|
I wore a long sleeved shirt, long, loose pants and I tied my hair up and put on a hat that hid my eyes. Still, there were lots of leerers. Only one man walked up to us to try and talk to us and he just asked if my partner was Egyptian. We walked around for a bit and found a bank that was open with currency rates posted. We exchanged another $1000 and then walked for a bit. The first restaurant we came upon was McDonalds so we went in (our first eating experience in Japan was also McDs, maybe it’s good luck for us). Everyone we’ve encountered in the service industry here speaks super good English (which is different from Japan where it’s sporadic). We ate our lunch and walked around for a bit. We bought some shampoo and headed back to the hotel to drop it off.
After a long nap that was meant to be a short one, we decided we’d better check in with our parents and let them know we were ok. Internet is 6LE and hour (you can buy smaller increments). Our hotel had 2 computers with connections that were about what we expected (10 seconds to open a page).
Then, we headed out to see the Nile. I decided to take off my hat, as it was hindering my view and probably wasn’t stopping that many leerers-I was right. Most of the women here do cover their hair, few cover everything and few cover nothing. In a restaurant that night on the non-smoking floor, of about 20 women, 1 had no cover (well, plus me), 1 had full-coverage and the rest just covered their hair.
Around the Nile there were a lot more “hustlers” with all kinds of different ways to get you to stop and talk to them. (“Hey, you two walk like Egyptians.” Hahaha I’m not joking) They weren’t as dedicated as South East Asians are and once you ignored them they left you alone. So far, we’d noticed a lack of payphones and convenience-type stores. So we were keeping our eyes open for those. We found 1 payphone for our hours of walking (perhaps we weren’t being very observant).
We walked around the Nile Hilton, just to see how the other half lives and also walked around their shopping mall (lot of t-shirts “A camel can go 14 days without a drink, I can’t” and “I came to see the Pyramids, leave me alone” seemed to be in every shop). Lots and lots of cheap bellydance costumes, lots of sequins and nipple barf (although I thought the kids’ sized ones like that were a little sweet).
We walked around some more and ended up at Pizza Hut for dinner. I love me some pizza. Our friend recommended Bon Appetit which is just down the road but it’s about the same price as Pizza Hut. I think the most expensive pizza on the menu was $8. Most were $4-5 for a large size. The salad bar was about $2 as was the pasta. Our waiter again spoke great English and stopped by a few minutes after he delivered everything to ask how it was. There was a towel man in the bathroom working for tips, my partner reported, so I didn’t go into the ladies.
|