Egypt by Mo: A bit of modern Egypt

I wanted to write a post on a couple of different activities that I thought were worthy of a combined post of things you might do in Albuquerque on a weekend lot of writing and not so many pictures but the good pictures will be coming. The other day after class I went to a mall in Cairo called City Stars. I must say the whole experience of traveling to and from the mall was worth a mention. I rode a cab. Now I bet your saying “WOW! A cab.” and I thought it was no big deal either since I’ve ridden a cab around my hotel and it was a pretty easy ride, but I should have known different when I got in the cab and the driver was counting a wad of cash. I soon put it together that that guy picks up a lot of people in a short day because he gets to his destination quick. City Stars is a good 30 min cab ride in traffic, but what I stepped in was not a cab, it was a roller coaster and for the cost of $6 dollars it was well worth the admission if you like those sort of things. The video I have down below is not very good evidence because I almost lost an arm putting the camera above the car, but you might be able to get a little idea. Long story short I made it safe and didn’t even have to use my barf bag, but I’m glad I didn’t eat lunch before that. The ride back was the same only in the dark. Don’t know if these guys are related but they had similar driving styles.

When I arrived at the mall I heard it was big but this thing was ridiculous. The picture below shows 7 stories and the top only having a few shops at the moment but each story was easily the size of Coronado with just as many shops as Coronado on each level. Each level had restaurants, one had a grocery store, and two had movie theatres. To give you an idea they had Fuddruckers, Macaroni Grill, TGIFridays, McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Subway, Sabraaro and that’s just a few of the recognizable ones.

The movie theatre showed both Arabic movies and American. I saw The Taking of Pelham 123, but the hard part was getting in. I paced a little back in forth looking for what movies might be showing and at what times. It was a guessing game since there were no times posted anywhere and there were so many posters, it was hard to tell what was playing and what was an add I went up to the ticket counter and the lady helped me, took my money and pointed to an electronic seating chart and asked me where I wanted to sit. I couldn’t really tell which seats where occupied to I pointed to one about halfway down by the Isle. Found my way into the side I needed to be in and handed the usher my ticket to be seated. Now already you can notice the differences between this and your typical American theatre, but there’s one last thing. So I was seated and not knowing which seats where occupied initially I was sat next to this guy and probably wouldn’t have made a difference but there were only about 8 other people in this huge theatre. During the movie more people showed and his girlfriend eventually showed about half way through so I didn’t feel so awkward sharing the arm rest with him. Now the movie was going good and started getting intense and all the sudden the lights turn on and the movie stops. At first I didn’t know what to expect but after looking at everyone’s reactions and not being pissed off, I put two and two together and realized this was intermission. The movie resumed and turned out to be a pretty good one so it was a fun experience in all. After lunch and dinner and a movie as well as some purchases I was on my home.

Now the other experience I had this past weekend was going out to a club/bar. It was kind of late and since I missed coordinated a trip to the Suez Canal with a couple of other students I decided I had nothing really planned for the weekend. I was in my room all day and hadn’t eaten so that also prompted me at 12am to explore the town. I went to the Hard Rock Café by the Hyatt thinking it would be safe and close to my hotel as well as have good food with not too outrageous prices. I was right about the first three, but as far as the outrageous prices it was up there. To give you an idea a gin cost $20, beer was around $5 which is not so bad, and a Double Jack was $32…Vegas eat your heart out. When I got there the place had crickets and I thought to myself that noise of disappointment like “waant waaant”, but being the trooper I am and the fact that I slept in my room most the day I was willing to go the distance. It was fun just people watching and seeing how people interact in a similar setting that we might have back home. People slowly rolled in and about 2am the place was rocking to Arabic house music. Hard to explain the noise I heard but it was a combination of voice, horns, I think I caught a few accordions and a beat machine all put together. Different to say the least, but the background sounded like 20 screaming cats with a beat and a voice on top but that’s most techno no matter where you’re at and you zone out the music any way once you’ve been there for 5 hours. The DJ did play a couple of American songs by the end of the night but the dance floor would clear out a bit since dancing styles differ drastically. It was definitely fun to people watch. I would watch the guys walk up to girls numerous times and drop a line and the girls would literally shove the guys away! I was thinking of something I could say to not get pushed away and then I remembered I don’t speak Arabic, but it was entertaining to be a spectator. So at 5:30am the lights kicked on which wasn’t my only hint since I could see the sky start to get lighter out the window, and I was on my way back to my hotel to catch some shut eye.