Karnak and Luxor: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair.

Right, so I probably am not going to be making good on my non-promise to finish all the Egypt posts before I leave for Germany, even despite the fact that it's on a list and everything.  But I can plod ahead doggedly, because if nothing else the two best parts of my trip haven't even seen the light of day yet, and that's just not okay.   And I can hope(?) that maybe my first few days in Germany will be more like my first days in Istanbul rather than my first days in Georgia, and there will be plenty of time for catch-up before the next adventures start.  Maybe?

Where were we?  Ah yes, sailing up the Nile from our last sunset stop at Kom Ombo.  The morning found us docked at the town of Edfu, where a fleet of dilapidated horse-drawn open carriages waited impatiently to carom us poor hapless tourists through the busy streets and deposit us unceremoniously  in front of the Temple of Horus.

This temple is one of the best-preserved in Egypt, and it's huge.  Ismail took us all around, explaining the mythology of Isis and Osiris, and their son Horus's birth.  When he grew up, Horus married his nanny, the cow-goddess Hathor.  You've got to love a fertile imagination.

Inside the sanctuary

Me and Horus hanging out.

I took this last picture because I'd wanted to ask Ismail about it.  I found it during our free time, down some unremarkable stairs.  It's like a little underground canal.  Unfortunately, I think I may have pissed off some restless spirits with this photo, because immediately after I got hit with rather an emergency case of Egypt Intestines.  I booked it back to the Visitor's Center at the entrance, and truly, one really does not appreciate distance until one has the opportunity to travel in this manner.  I only had a few small coins on me at this moment, and when the attendant began his inevitable "too little too little", I just brushed right past him to make that final last, crucial sprint.  Nothing like a true emergency to help you handle a Baksheesh Shakedown.

So that... was the Temple of Horus.  At least I will never forget it.  But needless to say I did forget to ask Ismail what that canal thing was.

Back on the boat, it still was only something like 10:00 in the morning, and I decided I'd take advantage of the whole "vacation" thing, and grab a nap in my gorgeous room.  BUT, the boat was going through a lock that morning, and this process took about an hour... every minute of which was accompanied by shouting, catcalling vendors who walked along the lock next to the boat and would throw their prospective wares up to people on the boat and then make like they weren't going to catch them should anyone want to throw them back.  Needless to say, they made catching up on sleep impossible.  But it did mean I was awake for going through the lock.

Since the guilty pleasure of a daytime snooze wasn't to be had, I got a cup of coffee outside and chatted with more of my tour group.  After lunch, we braved the midday heat to go up to the roof deck and make use of the amazing pool.  Have I mentioned just exactly what an incredible deal this cruise turned out to be??

Want to know the very, very best way to get me out of a pool and downstairs and dressed with time to spare?  Tell me that the next stops on our Egyptian tour will be Karnak and Luxor.

Now, I had loved and squeed and fangirl gushed over every single thing that I'd seen on the Nile cruise so far (vendor gauntlets and baksheesh shakedowns notwithstanding).  However, Karnak and Luxor were the first sights that I was on a first-name basis with.  That I'd read about.  Seen documentaries about.  If there's one Egyptian pharaoh who's managed to become a household name, that guy would probably be Ramses II.  And I admit it, my love for the guy was a done deal ever since I plowed my way through Anne Rice's The Mummy when I was vacationing up in Maine as a gothy teenager.   And now I was about to go take a gawk at some of his most famous work.  The real deal.

I'm not going to lie.  I cried at Karnak.  I mean, not a lot, and I was wearing sunglasses, so I don't think anyone noticed (I can hope), but there were definite actual tears.  I had never, up to that point, been so happy to be anywhere in my whole entire life.  (And yes, that includes the Pantheon in Rome.)  It's only a wonderful irony of this trip that I would find my experience at Karnak upstaged twice in the next several days.

We followed Ismail around in a manic photo-snapping frenzy.  He read us hieroglyphs, and showed us an Egyptian calendar.  Explained the statues and reliefs, and provided historical context.  That guy knows a lot.  And then we were free to go.  We were supposed to get 20 minutes of exploring time at Karnak, but I politely and firmly freaking mutinied, and got that time extended to 45.  20 minutes my ass.  Seriously.  For one thing, the Karnak temple complex is big.  And for another thing, it's freaking Karnak.  I could have spent hours here.

