Last weekend, my roommates and I went to Islamic Cairo and walked around a little bit.




There was this Ottoman or something house that was open for looking around, so we wandered around it and looked at the architecture.

Detailed tiled floors and ceilings.


Courtyards.
A grinding wheel or something.

A cool sitting room. I used to think that I wanted a rococo parlor, but I think I want an Islamic sitting room. I really like low couches and high ceilings and hidden cupboards.

In Cairo, stores are arranged in districts. We were walking around the shisha/minaret district, so all the shops sold shisha and shisha parts and/or those bronze things that are at the top of minarets. Apparently there is also a fire district somewhere, where they sell fire boots and extinguishers and stuff like that.
Walls.

Anyway, this weekend featured Taba Day, so we had an extra day off and so my roommate Mariya and I went to Alexandria. A lot of people call it Alex, but something about it seems kind of annoying and improper. It reminds me of this David Sedaris story in which he mentions his refusal to date anyone who shortens street names in New York (refering to Madison Avenue as Mad. Ave. for example). Anyway, I am a little bit in love with Alexandria and had a really good time there.

We stayed with Mariya's distant relative. She lived in a really really nice apartment. It was like a first world bubble. It was pretty fobby too.

We had planned on taking the 9:00 am train, but it was full, so we had to take the 11:00 train and got in around 2:00. The woman we were staying with had borrowed her neighbors driver and after we settled in our fobby room, we ate home cooked Indian food (so good) and sat around and watched real cable television with channels such as MTV. After my last major trip, which was fun but so densely packed, I was only interested in sitting around and wandering, so eventually, we took a cab to the corniche (waterfront) and enjoyed the view of the Mediterranean. No real pictures of it, because I don't believe in taking pictures of oceanic views. It was really cloudy. Also, it had been raining. It wasn't even raining that much, but Mariya and I were so excited because it never rains in Egypt.

After sitting on the corniche, we went looking for the souq (market) because it was supposed to have good jewelry or something. We found the souq:
But there was nothing there really worth buying. Lots of crappy socks, raw meat, live animals (for eating), bras, tacky clothes.

After all that getting lost, we worked up a good appetite, and found this restaurant called Hood Gondol. The tour book had recommended it, as well as our roommate Claire and Mariya's boyfriend, but had told us it would be hard to find. We found it eventually, and the directions we were given were not terrible, so I didn't think it was too bad. And anyway, it was well worth it:
It was seriously like the best seafood I'd ever had in my life. So fresh. When we finally found the place, one of the guys working there showed us these giant pots that had all of the food they offered, since they didn't have a menu. There was rice, potatoes, peppers, limes, blackened fish, fried fish fillet, clams, and fried calamari. The guy took a piece of fish fillet and offered it to us, and we ate it and of course it was good. Then he offered us clams, which we also ate. He asked us what we thought, and when we paused, he said "It's perfect, isn't it?" Seriously, it was so good and I just... am so sad that it isn't something I can have all the time. Oh, and it cost 65 Egyptian pounds for the two of us, including the cokes we got. That is roughly $13 USD.... for BOTH of us.

Then we went back to the apartment and watched the weirdest movie on TV. It was about "tough love" camps.

The next day, we had a rough itinerary of some things that would be cool to see. First we went to Fort Qaitbay, which was built on the ruins of the Lighthouse of Alexandria. It was really great. The view was beautiful and it was windy and I had packed along some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that I had baked and so it was pretty excellent.
Egyptians don't have to pay very much, if anything, to get into touristy types of attractions. As a result, the majority of the people at Qaitbay were Egyptians. And so first, there were a lot of people stopped in really irritating places, taking pictures for their myspaces. Second, there was probably worse harrassment inside the Fort than outside it. There was one point where Mariya wanted to change her camera lens and about like a million 10 year olds ran up and were all, "Hallo? Hallo? What's your name?" and then a bunch of barely pubescent boys came up and were like "Hallooooo ;) Welcome to Egypt!" Ugh. Like I don't get that enough.
Apparently, that rubbly wall in the back on the left is part of what remains of the lighthouse.

Around this part of the wall, which is a little less obvious to get to, there were a lot of secret couples. See that little niche on the left? There was probably a secret couple inside there too.
This was like, where the sewage went or something. It smelled foul, but looked cool.
There was a network of sort of secret passageways, in like, the bottom of the walls, which was also really cool.
And a mosque inside the big building part, which was also nice.

We walked back a little bit, past this cute boatyard, with really nice and brightly colored boats.

I thought it was really nice because even Egyptians were standing there, looking out at the boats, admiring the sea, or whatever.

Next we stopped in a cafe, which was nice and cute, until Mariya ordered a Greek salad, which ended up sucking a little bit. Then we took a cab to the Catacombs. We got lost looking for it, because we went down the wrong street. Then we had to pass this giant puddle of water in the middle of the road. You can't tell, but it really sucked and it was freaking huge. We managed to go around it... through a lot of gross trash.

As I already mentioned, kids here tend to be really annoying. Yes I am foreign. No I would rather not be a spectacle. But this girl. This girl really knew how to get to us. She just had to hold this puppy and we were all over it. When we finally continued walking, there were some 13 year old boys who started trying the whole "Hallooo. What's your name" thing, and we were like "Please. Don't even try. You don't have a puppy, you don't have a chance."

Finally we made it to the Catacombs. Only to find out that they would not allow cameras in. I snuck a few on my phone. But this was the only picture I have on my camera. Of course, a huge group of Egyptian men were also in the Catacombs and they were super obvious about the fact that they were taking pictures with their phones. So that was annoying. Also, they thought I was from Thailand and/or Japan. Also not cool.
Anyway, the Catacombs were excellent. There was this huge spiral staircase, that revolved around a cylindrical shaft, through which they supposedly lowered bodies. There was a room with stone benches carved into it, for the mourning families to have dinner parties in. There were a million holes for bodies. There were relief carvings of Egyptian gods wearing Roman clothes. There was a sacrificial altar. There were paintings of both Egyptian and Greek myths relating to the underworld. It was a pretty awesome place. Then we sat outside and watched some tourists come in and played "Where are they from?"

After the catacombs, we had time to waste, so we went to this restaurant at the roof of one of the super luxe hotels and ate fake Chinese food. Then we did what we always do when we have nothing to do: we sat on the corniche.
Then we went back, had more home cooked Indian food (still SO good) and caught a train back to Cairo. After Alexandria, Cairo sucks a little bit. Also the train ride was a little crappy because we sat right next to the bathroom. The bathroom that they probably don't clean. So it smelled really terrible. But Alexandria was totally worth it. It was beautiful and calming and my experience there was so relaxing and first world, it was a really nice change.

In other news:
Last week, I made some samosas and they were great. That was off topic, but I was really proud.