Mummies & Bargains

Saturday, we decided to explore Cairo on our own without the assistance of a guy to drive us everywhere, although we cheated by meeting our roommate (who lived in Egypt for 8 months and is fluent in Arabic) halfway through the day. Our first stop was the Egyptian Museum, which we had taken pictures of our first day, but that had been closing. So we bought our tickets and got in the line, but got stopped at security. Turns out we had to go back outside and turn in our cameras to the little guard post. Egypt really needs to work out their trust issues with tourists. Needless to say, I have no pictures from inside the museum, because I was fresh out of my James Bond pen cameras, but take my word for it you've never been in a museum like this. It was dusty, dark, the artifacts were crowded in every corner, and if there were labels they looked about 60 years old. I'm sure the Egyptian Museum did not do it on purpose, but all those factors combined gave the museum a kind of atmosphere I'd never been in before and I loved it. In other words it felt like we had just walked into an archaeologists store room and it was fantastic. We saw tons of mummies, sarcophagi, jewelry, canopic jars, papyrus, statues, and most of Tutankhamen's burial chamber contents (including his famous mask).

Afterward we met Reese and she took us on the subway, which was not as bad as I was expecting (it was cleaner than Philadelphia's subway) and they even had a train car specifically for women, so we didn't have to deal with the skeevy men. We got off and she couldn't remember the exact way to the Khan el-Khalili Bazaar so we hopped in a cab and it took us there in 3 minutes. Instead of going in right away we stopped at a chain restaurant called GAD, and the food was so good. Give me Egyptian fast food any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

After stuffing ourselves with the food we walked over a pedestrian bridge to the bazaar which was basically a series of winding streets and alleys stuffed with people and the products they were selling: clothes, scarves, dried food, lanterns, jewelry, souvenirs, slippers, themselves(I got 2 marriage proposals), various musical instruments, toys, hookah pipes, and several men passed carrying long wooden pallets with stacks of pita bread on their heads. There were also men pushing carts through the crowds of people hissing to get through. Egyptians hiss like they're about to tell you a secret when they want to get your attention or get you to move out of the way.




We did some bargaining trying to buy stuff, and by we I mean Reese because she speaks excellent Arabic. Afterward she went to meet some friends and Lindsey and I tried to find our way back. We hopped in a cab and the guy took us to the wrong the square, but luckily I remembered it from the drive from the airport so we walked in the direction I thought the driver had taken us and eventually we came upon the Egyptian Museum and thus our hostel. Baby Jesus was on our side for that win, however he was not on my side getting out of the cab when I dropped Reese's espresso set and broke half of it. Fail.

Later that night Lindsey and I tried to find a place to have our last dinner in Egypt and the first place we went to had a menu that was exclusively in Arabic. So instead of pointing at random scribbles and hoping for the best, we walked down the street some more and found a cute little place that looked like it could have been in a movie set in the 19th century in a gentlemen's salon or something. The menu had English along with the Arabic, and as a bonus the waiters were dressed in these awesome blue robe things. All in all it was a very good day, I just wish I could say the same about our next day.