This FAQ was updated September 2, 2008.
1. I want to register my whereabouts with the US embassy – what should I do?
First, you should be aware that Egypt is an extremely safe, extremely stable country. Second, I live just down the street from the US embassy, I’m registered with the embassy, and I have their number in my cell phone. But if you’re still nervous about being in Egypt unregistered, follow this link to the State Department’s website.
2. For the embassy registration, I need a local address — what should I use?
Contact me directly for my address.
3. I need to register my presence with the Egyptian government as well – what should I do?
I’ll take care of this. The Egyptian government requires that all tourists formally register their whereabouts. I can do this very quickly through the university when you get here – I just need to borrow your passport for an hour.
4. What do I do when I get to Cairo airport?
Unless I specifically tell you otherwise, I will be hiring a private car and a customs greeter to pick you up at the airport. I won’t be coming to the airport, it’s a hassle. There will be a man from the American University in Cairo waiting for your airplane, with a sign with your name on it. Do exactly what he tells you to do, and he'll get you through customs and to your private car in a jiffy.
If, God forbid, you can’t find the customs greeter – and this is extremely unlikely and would probably only happen if somehow you didn’t get on the plane you told me you’d be on (last minute changes do happen) – go to the Gem Travel counter when you come through customs. Tell them you’re a guest of AUC, and you need to get in touch with Nancy (I'll send your her number). If you call me I’ll just call the same person, so it’d be faster if you call her directly, tell her the situation, and reiterate that you need to get to my address in Garden City.
5. How do I get a visa?
Visas for a 30-day stay in Egypt are available for purchase at the Cairo airport. The customs greeter will help you with this. You should have US $15 in clean, crisp bills. They’ll give you change if you only have a 20, but it’s always better to have exact change.
6. How do I get to Tiffany’s place?
The car will bring you straight to my apartment building in Garden City. Go into the building, take the elevator to the 8th floor, and ring the bell at #31 (second door from the left).
7. Do I need passport-sized photos for anything just in case?
You don't need passport photos, although photocopies of your passport
(maybe 3) are a good idea in general.
8. What’s the currency situation in Egypt?
The Egyptian currency is the pound (“Guinea” in Arabic). People will take American money, but they will price-gouge you, so it’s best to function in Egyptian currency. There’s a bank on-campus at AUC, as well as several banks in my neighborhood. Once you get here I can help you exchange money and get it into a spendable form – small bills (1, 5, 10) are absolutely vital and yet hard to get. Banks tend to give out 50s and 100s. The small bills are especially useful for baksheesh – tips. Don’t worry about tipping, I’ll take care of that as we go around.
9. What vaccinations do I need before traveling?
Actually, you don’t need anything special to come to Egypt. There is no malaria in Egypt – at least nowhere you’ll be going. There are vaccinations you should have in general, like Hepatitis A/B and tetanus. You could consider this your chance to catch up. You should probably bring your up-to-date yellow WHO card with you, if you have one. For more information, here’s the CDC’s Egypt website.
10. Can I drink the water in Egypt?
No way. I drink the water because I live here, but I went through a fairly long sick period before my body adjusted. I have access to loads of bottled water here.
I recommend the Nestle brand, which is a little more expensive but has a low TDS level (which doesn’t really matter for a short period of time anyway).
ALWAYS inspect the integrity of the plastic seal before buying or opening any bottled water. There are many shops, especially near the pyramids and in Upper Egypt, that will cheerfully sell you tap water poured into a plastic bottle. If a waiter in a restaurant brings you a bottle that he didn’t unseal in front of you, politely request another one and ask him to open it in front of the table.
11. What’s the electricity situation in Egypt?
Egypt runs on 220V electricity, the same as Europe. I have plenty of adaptors for the sockets, but at this time, not a 220/110 converter (the voltage regulator). Check your electronics to make sure they won't get blown out if you plug them in here (with the
adaptor). I know my Apple laptop power source, for example, can handle 110-220 V.
12. Do you have a hairdryer?
Nope, as of the most recent update of this FAQ, I don’t own a hairdryer. It’s up to you if you want to bring one – Egypt’s not exactly a high-glamour destination.
