Thursday, March 26, 2009

Islamic Cairo






Today had no really strict agenda... just wandering around, really. I spent most of the morning and afternoon doing just that. My guide book has a map of the area, so I used that as a rough guide, but basically just went up and down the streets. I have some pretty pictures of the tesselated carvings, but no really good way to post them. The internet cafe I'm at now has skype, but no visible USB ports. Neither did the last one I was at (they had taped over the front of the machine, presumably to avoid tampering). Having some time to kill, I ended up walking back, despite it being a pretty hot day, and reasonably far.



After resting a bit at the hostel, I went out to dinner and then sat in an 'ahua for a while, drinking tea, reading, and looking around at the other people.

I am amazed how quickly my sense of prices readjusts, though. Generally, things are priced approximately the same here as in the US, as long as you replace the L.E. with $. What this means in practice is that things cost about a fifth as much. Nevertheless, I tend to get indignant if I think someone is cheating me by a pound or two. Even though that means it's only 20-40 cents, which isn't really that much, when you consider how much I've spent on airfare alone (though even that was relatively cheap).

Other updates: I have tickets to Siwa. My bus leaves on Sunday at 7:45 PM. I think I'll buy my Aqaba tickets when I go to the bus station for that.

Quote from yesterday: Sundae: "I like the palm trees on that guys motorcycle seat"
Me: "Uhh... I don't think that's a palm tree." (It was a cannabis leaf design)

1 comment:

  1. cool video of Siwa
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz6gPPwuTA4

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