During my happy solo wanderings across the complex, An Egyptian dude came up to me and asked if I wanted to see a Hatshepsut Colossus.  Now really, I should have known better at this point, but I was just so damn high from all the awesomeness around me that I heard myself saying "Naam, shokran!" ("Yes, thank you!"  I am an idiot.)  The guy took me over to some guards, who cheerfully lifted a barricade for me and then one of them followed my new friend and me around the corner.  Did I mention the guard had an automatic weapon cheerfully swinging from his arm?  They show me the statue, which is quite breathtaking, and then the guard commandeers my camera and invites me to go climbing on the priceless ancient ruins.  Um, why not?  My shoes are clean, I guess...

They coax me through a few more awkward poses, the guard happily snapping away while his impressive firearm swings jauntily from his elbow.  And then they try to usher me away even further from the crowd to see something else reserved for only the most discerning of silly solo female tourists.  I decline, which requires some back-and-forth, but soon enough they give up, at which point of course it's time for Baksheesh.  To my dismay, my wallet did not happen to contain any small bills, but nothing says cheerful cooperation like being in an ancient Egyptian courtyard, all alone with two dudes, one of whom happens to have a very large gun.  So I forked over the smallest I had, which objectively I think came out to maybe five or seven dollars in USD.  Not a bad deal, all told.  My brother-in-law loves this story, which I have affectionately if over-dramatically titled "How I Paid Five Dollars to Not Get Raped in Egypt."

I gratefully made my way back to the other picture-snapping tourists, and thankfully had no more adventures in Karnak that day.  And then it was back on the minibus and off to Luxor Temple.

My insistence of extra time at Karnak meant that we got to Luxor at sunset.  Some of my group expressed displeasure at this, but I absolutely loved getting to see Luxor lit up at night.  With so many temples and amazing things all packed into a very short time frame, I think this made Luxor stand out.  Not that it needed the help.

Back on the boat, it was straight to dinner after what has to be one of the longest days ever!  (Well, second-longest.  You'll see.)  After dinner, the boat had a show of a belly dancer and a whirling dervish up in the lounge, which was a lot of fun if pretty damn corny.  Also, I do have to say I vastly prefer the Turkish style of dervishly whirling, but that's just me.

Sufi Disco?

I closed out the last night of my amazing cruise up the Nile by chatting on the rood deck with Ismail and a very awesome Australian from our group named Phil.

It was my last night on the Tower Prestige, but it wasn't quite time to say farewell to Ismail and the gang yet!  One more 5:30 AM wakeup call... to pay a visit to none other than the Valley of the Kings and a few other notable sights before I once again shouldered the friendly weight of Sisyphus and set my sights to Cairo.

Re_Animat, Ruck Zuck, and Call the Ships to Port. I'm Heading Out Again.

Here we go, virtual friends and lovers.  The next phase I'm sure you were hanging on the edge of your seats for, or maybe that was just me that had been doing that.

Germany.

Yea, Germany.  I'll be teaching adults, which you know was one of my top criteria for my next assignment.  I leave -- soon.  On September 25.  And I just got the offer this morning, less than an hour after my second skype interview.

After jumping up and down and running in very small circles for about 15 minutes, I sat down and made a list.  And then another list.  And then a list with subheadings.  I went to B&N and bought two guidebooks and a phrasebook.  I bought my flight.  I ran around in some more very small circles.

And then I sat on the porch with a dry mimosa the size of my head and read my way through Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me, because frankly when you wake up at 7:00 in the morning and have no job, and then at 4:00 PM you not only have a job but that job is in Germany and it's pretty much everything you ever hoped for when you first set out to do this nutty experiment 2+ years ago, and you're set to say Auf Wiedersehen in eight freaking days, well.

There does come a moment when your mind simply shakes you gently and says: "I'm not going to be able to take much more stimuli for a little bit, my dear.  Please do break out the Trader Joe's sparkling white wine and that completely retarded book you for some reason checked out of the library yesterday."

And now here I sit, taking a break from my Supernatural marathon to write this enchanting note to you while I listen to a lot of KMFDM and Das Ich, wondering if I should probably be listening to Beethoven or something instead.

Once again I have no idea what's going to happen.  Last time I was proud of my "grim adaptability" to stride off and face it.  This time, I'm just happy.  Happy, and confident that I can make it work simply because I want it to work so very badly.  This opportunity is, very simply, exactly what I have been working and hoping to achieve, and quite frankly I never really expected to happen, and certainly not like this.  And definitely not this fast.