13. What pharmaceuticals should I bring?
You should pack the usual – Immodium, Tylenol, and any prescription drugs you take. Rehydration salts are another good purchase (you can buy them in Egypt under the name Rehydran). Make sure you bring enough medication for twice the length of time you’re planning to stay here – just in case. Egypt is extremely hard on illegal drug use but not on legal drugs. I have a stash here of essentials, like Tylenol, Immodium, Benadryl, anti-nausea drugs - I even have a short Cipro course for emergencies. There are pharmacies everywhere, though, and a prescription isn't needed here for quite a few things that are prescription in the US. I have access to the AUC clinic, and I have several friends who are doctors here. If you need something that I haven't covered here, let me know and I'll look into its accessibility.
14. What should I wear? How conservative is Egypt?
First, let me congratulate you on being considerate of a fairly conservative culture - although Egypt is nowhere on par with Saudi Arabia. Now, I have to point out that no matter what you do, you will stand out here and everyone will know you're a tourist. So don't tie yourself into knots trying to dress conservatively for that reason. Capri pants are fine, short-sleeved shirts are fine (I have plenty of scarves that I can lend you for entering mosques or covering up). It's skin that drives people crazy here, not tight-fitting clothes, which makes no sense to me, but again, you’re clearly a tourist.
For you women out there, unless you are Muslim and usually cover your hair, do NOT plan to do that here out of courtesy. It makes things harder for those of us who have to live here and refuse to bend to fundamentalism. However, it is required to cover your hair if you enter a mosque. I have plenty of scarves here, and if you’d like you can wear a hat (also a good idea for the Egyptian sun). You should be aware that Egyptian men have dreadful manners when they're loitering on the street - staring, sexual comments, that sort of thing. Results from a repressive social culture, I should think. Anyway, for that reason, I always wear a scarf on the street over my arms if I'm wearing short sleeves. During Ramadan (September 2008) it’s a good idea to dress even more conservatively to be polite.
Regarding footwear: The streets here are dirty, sometimes with garbage, sometimes with just construction junk. During the summer I wore open-toed shoes a lot and was constantly filthy. KC was appalled that I wore sandals on the streets in Cairo - although in the older quarters of the city I never wear open-toed shoes for cleanliness and safety. I'd recommend sneakers for tourism (including Giza) and one pair of not-sneakers for dinners at night (don't have to be heels). I'm size 5, if you're the same size I'd be happy to lend you night-time shoes. Unless we’ve specifically planned a desert or Sinai trip, you don’t need hiking boots.
15. I want to take a Nile cruise in Upper Egypt. How do I do this?
I can book a Nile cruise with Presidential Nile Cruises for you through the university. You’ve got a few options, including 3, 4, and 5 night cruises. We went south to north (Aswan to Luxor), and I enjoyed seeing Karnak last, since it’s a bit overwhelming. The cruises don’t include airfare, but they do include lunch and dinner every day, all site admissions, and English-speaking guide, and transport to all the sites. None of the cruises include a trip to Abu Simbel, but I can arrange that for you (including transport in the convoy) if you want.
16. Any advice about the Upper Egypt trip?
Dehydration is a very serious issue any time of year in Upper Egypt. Please make sure you have plenty of sunblock (I have some here if you run out) and a hat. There's a reason that desert people cover themselves head to toe - it really does help deflect sunlight. I'd also suggest bringing some rehydration salts with you. You can buy them in Egypt under the name Rehydran, but it might be a good idea for you to have them right away when you get to Upper Egypt.
There will be loads of bottled water available for purchase on your cruise. The prices are reasonable by Western standards but massively inflated by Egyptian standards (LE 7-10 per bottle, which is $1.30 – $1.90 per liter). When I did the cruise, KC and I bought bottled water in local stores (off the corniche, at least one street back) in each port and brought the bottles onto the boat to save money - and because we were insulted by the tourist prices. You don't have to do this; it's your vacation, and like I said, the prices are reasonable to Westerners. It's just an option I want you to know about.
If you’re doing the cruise in winter, it’s a good idea to bring a fleece or sweater, just in case.
17. Can I bring you anything from the States?
Don’t worry, I’m not shy about making specific requests. :)
Each person is entitled to purchase four bottles of foreign, duty-free alcohol within 48 hours of entering the country. I usually ask my guests to let me buy their duty-free allotment off them, since it's nearly impossible for me to get foreign alcohol here (I refuse to drink Egyptian moonshine for personal safety). The easiest place to buy is in the Cairo airport – go to the shop after the customs check if you want to use a credit card. If you’re willing to do this for me, I’d be happy to supply you with a specific list of duty-free requests to bring from the airport. I can reimburse you in American currency or in Egyptian currency (a good first source for your Egyptian currency).
