egypt

i wrote down a whole bunch of things i wanted to blog about in my journal last night, but in typical nicki fashion i forgot it in the room. ah, well, i'll have to go from memory.

we left mumbai around 7 am on oct 15, the one-month countdown to america. after a four-hour layover in KUWAIT (sadly uneventful, save for the few guys who lit up cigarettes inside), we landed in cairo. we were staying with david, a guy maddy found on couchsurfing who said we were welcome to crash at his place. he sent a driver for us, so we were greeted by a sign with maddy's name.

david's house rules. he's got a porch, living room with three couches, cable tv, a pool room, kitchen, two bathrooms, and three bedrooms--and we stayed fo FREE. he's great--he knows he's got a sweet pad in a city where two western girls might not feel so comfortable staying on their own, so he offers up his hospitality. he's tasmanian, which is a hilarious coincidence because two of our guy friends from thailand were from tassie, too. we've met something like 10% of the population now.

god, i don't know what i'm doing going on about these unimportant details. anyway, i'm just gonna move on to the excellent things now.

--SAW THE PYRAMIDS! they were just as extraordinary as i thought they would be. nothing will replace that "holy crap i'm actually here" moment when we first walked in.
--there's pita bread everywhere. huge trays full of dozens on pitas wander the streets on top of heads, hips, and shoulders. we get whole wheat pita bread with almost every meal. in fact, we've been eating tons of bread. for breakfast on the train (i'll get to that in a minute), we were served four bread products. four! that's unnecessary. my carb intake is wayyyyy too deliciously high right now.
--all of the food is delicious. my dish de jour is koshari, which is pasta, spaghetti, rice, onions, lentils, tomatos, and some sort of delicious spices mixed together. it tastes like comfort food. OH and baked goods! one day we followed our best friend lonely planet to this bakery in downtown cairo. we haven't been impressed by desserts in the last year and expectations were low, but MAN did we underestimate. at least 100 different types of cookies, cakes, pastries, nuts, and other sweets stared at us when we walked in. we ate the most delicious three-layer chocolate cookie concoction of our lives.
--the cairo metro is wonderful. i'm very passionate about public transportation in other countries, and this city did not disappoint. sure, it could have a couple more lines, but it's cheap (about 20 cents to go anywhere), fast, and there's a ladies car. ladies car is the best--everybody coos over cute babies, we beg each other to take the seats, and we all go out of our way to be generally polite.
--we spent an afternoon wandering islamic cairo, through the shops and the guys shouting "HERE! have a look!" there's so much good shopping here.
--cairenes are some of the friendliest people--with the huge exception of taxi drivers/people selling things. we got out of a cab after the pyramids (the guy was weird and wanted to charge us way too much) and were trying to hand the guy the fare we thought was enough. he was hassling us, and a stranger from afar saw the interaction. stranger came up and said, "excuse me, girls, is everything ok?" we explained what was happening, he talked to the cab driver in arabic, and said, "ok, that's it, have a good day, girls."

that's all just cairo stuff. we decided we'd travel down to luxor by train. it was really expensive ($60 one way! in thailand it's less than $20!), but whatever, we're only here once, so let's just do it.

THE TRAIN WAS MAGICAL AND WONDERFUL. we had our own cabin that came with towels, A/C, a table, a mirror, hangers, huge blankets, an outlet, and did i mention we had this all to ourselves!? we quickly made the space our home and started up the music and painted our nails. we even got dinner and breakfast on this magical train.

now we're in luxor. yesterday we saw luxor temple and night, and it was easily one of the most gorgeous things i've seen in my life. the heiroglyphics made my 6th grade brain thrilled. when we came in to town yesterday morning, it was ghostly; when we wandered around after the temple, it was like it came to life. this morning we went to the valley of the kings and walked inside three tombs, in awe at how in tact they still are after a zillion years. tomorrow we're waking up at 4 am to take a hot air balloon ride over luxor at sunrise, and then in the evening we're gonna sail on the nile for sunset.

i love this country.