I've already gone through the elation/denial/elation/barfy feeling/worst-case-scenario imagining/self-confidence boosting/elation phases.  When a person is expected to pack up their shite in a week and a day for a long-term assignment with no formal end date, there really isn't much time for shenanigans so I did my best to get through it all at once.  (Note:  this tactic will probably not work.)

Tomorrow the shopping for a new winter coat will commence.  More list-making and piling of crap on the guest room bed.  Farewell dinners with friends, and that all-important last night outside by the chiminea.  It's all starting again, and I couldn't be happier or more grateful.




P.S.  Oh, and I promise I really will try to get all of Egypt out and done before I go, although honestly in this case even the best intentions may not be enough.  I mean, eight days, people.

Egypt: Further Up the Nile

I have never been what you would call a "morning person".  That moment in adulthood when you realize you just said "I just can't sleep in past 9:00 anymore" has never happened to me.  (I also never grew out of loving fart jokes and midnight snacks of jalapeno poppers, so maybe there's just no hope across the board.)

But the thing is about being in Egypt in late June is -- it gets truly punishingly hot... quickly.

I took this screenshot my first morning in Aswan as I was waiting for the boat rep.  I don't care how tough you are, this kind of heat is no joke.  The good news is that our tour guides understood that this was something we tourists weren't exactly used to.  But that, of course, meant that we were down the gangplank and on the minibus at 6:00 AM.  There are few things I will cheerfully get up at 5:30 AM for.  A train or plane ride makes the list.  So does going off for a day of mind-blowing incredible sightseeing in freaking Egypt.  Yay!

The first thing we did was visit the Aswan granite quarry (the place that furnished much of the stone used to build everyone's favorite monuments and temples), and take a look at the Unfinished Obelisk.  Unfinished, because it cracked while they were still carving it.  Really bad day for some poor guy 3,500 years ago.

I want to take a sec right off the bat to say good things about our tour guide, Ismail.  This guy could not have been friendlier or more patient, and he had a staggering degree of knowledge in all areas of Ancient Egyptian history and mythology.  He could read hieroglyphics.  Read hieroglyphics.  He cheerfully fielded every one of my enthusiastic questions, and often stayed behind to chat further once everyone else had wandered off.  He made four wonderfully exhausting days so much better than they would have been without him.  Cheers to you, my friend.  You were awesome.

After the quarry, we swung by Aswan Dam to get some pictures of Lake Nasser.  No crocodiles poked their noses out to pose for us that day, oh well.

Then, it was time for seat-bouncing anticipatory glee, because we were on our way to Agilkia Island and the temple complex of Philae.  The complex was moved from its original spot on Philae Island because the recently-created Lake Nasser was flooding it.  Let's just think for a moment about the undertaking that would be involved to move not one but several Ancient Egyptian Temples.

We piled onboard a completely safe-looking motorboat and headed over, accompanied of course by the small throng of vendors who had joined us for the ride.  And then we saw THIS:

Temple of Isis

I was positively flipping out inside.  My first Ancient Egyptian Temple!!  Ermahgerd.  I was here and this was happening and OMG it was suddenly just about the best day ever!

Walking around that temple complex was just... amazing.  Over the course of the next week, I would see so many famous monuments and sights that would make me embarrassingly actually tear up, places like Karnak and Luxor and Giza.  But the Temple of Isis was my first, and you never forget your first love.  I have never been so happy to be anywhere.

Bit of sad historic trivia -- many of the reliefs here and in other temples all over Egypt were damaged and/or defaced by early Christians who had repurposed the temples for churches.  The whole false god and iconoclast thing.  Thumbs-down to you, early Christian dudes with chisels.

After what has to be the most exciting morning I'd had in a long time, we trucked on back to the boat for lunch an a grateful collapse on my giant-size bed.  The boat was finally pulling off that afternoon and taking us upriver towards Luxor.  I headed up to the roof to the the amazing southern Egyptian desert roll by, and also avail myself of the pool which seriously would have been worth the price of the cruise all on its own.

