waladee fee misar (Dad in Egypt)

Food

So my dad got into Cairo last week on the 9th. His plane came in at about 7:30 and with all of the customs checks, visa and crazy taxi ride from the airport to his hotel he didn't check in until about 9:45. That was after I wanted to try and explore Cairo for a hotel that it took him about an hour and a half to find so we decided that we would meet up the next night for dinner.

It was a good meal at a Lebanese restaurant that was suggested by trip adviser. I also got to see Bob and Shannon who where among the last people I saw before leaving the US on this trip. The food was excellent and not paying was excellenter (pretty sure that's not a word, but defiantly a feeling). We decided to meet the next morning to go to the Pyramids.

The next morning rolled around and I woke up to a phone call from the father in which he informed me that the pyramids were closed because of something or other (we later learned that it was 11-11-11 and apparently all of the crazies come out of the woodwork on that day). Instead we went to Coptic Cairo. It was nice, and by nice I mean it was really, really boring. I'm usually a fan of seeing old churches but these didn't do it for me. Couple that with, what can be described as, the worst audio tour of all time, and we were ready to leave Coptic Cairo awful quick. 

So we all piled into a taxi and told the driver to take us to the Islamic section. The driver immediately noticed that he had a car with 4 white people in it and decided to rack up his meter by giving us a, rather long, tour of Cairo. We spent about 45 minutes in the car and drove around the city of the dead (really poor section of Cairo) as well as a good bit of highway driving. At the end of it all the meter read 25 LE ($5) so we paid got out and went in search of the coffee shop we had just waited about an hour for. We found it pretty quickly but, unfortunately they only served coffee, so we had to find somewhere else for lunch. After walking around Islamic Cairo for a while (Dad and Bob wanted beer) we gave up and ate at a GAD (a chain type restaurant). 

Church

The "I'm not a guide" guide

View from the top of a Mosque

During lunch we read the guidebook, it seemed to indicate that going to a mosque nearby and heading to the roof would be a good idea. We weren't exactly sure where we were so we stopped to ask for direction and picked up an unofficial tour guide. He kept assuring us that he was a student and he was just being helpful and didn't want to get paid, but then he stuck around for a really long time and eventually asked for money so, he lied. But, whatever, I got to go to the top of a mosque that I wouldn't have been able to get to otherwise so, it was probably money well spent. 

After getting scammed a bit we went back to the hotel where Bob, Shannon and Dad were staying and hung out for an hour or two. Dad and Bob slept. Shannon left without telling me, and I goofed around on the computer. After the nap Bob came into the room holding a bottle of Bourbon, one of the items on my "doing as soon as I get back into the US list" so we all had a delicious helping of good Bourbon and headed out to the restaurant. I, again, got a great meal and didn't have to pay, so what I'm trying to say is, "Thanks for coming to Cairo so you could buy me some dinners, dad." 

He took off to Luxor to look at really old things for a couple of days while I work on my Arabic for the week. I think I might try to pull of Alexandria this weekend, I just have to get some people to join me.

Have a great week. I'll see many of you pretty soon.