Can you say, "Balcony over the Nile!!" ?!?!

Mom made a stellar going away breakfast Thursday morning which included some fantastic bacon since I will be pork-less for the next nine months (Muslims consider the pig a filthy animal and it is banned religiously from their diet). A measly 32 hours after leaving my house, I inhaled (unlike Bill Clinton...) my first breath of the polluted, dusty, extremely hot Cairene air. Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore!


Driving through the city I was overwhelmed by what seemed like a never-ending horizon of buildings in every direction. Cairo is home to over twenty million people, a forth of the Egyptian population. The streets surprisingly weren't that crowded, but that can be explained because it is Ramadan. (Second insightful fact about Islam for this entry: Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, which is based on a lunar system. Faithful Muslims fast from food and water from sun up to sun down, and smoking and sex for the entire month. Each evening's fast is broken with a feast with family and friends. The end of the month is celebrated with a huge feast called Eid al-Fitr to commemorate the first revelation to the Prophet Muhammad.) Anyways, the point of me mentioning Ramadan, besides sharing about the religious holiday, is to explain why the streets are not crowded during the day. There were fewer cars driving and barely any stores open on the streets. People are inside attempting to stay cool and not working to avoid over-exertion.

This proved to be a problem right before sun-down when I was in desperate need of a bottle of water to re-hydrate. Thankfully, by the time my friends were ready to leave the hotel (motivating nine people in the same direction is not a speedy endeavor), the sun set and we found sustenance. We dinned down the street from our hotel which is situated on the Nile River. My balcony looks over the historic waterway and there is a cooling breeze, well if you stand still long enough to feel it.

I took some pictures of my room, which I will try to post tomorrow. The internet here is kind of hit or miss, so we will have to see how uploading pictures goes. I am headed to bed since I have not slept since Wednesday evening Louisville time (6 hours slower than Egyptian time).