18. What’s your apartment like?
I have an enormous apartment in Garden City, a section of Cairo 15 minutes’ walk south from Midan Al-Tahrir, the Times Square of Cairo (where the Egyptian Museum is located). My neighborhood is safe, quiet for Cairo, and green for Cairo.
My flat has a guest bedroom with two twin beds that can be pushed together. I make closet space and drawer space for guests. The guest room has no air-conditioning but does have a ceiling fan and a large standing fan. I have multiple couches that could accommodate up to three people (two are in the living room which has air-conditioning). The couches do not fold out but have very large overstuffed cushions.
The bedrooms have direct access to my huge balcony that has a Nile view. The apartment is oriented so that the constant breeze from the river blows straight into the apartment.
I have a cat. She's very well-behaved and very affectionate. She has short fur and doesn't shed much, but there is cat hair in my apartment. She can be locked out of the guest bedroom, but it’s tough to keep her out of the living room (couch crashers, beware).
19. Anything else I should know?
Probably. You should feel free to email me any time with specific questions.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
The Mad Mad Mad Mad World ...
... of Academia never ceases to amaze me. I think my wonder/horror started as I came to the end of grad school. I started looking around, and thinking about the processes and the institutions I saw around me. I drank with postdocs, nobbed with professors, and started reading Chronicle. And all this led me to a perhaps obvious question:
Does anyone really know what they're doing here?
I know I suffer from the Imposter Syndrome. I'm not afraid to admit it. What worries me is the legion of seemingly-confident people around me who don't. Either they genuinely know what they're doing - and I'm the idiot - or they hide it much better than I do.
I'm thinking about this this morning because I just finished reading Stanley Fish's column about the new President of the University of Colorado. I especially liked the following passage:
"But in the academy there is no product except knowledge, and that may take decades to develop, if it develops at all. The concept of market share is inapposite; efficiency is not a goal; and there is no inventory to put on the shelves. Instead the norms are endless deliberations, explorations that may go nowhere, problems that only five people in the world even understand, lifetime employment that is not taken away even when nothing is achieved, expensively labor-intensive practices and no bottom line. What is an outsider to make of that?"
I am compelled to add that the labor may be intensive, but it's not expensive enough - says the recently liberated grad student.
Last night I idled through Science Careers for awhile, looking at the San Francisco job market. Maybe that's what got me started thinking this time. Anyway, that's what I'm chewing on today - how truly bizarre the world I inhabit is.
Does anyone really know what they're doing here?
I know I suffer from the Imposter Syndrome. I'm not afraid to admit it. What worries me is the legion of seemingly-confident people around me who don't. Either they genuinely know what they're doing - and I'm the idiot - or they hide it much better than I do.
I'm thinking about this this morning because I just finished reading Stanley Fish's column about the new President of the University of Colorado. I especially liked the following passage:
"But in the academy there is no product except knowledge, and that may take decades to develop, if it develops at all. The concept of market share is inapposite; efficiency is not a goal; and there is no inventory to put on the shelves. Instead the norms are endless deliberations, explorations that may go nowhere, problems that only five people in the world even understand, lifetime employment that is not taken away even when nothing is achieved, expensively labor-intensive practices and no bottom line. What is an outsider to make of that?"
I am compelled to add that the labor may be intensive, but it's not expensive enough - says the recently liberated grad student.
Last night I idled through Science Careers for awhile, looking at the San Francisco job market. Maybe that's what got me started thinking this time. Anyway, that's what I'm chewing on today - how truly bizarre the world I inhabit is.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Not dead, just pathetic
Yup, that's me. I've got no excuse for not updating this blog in a few weeks. Well, I mean, no excuses besides the usual - busy, work, guests, developing nation - you know the drill. At least the internet is working again, praise God.
A few weekends ago the woman I used to live with in Princeton was in town. She spent some time in Upper Egypt too, but when she got back, she wanted to go on a belly dancing cruise on the Nile. What am I, a tourist?
I spent some time online trying to read about these boats, because I've never been on one - nor do I know anyone who has been (or has admitted to it). Eventually I decided I'd try the Scarabee, mostly because it's docked a few blocks from my house. Discerning consumer, I.
I called the number. The operator told me in Arabic that the number was not correct. I double-checked the listing and called again. The operator told me that the number was busy. How can a number be simultaneously busy and incorrect? Welcome in Egypt. This dialing went on for hours, but finally, despite all busy/incorrect odds, I got through to the desk at the ship. No dinner reservations were available, but I could get lunch reservations. The lunch cruise had no belly dancer, which I found out the third time I called back - and got through.
