Bridges, bridges, and more bridges

Woke up around 9:30 (what I later learned was 8:30*) to a great breakfast of bread, cucumbers, tomatoes, cheese, hard-boiled eggs and apricot jam, with a side of strong tea and a fig/almond cookie. We talked with Muhammad, the worker who always wore capris, in 3amiya. Then around 10:30 Miriam and I went out to get a phone.

Something I've noticed: time is so different here. In Mobinil, the wonderfully air-conditioned telephone outlet, they give you a number and you wait sitting either on one of 4 chairs or standing until the sign above the computers reads your number. This can take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour depending on how fast the employees feel like working or how much trouble their customers are giving them. Today it was about average, we only waited for about 20 minutes.

Ramadan means there are very few restaurants open during the day. After Miriam got her phone we walked around northwest of the hostel in search of MANGO JUICE. (Nothing says “I’m a foreigner” more than carting around your lunch and a huge bottle of water during Ramadan, so we opted to eat in a café.)
After an hour of walking block after block, we landed in Talaat Harb Square, which is really a circle (but the maps don’t tell you that—more on maps later). We were in luck; Groppi, the pastry café, was open. Two sandwiches, two bottles of water, two enormous bowls of strawberry/mango/anise-flavored ice cream, and about LE 50 later (about $9 altogether), we continued on to Zamalek.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3OfvPwEpF4

(I later found out this was actually 6 October Bridge and not 26 July, which might have saved us a few hours of time.)

Here’s where the real fun began. Zamalek is an island (gezira in Egyptian Arabic) in the middle of the Nile and it’s home to most of Cairo’s embassies and expatriate communities. As a result, prices are a bit higher, the roads are quieter, and you might even see blond people. Starting off in the middle of the island, we trekked along the massive wall that separates the vast Gezira Sporting Club from the rest of the community. We were headed toward my dorm to check in, but unfortunately I’d lost the address and only knew it was on the northern third of the island.
The best part was when some guy came up to us and asked if we wanted to see something by the Nile, We politely said no thanks and walked past. He yelled “Go to hell!” but with a smile on his face. We figured it was probably one of the more clever English phrases he knew and he was trying to show off.

Here’s a typical exchange we had with some officers.
Us: بتعرف فين بيت الطلاب للجامعة الأمريكية ؟ Do you know where the AUC dorm is?
Policeman: Ah, شسهببت تبشب ثصنت خر بيبش حخ نتب نرىب ! (something referring to left, right, straight ahead, or a combination)
Us: شكراً شكراً! (Thanks!)
(We get lost again)

…and repeat as necessary. Ok, we may have been fairly incompetent at reading the map I had or understanding 3amiya, but the biggest reason we kept getting off track was that these officers will never tell you they don’t know something. And if they have to make things up, they will.
I guess that would explain all the mysterious laughing when a group of them told us where the dorm was and we started walking…
After we finally found the dorm and I checked in, we started the journey back to the hostel to get our bags. As we know, Egypt does strange things to maps. The lack of street signs renders them completely useless even for major roads. So it should come as no surprise that we got lost again…except this time it was a lot more fun. To get back, we had to take a bridge back over the Nile.
Remember 26th of July Bridge? Yes, this one. (Our quest to set foot on all the bridges to Zamalek is now complete.) Alarmingly, though, there’s no way to get to the bridge except for a few stairways on either end of Zamalek. Even more alarmingly, the bridge is not at all designed for pedestrians.
I took this video at a lull in the traffic pattern so just imagine more cars on the road.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NCsRuDdRJU

I’ve just moved into Zamalek dorms, and am very happy to still have my arms. That’s all for now.


*During Ramadan, Egypt is apparently the only country that shifts its clock back from Daylight Savings in the summer, so fasting is an hour less, and it’s only 6 hours ahead of EST.