So I am still sick.  Black lung, bird flu, common cold, or whatever it may be, I am not letting it ruin the last few days I have in Cairo with Brandon.  Dr. Brandon has been great, and I do think the medicine is helping.  Brandon was kind of sick too, but I think he has developed a robust immune system living here, so he seems to be pretty much better.

At the beginning of the week, we spent a couple of days on the couch doing nothing except coughing, sneezing, and eating take out food, and aside from the persistent cough, I feel a lot better.

On Wednesday, we went to the Khan al-Khalili, Cairo’s biggest souk which dates back to the 14th century!  It was a lot of fun… tons of vendors, people, and LOTS of really cool stuff ranging from beautiful handmade wood furniture to pyramid snow globes.  Perhaps the most memorable moments however, were when… more than once… Brandon was… mistaken for Leonardo di Caprio, hahaha!  One of the times, someone said “Titanic.”  It was pure gold.  After a quick google image search, I’ve decided it has to be the hair and maybe his eyebrows, but otherwise, I’m not convinced.  It was funny.

Thursday was wonderful.  We picked up some fateer from the local fateer place in Maadi and had a picnic on a felucca on the Nile.  Feluccas are big, low sailboats, and apparently, the perfect place for a picnic, and fateer is somewhat like pizza in that it comes in a pizza box.  The dough is flaky, and the toppings are stuffed inside.  We topped things off with dessert… banana fateer which had powdered sugar and creme on top.  It was amazing.  Floating down the Nile was very relaxing, and slowly the noise of honking car horns and traffic (a constant anywhere in the city), faded away into near silence.  It was lovely!

P.S. I also got to experience the great winter storm of ’09 today.  I think I felt two raindrops and Brandon claims to have felt three.  Before it hit, I checked weather.com which said it was 70 degrees and the forecast was “SAND.”  I kid you not.  I never knew sand was a weather phenomenon, but apparently, it counts.  Now it says “widespread dust.”  We went to the store, and it doesn’t feel like a sandstorm… and having lived in Phoenix for nine years, I’ve been in many.  Definitely no haboob today.