In the late afternoon, we docked and went to go take a look at Kom Ombo.  The Temple of Kom Ombo is interesting because it's kind of an object lesson in clever marketing ideas.  To hear Ismail tell it, originally the temple was dedicated to Sobek, the crocodile god, and was built here precicely because this stretch of the Nile had quite a lot of crocodiles.  (There are no crocs in the Nile anymore, they've all been lovingly rehoused in Lake Nasser.)  But because there were a lot of corcodiles, a lot of people started getting attacked and eaten, and -- surprise surprise -- no one wanted to come to the temple anymore and the priests weren't making any money.  SO, they decided to re-dedicate the temple to a god that they pretty much made up, but who just so happened to have the same name as one of the most popular Egyptian gods, Horus.  They called their new god Horus the Elder.  So now, with both Sobek and Horus the Elder to attract devotees (and the offerings they brought), eventually Kom Ombo got popular again.  Way to go, Ancient Egyptian PR Team!

Ismail being amazing.

Kom Ombo also had a small museum full of crocodile mummies that had been excavated from the site.  There was even a little mummified croc fetus.

That night on the boat, they had traditional Egyptian food for dinner and the staff all wore Egyptian dress.  Instead of ringing a bell for dinner, they let us know it was time to eat by singing a folk song in the lobby.

Calling everyone to dinner.  With flair.

After dinner, there was a party in the lounge with fun silly games and dancing.  I'd become pretty good traveling buddies with two extremely cool women from Boston, and we closed out the night dancing to YMCA with the staff before they tried to teach us an Egyptian folk dance.  I just... love the hell out of my life.

Another early(ish) night though, because the days just kept ramping up with sights even cooler than the day before.  The next day -- the Temple of Horus, Karnak, and Luxor.

Egypt: Cruising the River Nile

First, some housekeeping.  This is my blog, my online journal if you will, and in it I write accounts of my experiences as I interpreted them.  It may in fact be a very different point of view from your own, and if that upsets you, well, there is not a thing I'm going to do about that.  If you don't happen to like what you read here, I just want to offer a gentle reminder that there is not a law in the land that forces you to continue soldiering on.  The internet is a big place, and I'm sure with only a minimum of effort you'll be able to find something else more suited to your tastes and preferences.  Also as a reminder, I do not publish abusive or excessively negative comments, and I am certainly not going to let myself get drawn into a virtual comment battle with someone who doesn't even offer the courtesy of a name.

Ahem.  Anyway.  Where were we, friends and lovers?

After my distinctly fish-out-of-water first day in Aswan, I really was very much looking forward to getting on a river cruise boat for a four-day journey up the Nile.  And right on time, an extremely nice representative from the boat rescued me from El Selam's lobby and took me here.

Oh.  My. Goodness.  The rep introduced me to Ismail, my group's tour guide, and I liked him immediately.  And then... they told me that there were two rooms left on the boat.  A single room, which is what I had booked, and... a suite.

Oh. My.  Goodness.

My room was huuuuuge!  It was just amazing.  There was a king-size bed, an entirely separate living area with comfy couch, French balcony doors and a big beautiful bathroom.  To the day I die I will never understand why they decided to give this to me and not some young couple in love.  I never get upgraded!!  After I finished jumping up and down, I unpacked a little and then went exploring.

I'd never been on a cruise before, and of course I'd always wanted to.  One thing about long-term budget travel, it allows me to see a lot and to meet so many wonderful people along the way, but it is not exactly what you'd call luxurious.  It's more than a fair trade, and I know that any traveling I do in the near and not-so-near future is probably going to include more than a couple dorm rooms.  It's all just part of the experience, but it meant that I was possibly the happiest person walking around on the Tower Prestige that morning.

Roof deck POOOOOL

The cruise was undoubtedly a splurge for me, don't get me wrong.  But it meant I'd get to see parts of Egypt I'd never be able to get to on my own, and quite honestly, with the meals and accommodation and guide and transport and tickets to sights all included, this four-day cruise turned out to be both amazing and a very economical choice.  (Which of course I appreciated at the time, but appreciated even more when I got to Cairo and saw how much money I was hemorrhaging on a daily basis.  But more on that later.)

I was meeting Ismail before lunch because my tour apparently included a feluca ride.  I actually didn't know this but happily accepted.  (A feluca is basically an old-fashioned sailboat.)  It was just Ismail, the boat operator, and me, and Ismail and I enjoyed a really nice conversation about Aswan, Egyptian history, tourism, etc.  Ismail said that this summer was the lowest low season he could remember, which I guess at least partly accounts for the desperate aggression of all the vendors I'd have to fend off during the length of my stay.

