Socks and Cigarettes

We've been spending a good deal of our time in Alexandria in outside cafes on the main waterfront area known (I think) as the Corniche). The view is of the old harbor, with an ancient fort at the end of the 3km walkway. There are many boats in part of the harbor and right in front is an absurdly busy street with hoards of mini-bus cabs and the general honking traffic. We are often offered a variety of goods from mangos to a bizarre combination of socks and cigarettes. There is also a man who keeps wanting to polish my Teva sandles.

The weather here is much nicer (though still very hot) than in Cario. The air is also fresh from the Sea, which is most wonderful as the terrible pollution in Cairo was taking its toll on Alicia's lungs (and current cold). The buildings alternate from ugly concrete blobs to decrepit French-style buildings from the early 1900's.

Everywhere we go people are unbelievably friendly. "Welcome to Alex!", they shout from passing cars or as we walk past on the sidewalk. Our three word Arabic vocabulary (hello, goodbye, and thank you) prompts many smiles and my hair seems to be the strangest thing anyone has ever seen. "Hey Bob Marley! Come into my shop!". They also seem excited that we are from the US, though we are often assumed to be either Spanish or Italian. I don't think too many Americans end up walking down random streets in Egypt. Everyone we've spoken with who speaks English well has told us that people here love Americans, but that they (like us) think that our President is . We've not yet had a single bad reaction to either our nationality or our utter lack of Arabic.

The many restrictions on women here are difficult to handle and we can't figure out how the women here cope with them. It will be interesting to see how things are on the Tanzanian coast. That area is > 95% Muslim, but in some ways (so we hear) a bit more relaxed.

--- Some thoughts on our day at the Pyramids ---

As many of you know we had a day with a guide scheduled via a friend Alicia's Uncle Tom who lived in Cairo for many years doing Agriculture development work. We spent the day with an a semi-retired Australian named Colin, and his native to Cario driver, Waile (I know I'm spelling this wrong). Both were the most wonderful people we could have hoped to spent the day with. We started out at the oldest Pyramid, the "Step Pyramid" and then made our way to the "Bent Pyramid" and the "Red Pyramid" (the one Alicia spoke about going inside). The day ended anti-climatically with the massive Pyramids at Giza. I could go on an on about the day, but a few highlights:

* The lush, incredibly green fields of endless corn on our drive. We also saw beautiful fields of both Palm trees and other crops below. The output of the soil here looks to be incredible, and even more so when you realize that there is very little mechanized agriculture here.

* Horse/Donkey/Mule drawn carts on the roads

* Our best stop as at the Bent and Red Pyramids, where there was virtually know one around. We moved around the site in such a way that we had both pyramids to ourselves! This was apparently beyond lucky.

* Colin and our driver, Waile, brought iced 1.5L water bottles to the poor guards who were sitting in the shade of the pyramids, in the middle of nowhere, bored out of their minds, in uniform, and of course (like every other policeman here) carrying a huge rifle. The looks on their faces at the water was great.

We leave for Zurich in a few days and it is going to be bizarre to change from the hecticness of Egypt to the very organized and German-speaking section of Switzerland that we are off to.

Running out of time, so please forgive the spelling errors!

-Jonathan