Then I called Maxim, a large boat outside the Marriott in Zamalek that I've passed a bunch of times. I got through, but when I asked for reservations, I was told "No."
"Is the cruise full?" I asked.
"No." Hmmm.
"Are there reservations available?"
"Yes." Ok ....
"So can I make a reservation please?"
"No."
After a further twenty questions, I discovered that in order to make a reservation I had to go across town, down to the boat and make a down payment! It didn't matter how much the payment was, I just had to give them some money - in person - to secure the reservation. I did this at 9 o'clock the following morning, when, oddly, the boat was open (the first cruise is at 8:30 pm) and the reservation woman was waiting for me.
Incredibly long story (somewhat) shorter, we went on the Maxim cruise last Friday. The food was decent, the band was loud, and there were a few different acts. The dervish was good - I put his picture up on the top. Then there was a perplexing act with two male, half-life-sized puppets in each others arms dancing for about 20 minutes. What on earth were they doing? Fighting? Wrestling? Um, something else? Descriptors fail me. It turned out it was one guy (the dervish, oddly) who had put shoes on his hands and feet to portray two "dancers." Weird weird weird.
Finally, finally the belly dancer came out. This woman made a spectacular entrance
in a pharaonic-inspired outfit, complete with palanquin bearers wearing Tut-style gold and blue striped headresses and loincloths. Her costume was incredible - I'm pretty sure her breasts, at least, must've been taped into her faux-Tut pectoral bra, because I can't imagine how she stayed in it otherwise. And her dancing was great - sexy, athletic, skillfull, unlike the dreadful "dancer" we had on our Upper Egypt cruise. She eventually got down to the bare essentials of her costume - lots of gold sequins and little else. But she was great - I still can't figure out how she managed to move so many body parts independently of each other. She did 2 acts, although the second made me feel a little icky since her costume (initially) was a Victoria's-Secret pink little girl outfit - which, thank god, she eventually yanked, turning her Bo-Peep skirt into a long belly dancing skirt.
The following day, Saturday, I went on an AUC-sponsored trip to Saqqara. It was my third trip to Saqqara since August, but this trip was led by a famous Egyptologist. I hit it off with him right away, had lunch and walked around with him. There was a hilarous moment in the Imhotep museum, where we were watching a National Geographic movie about Saqqara - and suddenly there was our guide, in the movie!
We didn't do any of the typical tourist things at Saqqara. Instead
we went to Alain's dig, which was closed for the season, so he gave us a sort of "virtual" tour of the site. We also had with us the antiquities director for the Saqqara plateau, so we got all sorts of unconventional access. We also went over to the Dutch dig, met the head Egyptologist there (I ran into him at the museum a few days ago, oddly) and got a look their site. Finally we walked over the rise to the newly-excavated tomb of Horemheb, where the Egyptologists very graciously let us walk through their work to look at their new reconstruction of the site. It was very cool, seeing archaeologists and Egyptologists in action! I was shocked by the baskets of human remains that were leaning against the walls of the tomb, but they are artifacts, I suppose.
We ended the day at the Memphis museum. Memphis was the ancient capital of Egypt, but the city doesn't really exist anymore because it was (among other things) dismantled to build the city of Cairo in antiquity. I hadn't been to the museum before, which is a sort of open-air archaeological park, if you can imagine it. The weather was beautiful, though, and it was nice to walk around.
One of Ramsses' colossi is there, in its own specially-built viewing hut. The statue reminded me of the reclining Buddha I saw in Bangkok, massive, peaceful, out of place. The statue's horizontal position was too much to resist, so I'll end this post with the incredibly adult, sophisticated picture a colleague took of me at the end of the day.
A few weekends ago the woman I used to live with in Princeton was in town. She spent some time in Upper Egypt too, but when she got back, she wanted to go on a belly dancing cruise on the Nile. What am I, a tourist?
I spent some time online trying to read about these boats, because I've never been on one - nor do I know anyone who has been (or has admitted to it). Eventually I decided I'd try the Scarabee, mostly because it's docked a few blocks from my house. Discerning consumer, I.I called the number. The operator told me in Arabic that the number was not correct. I double-checked the listing and called again. The operator told me that the number was busy. How can a number be simultaneously busy and incorrect? Welcome in Egypt. This dialing went on for hours, but finally, despite all busy/incorrect odds, I got through to the desk at the ship. No dinner reservations were available, but I could get lunch reservations. The lunch cruise had no belly dancer, which I found out the third time I called back - and got through.
