Sidewalks

For what, exactly, is a sidewalk intended?  In Egypt, using sidewalks for merely walking is sooo unimaginative.  There are a multitude of other uses that we in the United States have never even considered.  For instance, a sidewalk may be used:

A.  as a bush or tree planter

B.  as a trashbin

C.  as a parking lot

D. for a guard house

 

 (most buildings have these outside somewhere, not all choose the sidewalk as the best location!)

E.  as a construction staging area

F.  as the ideal location for road signs and streetlights

And finally, 

G.  as a front porch

We have a lot of work to do in order to catch up with the creative thinking displayed here in Egypt!

Addendum, August 27th: We saw yet another use for sidewalks in Siwa- kitchen gardening.  These appear to be several corn plants.

Contrasts

Today we went on a trip outside of Cairo to the Mall of Arabia.  This trip was arranged by the Embassy for anyone who wanted to see Egypt's newest and (soon-to-be) largest mall.  We thought we would go along just to see some things and meet some people.  The mall itself was rather unremarkable; even decorated for Ramadan, it really seemed mostly like any other mall.  The drive to and from the mall, however, was long enough for us to see some very sharp contrasts.

The first surprise was a traffic light.  We were further astonished to see that it was both working and people were obeying the signals.  All traffic 'rules' in Egypt are completely optional.  It is not uncommon for people to drive the wrong way down a one-way street or suddenly stop on a major highway.  After a week of experiencing that kind of traffic, this intersection pictured below seemed almost unreal.

Since our trip took us across the Nile, we noticed another sharp contrast in the landscape.  Just around the Nile (and in well-kept suburbs like ours) it can be very green.

But take a quick turn east or west and you are right back in the desert again.

As mentioned before, the mall seemed unremarkable.  Looking back at the pictures, though, made it seem rather more remarkable.  Our drive home took us across some very run-down parts of the city:

We have heard that no matter how awful the buildings seem on the outside, the apartments inside are usually nice enough.  Regardless, money makes all the difference when it comes to your surroundings:

And finally, after seeing miles and miles of this flat and dull landscape:

We saw these!

Medieval Cairo

Here are the pictures from our tour last Saturday.  We visited a mosque, a citadel, a market called Khan al-Khalili, and a park. 


These first two pictures are of a mosque built by Saladin in the middle ages.  The outside of the mosque is covered in bricks taken from the pyramids at Giza.  Originally the pyramids had a smooth covering, but due to the building of this mosque they are now more rocky in appearance.

The decorative ceiling inside:

This is the citadel, also built by Saladin, which is nearby to the mosque:

 Inside one of the many mosques which are inside the citadel:

 

A view of Cairo from the walls of the citadel: 

A

This is part of the Khan al-Khalili bazaar. It is decorated for Ramadan, which although nothing like Christmas in meaning, seems to use the same kinds of decorations.

This is Al-Azhar Park in the middle of Cairo.  You can see a couple of minarets from mosques nearby, but the most amazing part about it is that it is GREEN.  There is no other place like this in the whole city, apparently, and it only takes about 20 minutes to walk the whole circumference.  Not a big surprise in a desert, I suppose!

A sunset view from the roof of a restaurant in the park.  One of the people in our group (who has been here a while) remarked that this was, "the most beautiful sunset made by man".  The pollution is certainly a significant problem!

Welcome to Egypt!

After a fairly uneventful flight to Egypt and a remarkably smooth trip through customs, our sponsors met us at the airport and drove us to our new apartment.  We had a third 'extra' sponsor waiting for us when we arrived.  He had been working for a couple of hours already to get us cell phones and internet on our arrival.  Nothing seems to work exactly how it's planned here, so we ended up with one working phone and a somewhat tenuous connection to the internet.  We are so grateful to have anything, however, and even more grateful for friends that are going above and beyond to help us adjust to life here in Cairo!

We are keeping ourselves entertained with the many things that don't seem to make any sense here in Egypt.  Here are few of examples:

The first morning we tried to turn on the shower we had zero water pressure.  After some fiddling around we discovered that the showers could only barely work when the sink in each bathroom had the water on at full blast.  After we got (minimally) clean, our sponsor came over to take us to the commissary.  We asked if he could help us figure out the shower problem and he showed us a set of knobs hidden to the side of one of the sinks that could be adjusted to make the showers run normally.  But why did the showers initially work when the sinks were running?  And why were the knobs controlling the showers halfway down the wall at the side of one of the sinks?  We are quickly learning that the response to such puzzling situations is, 'Welcome to Egypt!'

Our sponsor also took us the the Egyptian version of Walmart to get a couple of household items, one of which was a bathroom trashcan.  The options were all brightly colored plastic cans with somewhat matching lids.  I picked one out and a lid that (almost) matched.  It wasn't until we got to the register that I realized the lid had a bonus, 'No Smoking' sticker attached to it.  Is this a common problem in Egyptian bathrooms? 

The Embassy has lent us some household goods until our own things arrive.  The kitchen has most of the appliances that we might need, and is also equipped with both American and Egyptian outlets.  Unfortunately, the microwave and toaster do not use either American or Egyptian plugs, but are equipped with a third kind altogether!  The maintenance staff has visited once and said they will come back Tuesday with a solution.  Thankfully, the coffee maker works beautifully.

Welcome to my blog!  The title requires some explanation so that it doesn't come across as overly pretentious:

My great-grandfather, Edward Stone, was the editor of a major Seattle newspaper. Sometime in the early 1960s he published a series of articles called Seattle Innocents Abroad- taking the series' name from the title of Mark Twain's famous travel memoir, Innocents Abroad. My grandfather's articles detailed his many trips abroad and borrowing from my grandfather for my travel blog seemed an appropriate tribute to a man who loved traveling himself.  I have a great picture of him and my great-grandmother in Egypt which I will attempt to post once we have better internet!