First Day in Egypt!

A of all- I'm here! Pictures of the apartment to come. We're not quite sure of the address, but its somewhere on 14 street in Maadi. But on a not so smoggy day you can see the pyramids from the living room!


View My Apartment in Egypt in a larger map

SO- I arrived in Egypt around 2:30 (aka 3:30 but its ramadan so Egypt is an hour earlier), and Jenny and her boyfriend and fluent Arabic speaker Hisham came to pick me up. And then the cab driver that they paid extra to wait bailed on them cuz the police took his license away. So we- and by we I mean Hisham- spent a while arguing with various cab drivers who wanted to charge us 100LE for a ride back, when it should only cost 50LE! Curse those bastard cab drivers. Also- keep in mind that for general conversion to $US, divide by 5. But Hisham got us back to the apartment for 65LE- and all was well.

After a nice nap and delicious Iftar (daily breaking of the Ramadan fast) made by Jenny, she and I hit the town. Well, there wasn't so much hitting as her walking me down the main drag in Maadi and describing all the stores to me. Our goal was to go to the Vodafone store and get me a phone, but because we were out during Iftar, it was closed. So, we went for Shisha (Hookah, for all you ignant 'mericans)! It was delicious, I had mango juice that wasn't so much juice as pulverized mango- SOOOOO good. Afterwards, we went back to the Vodafone store and I got myself a blackberry. Yes. A blackberry. Good thing I'm not on the family plan and I didn't have to break my contract! Phone's here are pay as you go, and its pretty cheap- and I can reload from the phone itself so I don't need to go buy minutes all the time.

So since I haven't really slept, I'm thinking I conquered jetlag? I mean, its 12:30 Cairo time right now and I'm on my 30th wind, soooo I think I'll be fine. Here's hoping. Tomorrow Jenny and I will probably go explore some more, after sleeping WAY late. And Saturday is orientation!!!