Then I called Maxim, a large boat outside the Marriott in Zamalek that I've passed a bunch of times. I got through, but when I asked for reservations, I was told "No."
"Is the cruise full?" I asked.
"No." Hmmm.
"Are there reservations available?"
"Yes." Ok ....
"So can I make a reservation please?"
"No."
After a further twenty questions, I discovered that in order to make a reservation I had to go across town, down to the boat and make a down payment! It didn't matter how much the payment was, I just had to give them some money - in person - to secure the reservation. I did this at 9 o'clock the following morning, when, oddly, the boat was open (the first cruise is at 8:30 pm) and the reservation woman was waiting for me.
Incredibly long story (somewhat) shorter, we went on the Maxim cruise last Friday. The food was decent, the band was loud, and there were a few different acts. The dervish was good - I put his picture up on the top. Then there was a perplexing act with two male, half-life-sized puppets in each others arms dancing for about 20 minutes. What on earth were they doing? Fighting? Wrestling? Um, something else? Descriptors fail me. It turned out it was one guy (the dervish, oddly) who had put shoes on his hands and feet to portray two "dancers." Weird weird weird.
Finally, finally the belly dancer came out. This woman made a spectacular entrance
in a pharaonic-inspired outfit, complete with palanquin bearers wearing Tut-style gold and blue striped headresses and loincloths. Her costume was incredible - I'm pretty sure her breasts, at least, must've been taped into her faux-Tut pectoral bra, because I can't imagine how she stayed in it otherwise. And her dancing was great - sexy, athletic, skillfull, unlike the dreadful "dancer" we had on our Upper Egypt cruise. She eventually got down to the bare essentials of her costume - lots of gold sequins and little else. But she was great - I still can't figure out how she managed to move so many body parts independently of each other. She did 2 acts, although the second made me feel a little icky since her costume (initially) was a Victoria's-Secret pink little girl outfit - which, thank god, she eventually yanked, turning her Bo-Peep skirt into a long belly dancing skirt.
The following day, Saturday, I went on an AUC-sponsored trip to Saqqara. It was my third trip to Saqqara since August, but this trip was led by a famous Egyptologist. I hit it off with him right away, had lunch and walked around with him. There was a hilarous moment in the Imhotep museum, where we were watching a National Geographic movie about Saqqara - and suddenly there was our guide, in the movie!We didn't do any of the typical tourist things at Saqqara. Instead
we went to Alain's dig, which was closed for the season, so he gave us a sort of "virtual" tour of the site. We also had with us the antiquities director for the Saqqara plateau, so we got all sorts of unconventional access. We also went over to the Dutch dig, met the head Egyptologist there (I ran into him at the museum a few days ago, oddly) and got a look their site. Finally we walked over the rise to the newly-excavated tomb of Horemheb, where the Egyptologists very graciously let us walk through their work to look at their new reconstruction of the site. It was very cool, seeing archaeologists and Egyptologists in action! I was shocked by the baskets of human remains that were leaning against the walls of the tomb, but they are artifacts, I suppose.We ended the day at the Memphis museum. Memphis was the ancient capital of Egypt, but the city doesn't really exist anymore because it was (among other things) dismantled to build the city of Cairo in antiquity. I hadn't been to the museum before, which is a sort of open-air archaeological park, if you can imagine it. The weather was beautiful, though, and it was nice to walk around.
One of Ramsses' colossi is there, in its own specially-built viewing hut. The statue reminded me of the reclining Buddha I saw in Bangkok, massive, peaceful, out of place. The statue's horizontal position was too much to resist, so I'll end this post with the incredibly adult, sophisticated picture a colleague took of me at the end of the day.
Monday, February 11, 2008
A baby trip into the desert
I'm sitting through one of my colleague's lectures in our bioinformatics course. Alignments and BLAST. Good reason to have a laptop out, non?
I thought I'd tell you about a little trip we took on February 1. It's a funny story, actually, how we got out there in the first place. Back in November I took a trip out to Germany to visit a friend. I was on the Alitalia flight out to Milan and the gentleman sitting next to me asked, in Italian, for the steward to bring him more sugar. I handed him mine; even someone who's brain has been addled by Arabic understands "zucchero."
He thanked me and we struck up a conversation. We very quickly ascertained that Franco was the scientific attache to the Italian Embassy, and I was the sort of contact at a local university that he'd been looking for. I got his email address, he gave me mine, and I emailed him as soon as I got back to Cairo.