The heat was getting to be truly impressive as it got towards midday, but I was just loving every minute of actually getting to sail on the Nile.  However, we ended up not getting very far as after about ten minutes, our operator suddenly set the boat in a slow circle in the middle of the river, and started pulling out bag after bag full of beaded jewelry and other random trinkets which he shook dramatically in front of me before laying them all next to each other on the boat deck.  Um, talk about your captive audience.  I was glad Ismail was there but also kind of annoyed that my hour-long cruise apparently really meant ten-minute cruise followed by awkward sales pitch.  But I was still new to Egypt and hadn't quite yet grasped the constant extent to which I'd be pressured to fork over money for goods and services I did not want.  So, I bought a necklace, and it's pretty neat.  The guy (through Ismail) assured me it was turquoise and camel bone, but I think something must have gotten lost in translation because surely what he meant to say was "plastic".

Ah well.  It's different, anyway.  And I have yet another story to offer up whenever anyone asks me where I got it.

After I handed over my bills, the cruise was apparently over because the guy packed up his stash and took us directly back to shore.  Whatever, I guess it's what I could expect for free.  It was time for lunch on the ship anyway.

At lunch I met the other member of my tour group, 12 of us in all.  Pretty nice, diverse group of people.  After lunch there was an optional (read: not included) boat ride to a "Nubian Village", which I decided to go for.  Back out on the Nile!

Camels!!

At the village, the first thing we did was visit this one dude's house for tea and crocodiles.  No, really.

Obviously completely safe

Then, we just walked around through the gauntlet of vendors.  Egypt makes Istanbul's Grand Bazaar look positively asleep.  You already know how much I love being heckled and hassled while browsing so I didn't stop to look at much.  Then just as the sun was going down, it was time to get back on the boat and putter home.

Getting to hold a crocodile was fun, and I really loved getting to see more of the Nile, especially since my feluca ride had been rather a disappointment.  But I'd been in Egypt for two whole days at that point and had yet to see anything truly ancient or awesome, and I was getting a little antsy.  So I was very much looking forward to the next day, where among other things we would get to see the Philae Temple of Isis and Kom Ombo, a Ptolemaic temple dedicated to the crocodile god Sobek and Horus the Elder.

After dinner, I had a very quiet glass of wine in the ship's lounge, then retired to my incredible room and had myself the earliest night in a long while, because days in Egypt start early.  5:30 wake-up call, anyone?

Aswan: Welcome to Egypt

Why haven't I written about Egypt yet?  Well.  First, I'm lazy.  Second, I have been busy.  Sort of.  Third, my mind's been focused on other things, like how in the hell I'm going to get myself out of here again.  Fourth, writing about Egypt is going to be hard, because while it was quite literally the trip of a lifetime (as in, I've wanted to go for my whole life and it's extremely probable that I will never go again), it was also at times extremely frustrating, or frightening, or just plain weird.  And the thing is, traveling to Egypt was important to me.  I didn't want to churn out a "Here's what I did and ate, enjoy some pictures", and be done with it.

I went to Egypt, and afterwards I arrived in grateful exhaustion at Dulles' Custom's Counter none the worse for wear.  I had had a marvelous adventure, and was riding The Biggest High Ever from actually getting to see the freaking Pyramids a few days before.  But as a friend said when discussing her recent solo trip to Jordan: (paraphrasing, sorry Mallory) "I had a great time.  But I realized while I was there that I was vulnerable."  She said (I think I remember her saying) that she was so glad she went, but that she probably wouldn't put herself in that same situation again.

That is exactly how I feel about my trip to Egypt.

On that note, let's finally try and begin.

I don't think I've ever felt so unsure and unprepared as I did getting on the plane from Istanbul to Cairo.  The travel thrill was up and running at full speed, because let's face it, it is fucking awesome to look up at the Arrivals Board and see your flight number next to the word "Cairo".  But I really didn't know what I'd be facing, and I was worried.  Plain and simple.

The short flight was fine, and before I knew it, I was on Egyptian soil.  Or at least, tarmac.  I walked into the Domestic Terminal feeling very much like Alice... but wow.  I'm not sure what I expected, but this sparkling clean and completely fucking empty airport is not what I had in mind at all.  I actually thought for a minute that there might have been some sort of attack or crisis that had happened while I was in the air.  Where on earth was everybody?

I bumbled around and eventually got my visa sticker and passport stamp.  Gigantic Hooray!  It was weird and confusing only because it was so damn easy.  No lines at either counter, and I was legit in a very small room all by myself with two friendly Customs guys, getting that all-important stamp.  They joked with me about where my husband was, and one guy tried on my sun hat which he though was hilarious.  And then I was through, stamped and stickered and legit in Egypt.  Holy hell.

