So then I saw the pyramids up close… They are amazing.
Hello! It’s Meredith here taking over for Emily while she is at class. I’ve been in Egypt for about ten days and I love it! It’s really great! I’m so thankful Emily and Brandon are letting me stay with them for the month because in addition to being great tour guides, they also make great hosts, chefs, and Scrabble players. It’s been so much fun!
After recovering from a good bout of jet lag, I decided posting some photos from the past week is quite overdue. We’ve spent a lot of time hanging around Emily’s neighborhood in Maadi, where even going out to buy groceries is an adventure to me.
Sunday was my first excursion to downtown Cairo. Emily and I took a cab to the metro station where we rode the very crowded women’s car to Tahrir Square. Now, when I say very crowded, I mean packed in like sardines. It was quite an experience! Once we got to our stop, we saw the old AUC campus and the gigantic Egyptian Museum but we are saving that for another day. Navigating through crazy traffic – which the locals describe as “organized chaos” (I’m yet to figure out the “organized” part) – we made our way down a side street lined with sheesha bars, coffee shops, and adorable kittens. I never knew there were so many cats in Cairo. I don’t really think of them as strays – they are more like domestic pets who sleep outside and do a little foraging for food. Anyhow, we were on a mission to find Koshari Abou Tarek. It’s known as the best Koshari restaurant in Cairo (which I think translates to the best in the world) and Anthony Bourdain even dined here when he visited Cairo for his travel/food show. We found the restaurant, got our Koshari, and hopped in a cab to head back to Maadi. The cab ride was a great tour of Cairo. I had my first glimpse of the Citadel, the City of the Dead, and the Khan al Khalili. Once we got back to beautiful Maadi we scarfed down our delicious Koshari and I “helped” Emily study for her Arabic midterm – as much as someone who speaks no Arabic can help.
And last night we went to the Khan al Khalili – a market that dates back to the 1300s – it was absolutely incredible! It was amazing seeing the really old, beautiful architecture and browsing around through the shops.
And that brings me up to today… Oh yeah, and we saw the Pyramids and Sphinx at Giza, too… Did i forget to mention that? It was pretty awesome…
So Friday is the best day to visit Giza. Emily and Brandon were out of school for the weekend and we left their apartment around 7:30am and swung by the neighborhood convenience store to pick up some water to take with us… Have I mentioned how much I love Emily’s neighborhood? This is their version of a QuikTrip.
And here are a couple of shots from the cab ride. As we approached the Nile we started seeing bright green patches of farmland mixed in with urban apartment buildings. It was a beautiful glimpse of green.
My first glimpse of the pyramids! I was excited!
I spent the entire day with Brandon at City Stars — a GIANT 7-floor mall in Cairo (this is a cell-phone picture we took while walking down a dizzying flight of stairs). It has everything… lots of great stores, grocery stores, a couple of giant movie theaters, rides, a million stores I have never heard of, and just about every popular American chain restaurant you can think of. We were on a quest for a mixer, a cake pan, a pizza pan, and something I can wear to an Egyptian wedding this week (more on that later!). We got everything but the pizza pan. I feel really accomplished! And neither of us got totally fed up with being in a mall for such a long period of time. Oh, and we picked up Season 2 of LOST on DVD. That’s right. We are RE-watching it. I’m excited.
It was a really fun birthday! I never would have guessed I would spend my 25th birthday in a mall in Egypt, but I did, and it was great. Thanks, Brandon!
Category : My Life in Cairo, Oh, Egypt, Travel & Sightseeing
Traffic got slow… really slow. What was the hold-up? THIS. Tomatoes were everywhere.
Category : My Life in Cairo, Sightseeing in Cairo
These photos were taken on what the experts call a “clear day” in Cairo. If you look really hard, you can see the pyramids off in the distance.
We went on a bus trip around the city — the whole city, all 16 million people’s worth of city. It is a big city, folks. I think we just about saw it all: the downtown midans inspired by the layout of Paris, beautiful architecture that almost transports you to Europe, crumbling apartment buildings, agricultural regions along the Nile, camels, donkeys, and lots of new growth and development. The city has expanded into the desert. It’s hard to believe the Sahara can be transformed into livable, park-like neighborhoods.
We also got a crash-course in the history of the location of Cairo. Over the last few thousand years, the Nile has wiggled its way east, so all of the ancient sites which used to be along the Nile are now out in the desert. Fascinating!
Category : Family, in America and Elsewhere, Travel & Sightseeing