I'm going to stop my story right here and point out that I also met his girlfriend, Raffaella, who was sitting next to Franco. Believe me, I recognize the comedic elements of this story that inevitably lead to slurs on my honor. Older gentleman. Italian. Sugar. I get it. And I've been hearing about it ever since. So spare me the smarm, wise guys.
Anyway, I wanted KC to meet Franco & Raffaella, so I emailed them, and they invited us along
with a bevy of Italians from the embassy into the desert in Wadi El Riyan, near the Fayyum outside Cairo. We met in Midan Lebnan early in the morning, 6 leather-upholstered SUVs full of (more) glamorous (than me) Italians and a few Argentines. Handshakes, kiss kiss, coffee, traffic eddying around our enormous SUVs. I was introduced to the military attache to the Italian embassy. And then the military attache to the Argentine embassy.
I became mildly concerned. Then I was presented with a new challenge: trying desperately to get my brain to shift into crappy Italian from crappy Arabic. I ground the gears, boy. I screwed my face up and clawed through my brain, finally producing "Ana sonno Tiffany. Forsa saida prego."
Jesus wept.
It was about an hour or so out to the Fayyum, which has inexplicably tight security considering no foreigners really go out there. I'd been there once before to look at some Greco-Roman ruins. I think I blogged about it. Anyhow, we eventually made it to the gate of the Wadi, where the Italians expressed indignation that they were expected to pay to enter the park that their embassy had sponsored. Seemed a reasonable protest to me.
We off-roaded around the 2 lakes for several hours. Every so often we all piled out of the cars and the kids went racing around the rocks, or skidding down the dunes. I dragged myself up and down a few formations. I love being in the desert; the sounds, the smells, the wind. It's a rare moment to find such peace so close to Cairo. We saw some runaway cows, a lot of birds (Fayyum is famous for birdwatching), and a very cool desert mantis (genus Eremiaphila or similar). The ground was littered with some decent shell and coral fossils, but most striking were the coin-shaped (and sized) stones with distinct spiral marking. I'm still tracking down what these are; the working hypotheses are nummulites (as identified by an AUC naturalist) or accretions from unicellular organisms (several of the Italians, possibly repeating things they'd heard from each other).
Around 2 pm we stopped for lunch. Correctly anticipating the gustatory norms of a group of ex patriate Italians, KC and I went shopping for special food. We even brought wine! But surprise surprise, we were outclassed. The Argentines brought champagne, and the Italians brought homemade dulci. I drank and ate myself into a stupor, then got back in the car and continued around the lake.
At one point we left the off-road track and attempted to drive on some dunes. Big mistake. 5 out of 6 of our SUVs immediately sunk up to the hubcaps in the soft sand. It was pretty funny, watching about 25 adults and assorted teenagers/children straining to get the vehicles unstuck. But it was all in good fun, and no one was seriously worried. Every once in a while a truckload of Egyptians would pass us on the asphalt off in the distance. Inevitably they'd slow down, squint, then accelerate in a belch of oily exhaust. Mummify in the desert, idiot khawagas.
Eventually we dragged our suntanned (it was the first warm day in what seemed like ages),
stinky, dirty, stuffed-belly bodies out of the park and back into the Fayyum. KC and I had to dash back to Garden City for 4-minute-showers and immediate turnaround to get to dinner at the Four Seasons (in Giza, of course, instead of across the street) with a Trustee of the University.
Needless to say, we were late. By an hour. The traffic was Cairene (read: hideous). But at least we didn't stink. And I'd gotten my desert fix ... for a little while.
I thought I'd tell you about a little trip we took on February 1. It's a funny story, actually, how we got out there in the first place. Back in November I took a trip out to Germany to visit a friend. I was on the Alitalia flight out to Milan and the gentleman sitting next to me asked, in Italian, for the steward to bring him more sugar. I handed him mine; even someone who's brain has been addled by Arabic understands "zucchero."
He thanked me and we struck up a conversation. We very quickly ascertained that Franco was the scientific attache to the Italian Embassy, and I was the sort of contact at a local university that he'd been looking for. I got his email address, he gave me mine, and I emailed him as soon as I got back to Cairo.I'm going to stop my story right here and point out that I also met his girlfriend, Raffaella, who was sitting next to Franco. Believe me, I recognize the comedic elements of this story that inevitably lead to slurs on my honor. Older gentleman. Italian. Sugar. I get it. And I've been hearing about it ever since. So spare me the smarm, wise guys.
