Cairo (at last)

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  Cairo, Egypt
Friday, January 20, 2006

Finally, after some 55 hours of travel, I'm in al-Qahira. I landed in the city at about 3:45 and breezed through customs and immigration. The international terminal was empty except for those on my flight. The drive to the dorm on Zamalek took only about 25 minutes as there was no traffic. I later heard that this was an anomaly. Today is a) Friday (day of prayer) and b) the night of the big match between Egypt and Libya, held in Cairo, which meant most people were at home and there were thousands of cops lining the streets.

The daunting police presence, however, was apparently ineffective in deterring the mindless driving that Cairo is famous for. My driver (who met me at the airport with a sign reading "DAVID RUBENSTEW, AUC") never failed to accelerate exactly where I would have braked. He drove so close to other cars that I could have reached in their windows and taken hold of their steering wheels in a mad attempt to move them farther from me. I resisted this temptation. The other drivers seemed to take much the same approach to driving. Lane markers, where they exist, seemed to be more a suggestion of what to straddle.

We made it to the dorm, and I unloaded and unpacked. I met two grad students living a few doors down from me and they invited me to watch the football game at a café down the street. The game was pretty sad. Libya got routed by Egypt 3-0 and both teams gave a generally piss-poor performance. Or so I gathered. I know nothing about soccer. But it made the Egyptians happy and I'm glad of that. Perhaps it was the game, but from the time we sat down, we didn't have any food or drink in front of us for about an hour and a half. But the food was great and the staff was friendly. Same goes for my new friends Ben and Ramas (from Pittsburgh and Kuwait/Berlin, respectively).

Back to the dorms to socialize. Found my friend Chelsey, from NU and we had a good time catching up. Also met many other FOB Americans, all of them just as excited to be here as I am.

Tomorrow is campus orientation, Arabic placement exam, and the first day of my survival Arabic course. Hoorah.

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