I went to Cairo to visit my friend Dani, who is studying there for the semester. That, and because Cairo's cool. So here are the accounts of my 1st week in Cairo.
Day 1: Arrive at airport to Dani's friend Jacqueline and 5 random Egyptian guys as Dani looks for me elsewhere. Drive to Dani's apartment (which is huge and super nice with free wireless and a washing machine) in Egyptian guys' car. Decide to not sleep and go on a boat along the Nile at 8 am. Jacqueline, Dani, and I go to the boat place to find out they don't sell tickets until 9:30 am. Go get breakfast, return at 9:30, buy tickets, and then wait for 30 minutes to be let onto the boat. Then wait an 1 1/2 hours before the boat leaves. The boat finally starts at 11:30 am and we enjoy our journey along the Nile. We went on this boat because it's not meant for tourists, is cheaper , and goes farther up the Nile. We weren't sure how long it was - Jacqueline said either 1 1/2 hours or 1 1/2 hours there and 1 1/2 hours back. I take a 20 minute nap and am awoken by five adult Egyptian men surrounding me. We find out from them that the trip is actually 3 hours there and 3 hours back. And we're landing in some random village for a couple of hours (but the time wasn't specified - we leave whenever people show back up). When we get to the random city, we're swarmed by taxi drivers, carriage drivers, and people leading horses. We also witness Fight #1. Two men screaming and fighting. One of them was a horse driver and had a whip. He hit the other guy with it a few times. It was legit and scary. But no worries. My survival instincts kick in and I move away from the fight.
Once the fight breaks up, we set off on foot to find a train station, ignoring the men trying to get us to take their transportation into town. Most of them finally give up on us except this guy offering his ONE horse for the THREE of us. He follows us for TWENTY minutes and he won't listen to our protestations. He disappears once we run into an army guy. The army guy says he thinks the train station is near but taxi drivers around us start to argue that it's 2 hours away. Figuring they just want to take us to the middle of nowhere to charge us a ton, we listen to the more credible and trustworthy army guy. Those survival instincts again.
We trek on, run into a guy who offers to take us to a minibus. The first minibus driver refuses to drive us; he didn't want to take Americans. So we get on another minibus and some random guy pays for us but then harasses Jacqueline for her email. Ah, the hidden agendas in Cairo.
Once in Cairo we go home and nap. That night we meet Waleed, one of the Egyptian friends Dani made, at a soccer game. A police man wanted to upgrade us to the upper class section because he said the police were trying to set a secret trap for the rowdy crowd, which often times can get violent. Dani, who has no survival instincts, insisted we sit in the crowd area. Waleed suggests a compromise: we sit in the stands above the crowd. We agree and sit down. A random spectator comes up to us and warns us about the "secret" police plans. We thank him and he sits next to Dani. Then this random guy with a walkie-talkie sitting in a chair near us asks us how we're doing. He says he's been planted to watch over us. While he's talking to us, he gets called over by the police in uniform and reprimanded for blowing his "cover."
The game is exciting. It's between the national team of Egypt and the police force team (perhaps the motivation for the "secret" plan to arrest the crowd, hmmm?) We see Fight #2. It happens 6 feet in front of us. This time a guy pulled out his belt. Our "secret" policeman went "mysteriously" missing. Fight eventually got separated by men in the crowd and not the hundred policemen in the area.
The crowd never got rowdy during the game. Although Dani, Jacqueline, and I did attract a lot of attention. It's rare for women to go to a soccer game and even rarer for American women to go to a soccer game (especially ones who got their faces painted in the national team's colors). But people just crowd around us after the game and nicely ask to take their picture with us. I feel like a celebrity.
End of Day 1 in Cairo.
Day 2: Sleep 11 hours. See Fight #3 on my second day, at the airport, when we went to drop Jacqueline off. This one goes on forever. A man pushes another man into a woman. Woman gets angry, takes off her shoes, and starts to hit the men. Fight is really loud and yet aiport security never come. In fact, some are even in sight of the fight and don't do anything. One security man does come over and, instead of breaking up the fight, pulls aside a nervous American couple and sits them down, assuring them everything will be alright. Egyptian police take pride in their competence and thoughtfulness towards foreigners.
Rest of the week I just go out to eat with Dani's Egyptian friends and meet them all. They're super nice and all play in a band. Go to band practice with them at the most famous Egyptian music studio. I don't see anymore fights.
Ramadan starts. Our neighborhood gets quiet for a day or two and then picks back up.
End of week 1.
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