Anyway, I wanted KC to meet Franco & Raffaella, so I emailed them, and they invited us along
with a bevy of Italians from the embassy into the desert in Wadi El Riyan, near the Fayyum outside Cairo. We met in Midan Lebnan early in the morning, 6 leather-upholstered SUVs full of (more) glamorous (than me) Italians and a few Argentines. Handshakes, kiss kiss, coffee, traffic eddying around our enormous SUVs. I was introduced to the military attache to the Italian embassy. And then the military attache to the Argentine embassy.I became mildly concerned. Then I was presented with a new challenge: trying desperately to get my brain to shift into crappy Italian from crappy Arabic. I ground the gears, boy. I screwed my face up and clawed through my brain, finally producing "Ana sonno Tiffany. Forsa saida prego."
Jesus wept.
It was about an hour or so out to the Fayyum, which has inexplicably tight security considering no foreigners really go out there. I'd been there once before to look at some Greco-Roman ruins. I think I blogged about it. Anyhow, we eventually made it to the gate of the Wadi, where the Italians expressed indignation that they were expected to pay to enter the park that their embassy had sponsored. Seemed a reasonable protest to me.
We off-roaded around the 2 lakes for several hours. Every so often we all piled out of the cars and the kids went racing around the rocks, or skidding down the dunes. I dragged myself up and down a few formations. I love being in the desert; the sounds, the smells, the wind. It's a rare moment to find such peace so close to Cairo. We saw some runaway cows, a lot of birds (Fayyum is famous for birdwatching), and a very cool desert mantis (genus Eremiaphila or similar). The ground was littered with some decent shell and coral fossils, but most striking were the coin-shaped (and sized) stones with distinct spiral marking. I'm still tracking down what these are; the working hypotheses are nummulites (as identified by an AUC naturalist) or accretions from unicellular organisms (several of the Italians, possibly repeating things they'd heard from each other).
Around 2 pm we stopped for lunch. Correctly anticipating the gustatory norms of a group of ex patriate Italians, KC and I went shopping for special food. We even brought wine! But surprise surprise, we were outclassed. The Argentines brought champagne, and the Italians brought homemade dulci. I drank and ate myself into a stupor, then got back in the car and continued around the lake.
At one point we left the off-road track and attempted to drive on some dunes. Big mistake. 5 out of 6 of our SUVs immediately sunk up to the hubcaps in the soft sand. It was pretty funny, watching about 25 adults and assorted teenagers/children straining to get the vehicles unstuck. But it was all in good fun, and no one was seriously worried. Every once in a while a truckload of Egyptians would pass us on the asphalt off in the distance. Inevitably they'd slow down, squint, then accelerate in a belch of oily exhaust. Mummify in the desert, idiot khawagas.
Eventually we dragged our suntanned (it was the first warm day in what seemed like ages),
stinky, dirty, stuffed-belly bodies out of the park and back into the Fayyum. KC and I had to dash back to Garden City for 4-minute-showers and immediate turnaround to get to dinner at the Four Seasons (in Giza, of course, instead of across the street) with a Trustee of the University.Needless to say, we were late. By an hour. The traffic was Cairene (read: hideous). But at least we didn't stink. And I'd gotten my desert fix ... for a little while.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Jubilation
Cairo's going crazy!!! Egypt's just won the Africa cup again!
I hear fireworks, honking, screaming, shouting, and something that sounds suspiciously like gunfire. I could tell when the single goal was scored in the 79th minute - a surge of sound swelled up from the staid streets of Garden City.
All day today, Egyptian flags were flying from taxis, posted on doorways, carried by grown men in the street. This is happy, proud nationalism, without any taint of jingoism.
I imagine the ruckus is going to go on for hours. What a fun day to be here!
I hear fireworks, honking, screaming, shouting, and something that sounds suspiciously like gunfire. I could tell when the single goal was scored in the 79th minute - a surge of sound swelled up from the staid streets of Garden City.
All day today, Egyptian flags were flying from taxis, posted on doorways, carried by grown men in the street. This is happy, proud nationalism, without any taint of jingoism.
I imagine the ruckus is going to go on for hours. What a fun day to be here!
Thursday, February 7, 2008
V-FP day
OK, so it's been like, forever, right?
Ahem. Can you tell the semester's started here at AUC? But let me tell you the REAL reason(s) why this blog has been sadly languishing. Again.
Looks like my last entry was Jan 27. That was the day after my parents left, so things should've rapidly gotten back to normal. Right?
Wrong. Welcome in Egypt.
