Tuesday, May 3

8:00 a.m.

For some reason the local time on our phones and laptop is not set correctly; it tells us it is an hour later. Which means we went to sleep an hour earlier than we thought. At first I thought that was great but then I realized it also meant I woke up an hour earlier. But it still means a good night's sleep of 8+ hours.

Last night we decided to spend some time getting to know the neighborhood. We are in Downtown Cairo a little ways from Tahrir Square and the Egyptian Antiquities Museum. We went and checked out Tahrir Square which has a lot of people selling t-shirts celebrating the January 25th revolution. If there were any protesters out I didn't recognize them as such. We also walked down to the Nile to see the sunset and walked around the Garden City a bit. Many of the embassies are located in Garden City so there is a strong military or police presence everywhere there. Actually I'm not sure if they are local military or if they are security hired by each embassy. I do know that they are heavily fortified - major stone and cement barricades at each entrance with lots of guards carrying machine guns.

I was worried I might feel unsafe or that the people here might not like Americans but we have met lots of nice people (even ones who aren't trying to sell us something). Many people will chat with us when we are waiting to cross the street. They ask us where we are from and often they themselves claim to have been to the US. Not sure if that's really true because they say they want to give us their business card. As we have discovered that really means they want us to visit their shop and purchase something. They don't carry business cards with them - we have to go to their shop which is "right over here".

Crossing the street is an adventure but easy to do if you are willing to get out and walk for a while. We feel like experts after walking around last night. At first we spent some time studying the larger intersections - like Tahrir Square - to figure out the best route. But that's not necessary - just find the largest crowd of Egyptians and cross with them if in doubt. Eventually there will be a slowing of the cars and that's when you make your move. Keep an eye on the cars but don't run. Most drivers take that as an invitation to scare you by speeding up.

Unfortunately a minor tragedy has struck on our first day here (well, it's a tragedy for me): I lost my hat on our first night out. Incredibly stupid of me - I left it at the place we had dinner. I went back to try and find it but nobody had turned it in. I'm not even sure if I left it there; I just remember that being the last place I had it. Of course there's no way I'm spending two and a half weeks without a hat so we will need to spend a little time finding a replacement. In the meantime I will borrow a hat from t.s. - he brought two hats (smart boy).

We have decided to hire a guide for our trip to Giza today. We plan to see the Pyramids and surrounding area today. On the way back we will stop at the Ramses train station and pick up our tickets for the overnight train. (We didn't bother trying last night.)