Even in Egypt

About an hour away from any paved roads in the middle of the desert lies an oasis with a nice bilingual sign.

There were plenty of springs in Siwa and below is a picture of the normal spring activities... they don't have lifeguards yelling at you to walk.

The Microbus

I'm sitting in the back seat of this Microbus (اسمها مشروة بالعربية)

It's an alternative to taking the taxi. The Microbuses only have five rows of seats, but before they take off, they always find a way to squeeze in 19 people including the driver. Two people can sit beside the driver in the front, four people can sit in the very last row, three people can sit in the three middle rows, and the remaining three people sit in the folding chairs along side the three middle rows. 

The ride is only 3/4 pound (about 12 cents). In order to pay, you just pass your money to the person sitting in front of you. 

The upsides: 1. fixed, lower prices 2. carpool with everyone and their mothers and save the environment

The downsides: 1. you have to know their routes 2. you get dropped off 10 minutes away from where you actually want to be.

Externalities in Cairo

I took a train from Alexandria to Cairo last weekend with 3 friends (1 guy, two girls). For only 40 pounds (less than 8 dollars!), I chilled -- literally with the air conditioning -- in the second class cabin for 3 hours.  Immediately after exiting the train station, a 50 year old man who was walking towards us unzipped his pants and exposed himself. He did it so quickly that it seemed like he had a lot of experience. Anyways, that was my first impression.

Cairo has a problem with pollution (see skyline in picture below). It dried up my eyes so much that I couldn't wear my contacts for more than a couple hours. The air was so polluted that I felt like I couldn't breath and I was coughing until a day after I returned to Alexandria. 

Taxi drivers go crazy because they can usually rip off tourists. I tried to get two taxi drivers to bid down the price from the Pyramids to a place for lunch and one ended up taking a swing at another. A couple hours later, a taxi driver got out of his car and tried to push me after he thought I didn't pay enough (his tire popped before we got to our destination, so I assumed I'd get a discounted price). After the whole street descended on us (10 people circling us), we all discussed the price. The people on the street were more interested in conflict prevention than a fair deal, so I decided to just pay a dollar more and walk. 

Kids can go from playing soccer with their friends to crying on command and trying to get money from foreigners.

Whenever I asked for directions to the American University Bookstore, everyone told me "ala toole" (straight ahead). It turned out that I circled the bookstore for 15 minutes before someone gave me good directions.

Museums and many shops close at 4:30 in preparation for Ramadan dinner. So, we weren't able to check out any of the museums. However, I convinced a guy to open up his bookstore at 5:45, so I could get an English to Arabic dictionary.  

The pyramids were super sweet. They are huge. The Sphinx is awesome and camels make pretty funny noises. 

Just Arrived

The rules of life are completely different in Egypt. Cross walks and street lights exist, but they are completely ignored. People go two ways on one way streets and motorcycles often drive on the wrong side of the road. Cats are everywhere. Some are pretty cute and really tiny, but I’ve been warned that if you pet them you’ll get more diseases than you can name. And best of all, the Egyptians don’t use toilet paper… and here's where the story begins.

The toilets in my dorm don’t have anything that resemble any flusher I’ve seen before. There are a couple knobs that look like they might do the trick. I’d put pictures to explain, but I feel like starting off my blog with pictures of toilets is a step in the wrong direction (this is supposed to be good for Grandma too... Nana, I know you'd find it funny, but we need to be reasonable). Anyways, I tried to turn one knob (the one in the most accessible position that I assumed would probably flush the toilet), but that one wouldn’t budge. I was afraid that I might break the piping system if I pushed any harder, so I didn’t try to force it. The next knob is basically on the ground and kind of behind the toilet. It looks like a regular sink handle, but it seemed strange to me that a flusher would be in such an inconspicuous position. But, I figured you could reach it while sitting down, so that must be it. Well, I turned it and water just started shooting up at me (at a high pressure!). My shorts got completely soaked and I would say I looked like I had been a little too well hydrated. 

At this point, I had to ask how to flush the toilet, but of course, the only other person that speaks English is asleep, and I have no idea how to say "flush" in Arabic, so I approach one of the Egyptians in the dorm and I say the closest thing to asking how to flush… “I don’t know how to use the bathroom.” The guy gets this huge grin on his face and he tells me that the first knob I tried to turn was the correct knob all along. I just had to turn it really hard.

After recounting my story to another guy on my trip, I learned that Egyptians spray themselves with water after going to the bathroom (they just don't usually stand up with their clothes on before turning the switch).  Maybe I should bring this idea back to Middlebury... we might reach carbon neutrality even quicker.