so happy together

Greetings from Cairo, everyone!  I will be writing from Brandon’s blog over the next 24 days until I head back to Portland.  Cairo is amazing.  Some may say it’s third world, but I like to think it’s the best of both worlds… a little first, a little third.

The last couple of days have been amazing.  Nothing is quite as I expected it to be.  The traffic is certainly crazy, but really not all that bad.  No close calls yet, although I know I haven’t seen the worst of it.  The people here have been wonderful.  Everyone is so welcoming and friendly, and although I know I am obviously a foreigner, I feel quite comfortable. And I am getting to use a little Arabic.  Brandon’s Arabic is pretty impressive!  I feel pretty good having such a wonderful guide.

Brandon’s neighborhood is really neat.  There are beautiful villas, embassies, big apartment complexes, some great clothing stores, various little markets, and as I discovered today, the banana man.  The above photo was taken on the balcony with the midan (or traffic roundabout) and the mosque behind us.  There are lots of mosques, and we hear the call to prayer five times a day.  So far, I am enjoying it!  It is nice to take a moment every day to pause and appreciate things.

Today we took the metro and walked to the Nile.  It was really impressive and beautiful, but the most impressive part of today’s adventure was the souk we explored.  We were both hungry and looking for lunch, but surprisingly couldn’t find anything, so when we stumbled across the crowded alleyways of a souk we decided to check it out.

The souk was incredible.  As you can see from the picture below, there is amazing produce here!  Those strawberries looked delicious, and I have seen cabbages that are probably more than 2 feet in diameter.  Anyhow, there were tons of chickens, whole cows or goats, fish, lots of rabbits (but Meredith, I am pretty sure they were just selling them as pets), clothing, housewares, and yes, fresh made falafel.  Knowing I have had all my shots, we decided to eat some right there!  Anthony Bourdain take that!  It was so good.

I almost forgot, we had some incredibly fresh juice too.  The best… sucre.  It’s a drink made from sugar cane that tastes deliciously sweet and kind of surprisingly planty and green.  Not surprising I guess when you consider how it’s made: the juice vendor take several stalks of sugar cane and feeds it into a big machine and voila, cane juice!  Amazing.

Tonight we are going to plan the rest of my trip.  So far, I feel like I have had a good taste of day-to-day Cairo life without much touristy stuff, but I have to see the pyramids, the museum, and of course ride a camel, so stay tuned!  There will be much much more!