Day 2: Cairo - Walk Like an Egyptian

Obligatory picture of me riding a camel in front of the pyramids while wearing an awesomely authentic headscarf. 

My flight to Cairo ended up being delayed because... wait for it, wait for it -- the French were on strike. Shocker. Apparently French air traffic controllers were dissatisfied with something, likely the vintage of their wine provided by their employers on their 4 hour lunch breaks, and decided to take it out on me by making me wait on the tarmac for an extra two hours before the two air traffic controllers who showed up to work got around to clearing my flight. Ten Egyptian pounds says that those two air traffic controllers who showed up to work were not native-born French.

Upon arriving in Cairo, I promptly discovered that the following things don't exist in Cairo:

1) Lanes
2) Traffic lights
3) Stop signs
4) The use of turn signals

There's only one other place I've been that rivals Cairo driving, and that was China. However, in China traffic is so congested that drivers are unable to accumulate enough speed to be a hazard. It's more like slow-motion bumper cars that try to nudge each other out of the way. Cairo, on the other hand, has just enough space to allow drivers to accelerate to a dangerous speed while still having very little regard for anything that moves. Crossing the street in Cairo is more manhoodproducing (that's a word now) than any Bar Mitzvah could ever be.

The Nile!

 So yes, I went to the Pyramids. And yes, they were awesome. And yes, I thought about the poor debt-ridden law students working unpaid internships and former co-workers slaving away in cubicles who were not looking at the Pyramids. And yes, that made me smile. I also met a nice Brazilian woman with whom I played a game of let's tell each other how much we spent for stuff to discover who was ripped off the most. A local who overheard us informed us that we both lost very badly.

Lunch was a felafel sandwich for 30 cents. Dinner was two more felafel sandwiches for 60 cents.

At night, I rounded up some hostel mates and we smoked some sheesha while watching the World Cup. A cunning young man named Ashraf tagged along in hopes of hooking up with one of our hostel girls. She soon left and we promptly took advantage of Ashraf's local knowledge to secure bargains and find good places to go. He then left us when we started smoking because a table of three American girls had sat down a few paces away.

The only way to watch the World Cup.