Sunday, August 8

Now that we have most of our apartment set up, we are free to have a little more fun in Cairo. Last night, we went with Tom and Betsy to a Lebanese restaurant. It was pretty good and we tried our first sheesha. It is very common in Egypt. It is a water pipe from which you smoke tobacco. They have many flavors and we tried Arabic apple last night. It's not as heavy as a cigar or cigarette. Even though neither of us smoke, we thought we'd give this local tradition a try.

It is so nice in Cairo in the evenings when the sun goes down. It is interesting the way people come out after dark. We love it, of course, as both of us are night people. It cools down to the eighties and there is often a gentle breeze. It's perfect for the open air dining at most restaurants and for sitting on a balcony somewhere.We are thinking we might have to come home after work and take a nap, so that we can stay up at night. We are alsothinking we may have to move to an apartment with a balcony.

Today, we went down to central Cairo to an area called Midan Tahrir. We went to the bookstore at the American University in Cairo. We got a map and found lots of books in English. We will have to go back to get books to read. Then we went to the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities. It was amazing how large it was. There is so much housed in that one museum. We are going to have to go back to see the mummy room, but we did get to see King Tut's famous burial mask. It's interesting that the museum is like a big warehouse. The exhibits seem old and don't have much description. We will have to go back when we have a more thorough guidebook, in order to know what everything is.

We took our first trolley and metro rides. The metro was very efficient, but the trolley was a bit slow and crowded. In Egypt, if you are a woman riding without a man there are special cars reserved up front. Betsy and I were riding with Joe so we went to the back cars. Betsy and I were stared at and stared at. It was difficult to find a place to put our eyes with so many men staring back. There are so many more men on the streets and really everywhere. As western women, we are subject to being stared at and it is much better when we make sure to be conservative in our clothing.

We have another night of tutoring tonight. We are really looking forward to it. It is definitely helping us get around the city better.