On Wednesday or so of last week, the internet here stopped working. Completely. I could use internal AUC sites, so the intra-net still worked, but naturally we (especially KC) were pissed off because we needed to work. The semester was starting!
I went to a meeting on Thursday and listened to everyone else complaining about the internet being slow. I said, "What, did some idiot cut the transatlantic cable?" The resulting silence told me I'd scored a hole-in-one.
Turns out that's almost precisely what happened - but it's actually worse. Not one but as many as FOUR cables in two different locations - one near Alexandria, one off Dubai - were severed almost simultaneously. There's been a lot of speculation around here on whether or not that's coincidence. Now I'm convinced that millions of stupid people do millions of stupid things every day - at some point, those stupidities are going to coincide. Catastrophically. And come on, what terrorists would want to take out India and Egypt? Maybe I could see India - take down the tech support capabilities of the world. But Egypt? Seriously. I love this country, but it only wants a little patience to see chaos in this country. Or being awake.
That blog up above suggests that maybe the US government has deliberately sabotaged the cables to take out Iran's internet connectivity. Now I'm as paranoid as the next guy - who's probably out to get me - and I am properly afraid of that gang of thugs running the US for another year. But just in case, please, g-boys - a little precision next time, hmmm?
On the plus side, I can actually access Blogger now to make posts. Google seems to be the most slowly-recovering set of websites. I couldn't even use Google early this week to make talks for my classes, which freaked me out more than it should have. I can remember a time before the internet, after all. I just didn't want to have to generate my own images for a powerpoint presentation on clone-contig sequencing and 454 pyrosequencing.
So sue me.
Oh! I completely forgot to tell you the reason for the name of this post!
I have acquired a french press! Sound the trumpets! Pass the virgins! Dance in the streets! KC and I had a lovely cup of electricity-free coffee this morning as he was heading for the airport.
That's right. I've gained a french press, but lost my partner. He's on his way back to his real life in Princeton. We're hoping to meet in April in Istanbul. I've had that stupid song stuck in my head for a few days now. If you don't know which one I'm talking about, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Cheers for now. I'll try to get up some post on my many recent adventures. And they are legion.
Ahem. Can you tell the semester's started here at AUC? But let me tell you the REAL reason(s) why this blog has been sadly languishing. Again.
Looks like my last entry was Jan 27. That was the day after my parents left, so things should've rapidly gotten back to normal. Right?
Wrong. Welcome in Egypt.
On Wednesday or so of last week, the internet here stopped working. Completely. I could use internal AUC sites, so the intra-net still worked, but naturally we (especially KC) were pissed off because we needed to work. The semester was starting!
I went to a meeting on Thursday and listened to everyone else complaining about the internet being slow. I said, "What, did some idiot cut the transatlantic cable?" The resulting silence told me I'd scored a hole-in-one.
Turns out that's almost precisely what happened - but it's actually worse. Not one but as many as FOUR cables in two different locations - one near Alexandria, one off Dubai - were severed almost simultaneously. There's been a lot of speculation around here on whether or not that's coincidence. Now I'm convinced that millions of stupid people do millions of stupid things every day - at some point, those stupidities are going to coincide. Catastrophically. And come on, what terrorists would want to take out India and Egypt? Maybe I could see India - take down the tech support capabilities of the world. But Egypt? Seriously. I love this country, but it only wants a little patience to see chaos in this country. Or being awake.
That blog up above suggests that maybe the US government has deliberately sabotaged the cables to take out Iran's internet connectivity. Now I'm as paranoid as the next guy - who's probably out to get me - and I am properly afraid of that gang of thugs running the US for another year. But just in case, please, g-boys - a little precision next time, hmmm?
On the plus side, I can actually access Blogger now to make posts. Google seems to be the most slowly-recovering set of websites. I couldn't even use Google early this week to make talks for my classes, which freaked me out more than it should have. I can remember a time before the internet, after all. I just didn't want to have to generate my own images for a powerpoint presentation on clone-contig sequencing and 454 pyrosequencing.
So sue me.
Oh! I completely forgot to tell you the reason for the name of this post!
I have acquired a french press! Sound the trumpets! Pass the virgins! Dance in the streets! KC and I had a lovely cup of electricity-free coffee this morning as he was heading for the airport.
That's right. I've gained a french press, but lost my partner. He's on his way back to his real life in Princeton. We're hoping to meet in April in Istanbul. I've had that stupid song stuck in my head for a few days now. If you don't know which one I'm talking about, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Cheers for now. I'll try to get up some post on my many recent adventures. And they are legion.
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