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We hopped across the street for dinner to the Talaat Harb Complex. We went down to the food court to Solo Pizza and Pasta for dinner. It was 4 pounds (about $0.75US) for a big plate of pasta-a pretty good deal.
9/17
I finished the choreography at Mme. Raqia’s today!!! I am so proud of myself!! I still have lots of polishing to do, but I thought it would be another 4 lessons or so before I finished it.
My partner met me after class on the steps of her apartment and we flagged a taxi to go 5 minutes away to Manial Palace Museum. We were a minute away when the driver took a wrong turn-and kept going-even though I told him we were going in the wrong direction. He drove away from the site and then in circles for the next 30 minutes before pulling over and asking for directions-even though we had a map and knew where we wanted to go. 2 cops and 1 pedestrian plus my partner and the taxi driver were huddled around the map before they could understand what we wanted. We finally got dropped off near the street (45 minutes after we’d started out). My partner gave the guy 10LE and the guy freaked and started asking for 20LE. If he’d done it right the first time, it would have been a 5LE or less drive. 10LE was generous in my opinion, so we just kept walking.
We finally got to the museum to find it was closed. Lonely Planet said the walk to the Um Kathoum Museum and the Nileometer were only 15 minutes, so we started walking. I’m sure we were going slower because of the heat, but it took over 30 minutes to get there. My partner though was really reluctant to get into another cab.
When we finally go to the museum-it too was closed but the Nileometer was open. It was made to measure the depth of the Nile to predict the harvest. It was made in 861 and though there isn’t a lot to see (it’s all one big chamber that has a coloumn that is 16 cubits long) it was only 10LE for admittance and pretty interesting. There’s no English information or pamphlets to make it more interesting to tourists but that’s actually what a lot of places are like. There are also no signs saying “Nileometer this way” or “Nileometer 2km” And even when you get to the place you are going, if it’s run by the government the staff will ignore you. The lady who was selling tickets was sitting on a lawn chair in the gardens outside the Nileometer. She totally ignored us until we unsteadily stepped her way and were 2 feet from her.
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