Downtown take 2

Class 9-1.

Nick, Zack, Riley, and I went and got gelato at the bakery near our hotel, and then I did some laundry in the bathtub and finished up my paper. Some people went to the zoo, but after what I ad heard about it I had absolutely no justifcation for going. Apparently you can pay 50 Egyptian pounds or so and they'll sedate a baby tiger so that you can hold it. I just don't think that's ok, so I didn't go.

Instead, Nick, Zack, Riley, Victoria (from photography), and I went downtown. We visited the original Groppi's chocolate shop (last time we went to the one that opened later) and then to the Yacoubian building where we asked so many people how to get onto the roof but had no success. Groppi's and the Yacoubian building are places that were mentioned in the readings that we had to do for the dialogue class, so it's kind of cool to see them in person. We also went to a bookstore where we ended up talking to one of the employees in Arabic for a while. We talked about Tom Cruise, Obama, Bush, Al Pacino, etc. It was really cool to put our Egyptian colloquial to use, but we still have a long way to go.

1. only in Egypt: The window displays in the downtown area (and I guess in general) are absurd. They put as much stuff out on display as will fit. At the shoe stores there can be 100-200 pairs of shoes visible from the window. The same idea applies to clothes. Window shopping here is like an Olympic sport. I need to get a picture to capture the full effect. Also, I think it is so funny that despite the fact that Cairo is such a dirty city, EVERY shopkeeper sweeps and washes the sidewalk outside of their shop. I always see them at it and I just wonder what a slightly cleaner sidewalk does for business.

2. the little things you miss: I really REALLY miss free public bathrooms/not having to pay for a single serving of toilet paper. Sometimes I just feel like they "know"... like they look at me and think, "you're a tourist and you're worried about getting dehydrated so you've clearly been chugging down 1.5 liter bottles of water all day so I win and you're going to pay to use my bathroom." This is clearly just me being bitter about the bathroom situation.

3. Furby?: So many of the cars here have these weird furry mats covering the dashboard. Victoria's description of them today: "They just look like somebody skinned a furby." I completely agree with this statement. Also, we're not really sure about their function. Some people think they prevent the dashboard from getting to hot in the sun, but who knows. Maybe skinned furbies are just really stylish in Egypt. I'll try to get a picture of the mats too.