bunch of fresh mint, trying to sell it to us.  Lizz and him [...]

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Alexandria

I got back from my trip Sunday, and I’ve been a bit lazy about writing.  Because it was pretty long and I did a lot, I’ve decided to break it up into two parts so that, hopefully at least, no single post approaches the length of my Istanbul post.

The best way to get to Alexandria, [...]

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Another Trip

Blogging will take another brief hiatus, as I’ve decided to go on another trip and will most likely not have internet.

I spent most of today just sitting around and doing nothing exciting or interesting, and I realized that I don’t want to spend my last few weeks here like that.  So, around six this evening [...]

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Egyptian Journalism and Hijab

A few days ago, I remarked to Max while reading some article in Al-Ahram Weekly, the English version of the main government paper here, that the level of journalism was pretty horrible.  The articles seemed to constantly be criticizing the Copts or talking about a nascent Shia takeover.  Plus, the writing was absolutely atrocious.  Max [...]

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Fried Viagra Combo

On a lighter note, I was looking through some menus tonight trying to decide where to order dinner from for Max and I.  One of the restaurants that is listed on Otlob, an English restaurant ordering website for Cairo, called Cook Door, had the following listing on its menu:
Fried Viagra (large combo)                   27.99LE
fried shrimps + [...]

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More on Sexual Harassment

In my last post I didn’t address the article that dad had linked in comments or Cherylyn’s questions, and I was reminded of that by something that happened earlier tonight.  Max and I were sitting out in front of our building drinking cokes with Mansour, our bawab, and his nephew Yahya who lives with him [...]

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Taxi Fight

Well, the big news today is that I almost got in a fight with a cab driver.  I went this afternoon with Liz and her friends Bethany and Shahreena to Coptic Cairo, and then afterwards, Sharhreena, Bethany, and I went to Zamalek because they wanted to see this store and didn’t know where it was.  [...]

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Turkey Questions

I’m up and not doing much tonight, so I’m going to answer the questions about Turkey my dad asked in comments.

First of all, with regard to hostels.  Keep in mind that I’m not speaking from experience, but my impression is that they run the gamut from seedy to nice, just like hotels do.  Of course, [...]

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Garden City

I had one of my more pleasant local experiences this evening.  Max and Lizz were both busy for dinner, and I felt like doing something more interesting than koshari, so I went down to Lucille’s for a burger.  After getting off at my metro stop on the way home, I was walking down the stairs [...]

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