The Search, day 1

At 11pm we decided to stop being lumps and go for a walk to the CitiBank ATM in Garden City. It was out of service, so we took a moonlit stroll along the Nile. Then we crept around the Semiramis International, which is probably the most extravagantly beautiful hotel I've ever seen. We tried to go into the casino, but apparently even in Egypt you have to be 21 to gamble - not that we had much money with us, anyway. Then we walked back along the Nile and found the Hard Rock Cafe, which is in the Grand Hyatt (also home to the most expensive restaurant in Cairo, a rotating French restaurant on the roof). The music was deafening, the drinks were overpriced, and the male to female ratio was somewhere around 30:1, but we had a lot of fun. We even got up on the dance floor, along with about 20 other enthusiastic folks. We finally left around 2:30 - much later than we had planned on staying out, but hey - TIC! When 8am Arabic classes start next week, we won't be able to be quite so spontaneous.

Sara and I spent this morning/early afternoon apartment hunting. We walked to Dokki first, to get a feel for it and ask around about housing. The walk was on the long side, but if we had loved the area it probably wouldn't have mattered. We didn't, though - it felt as busy as downtown, and even dirtier, and the residential neighborhoods were not particularly appealing. We decided to go with instinct and didn't waste too much time there.

Back in Garden City, we searched and searched for a building we had found the night before, where the bawba (doorman) had said there were rooms available. We had a lot of trouble finding it in the daylight, but we stopped in at almost every building we passed to ask if there were open apartments. Half of them turned out to be office buildings, and in the ones that weren't we either couldn't find a bawba, or there were no flats available, or they said to come back with a simsar. The closest we got was one building where rooms were rented out, but they did not provide full apartments. We were pretty discouraged by the time we gave up the search.

But we do have a meeting with a simsar tomorrow at noon, so inshallah we will find something! We will have patience, and after all we are happy in the hostel, if a bit cramped.

We are somewhat resigned to looking for flats in Zamalek, because even though it's a bit further from campus and from downtown, there seem to be more availabilities there, and rent is better.

There have been two mosquitoes in our room in the past day (both have been swiftly dispatched to the Great Beyond). Eee! I've never worried about West Nile before, but now that we are next to the Nile...

I bought bananas and they are delicious.

I also wandered around the AUC bookstore, which is wonderfully full of piles and piles of good books. I bought The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and The Clash of Fundamentalisms by Tariq Ali. Also, The Ultimate Dining Guide and The Ultimate Shopping Guide to Cairo, only 20LE ($3.60) for both!







I have a stray cat obsession.

Oh! Last night we saw a stray FERRET!!! It was really cute.

Sara says it's either her or a (stray) pet. I'm thinking long and hard about whether she is worth keeping around.