| Well, the weather is heating back up again and I'm working through my last semester at the American University in addition to the intensive Arabic classes every morning.
Great sunset from Al Azhar Park restaurant with Cairo and its mosques in the background |
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See the tall, skinny building just to the right of center (Cairo Tower). See a little red light to the right of that? That's a billboard above the square where I live. |
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Your basic bundle of goods - but for $24. Expats can manage here - fruits, veggies, balsamic vinager, everything. |
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My buddy, Hussein, in a rooftop restaurant we frequent. Yes, he walks like an Egyptian. |
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While Joan was here, we had to go eat Koshary, a staple in my diet. It has grains, beans, pasta, onions, and spicy vinager. A bowl like that is about 50 cents. Mm. |
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We also went to the ancient Citadel. This is a mosque built during Ottoman period (1528). Young man praying. |
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Ceiling of mosque - white squigglies are Arabic verses from the Qu'ran. |
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View over Cairo. See all those buildings? That's for, oh, 1/40th of the 16-18 million people packed into this city. |
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November 7, 2004 - Happy Ramadan! Now that the weather is cooling off and some of Cairo’s 16M inhabitants are out of town visiting their families for Ramadan, life here in the big city is getting progressively more enjoyable. Ramadan brings a lot of other interesting aspects, as the whole Muslim population (~80% of population) fasts for the entire month. This means that they do not eat, drink fluids, or smoke (nothing can pass their lips) from around 4:30 am until ~5:30 pm.
In the spirit of things, I decided not to eat anything during the daytime either... |
| Click here for more of my first impressions. |
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