I found my gate for the Aswan flight in the utterly deserted airport, and then got myself a very much-needed beer at the cafe next door.  So far, so good.  I still had butterflies the size of velociraptors, but I was over the first big hurdle and feeling optimistic.

I went down the stairs to my gate... to see that I was the only woman there and also the only white person.  Everyone else there was an Egyptian man in their traditional dress, which looks a lot like a long pajama shirt but I won't call them pajamas because that is probably insensitive.  I sat discreetly away and buried my nose in my book, which is my standard defense against unwanted attention in a public place.  The waiting area continued to fill up, and soon there were a handful of other women including a handful of tourists.  Yay, solidarity!

We flew to Aswan.  And there, in Aswan's tiny dilapidated airport, I had my first hiccup.  Sisyphus didn't come out on the baggage carousel with all the other bags, and as I stood there wondering how to handle this latest development, a couple airport guys started asking me questions and I began to understand that, because I had flown internationally, even though I'd gone through customs in Cairo, my bag was in a completely separate room, which they eagerly escorted me to.

And here it was that I had my first brush with the one thing that I ended up just completely hating about Egypt.  Baksheesh.  Baksheesh is the Arabic word for tip, and it's one I really got to loathe during my nine days in the country.  This one porter was so aggressive about carrying my bag it was frightening.  I grabbed it off the floor and literally had to keep pushing his hands away as I got it strapped around me.  I made it clear I didn't need or want his help, but the guy stuck to me like a barnacle as I went out and found my car waiting for me. (Oh blessed lord thank you!), and then he tried to pull the backpack off my shoulders while I still had the waist belt buckled.  And then, after all that, when I was flustered and stressed and totally at sea, he got right in my face and stuck his hand out for a tip.  I tipped him a few coins to get him away from me, except he refused to move and kept saying "too little too little."  This fucker actually tried to keep me from opening the car door, and the driver didn't help.  I eventually got in and we drove away as he continued to shout after us.  Fucking lovely, dude.

Ugh.  So as I'm shaking and trying to take stock of all my stuff and make sure the guy didn't rob me while I was all distracted, my driver is chatting me up and trying to convince me to go with him to this bazaar instead of taking me straight to my hotel.  I politely declined, and thank heaven he did indeed take me to the door of El Salam Hotel.

Aswan and its environs, in the southern Egyptian desert, is absolutely stunningly beautiful.  It is also stricken with poverty, and as I drove through the city I probably had one of the biggest "Holy crap what am I doing here??" moments of my entire life.  We got to my hotel... and that feeling did not abate one bit.  The owner was nice and I felt pretty safe at least, but this was unquestionably one of the strangest and dumpiest places I had ever stayed.  It was also largely empty, which didn't help with the whole "Shining in the desert" vibe.

Oh yeah.  I hadn't said.  Aswan was... hot.  Unbelievably hot.  Like 110 degrees in the shade hot during the middle of the day.  At least when I checked in it was getting to be early evening, but there was no AC in any of the common areas and I felt like I was moving through an oven.  It's a cliche but that's also exactly how it felt.  Like I was being slow-cooked.  The next person who says anything about dry heat not being bad is getting a punch to the throat.

El Salam was across the street from the Nile, so that was kind of extremely awesome.

View from the hotel's lobby

Anyway, I checked into my horrible little room and asked the front desk guy about where to go for dinner.  He suggested... KFC or McDonald's.  I am serious.  I said I was looking for somewhere a little more authentic, and he gave me these complicated directions to a cafe his friend owned.  I thanked him and decided to ignore his directions in favor of staying on the main road.

Before I got dinner, I wanted to secure a couple of beers to drink back at the hotel later.  But... you can't buy beer at a market in Egypt.  I didn't know this.  I stupidly thought it would be like Turkey, where beer is scarce in restaurants but readily available in little shops to be found all over.  Wrong.  I walked for probably not very long but it was starting to seem like an awfully long time to me.  My death stare was getting wobbly from being held so stiffly for so long.  Just as I was giving up, I saw a dude outside this little kiosk thing.  I asked if he had beer, and he did!!  Yaaaay!  He charged more than twice per can than what I had paid at the Cairo airport, but I so did not care.  I stuck the two cans in my backpack and went to get dinner.

Yeah, it was only after I got back to my hotel that I realized I had paid 70 EGP for two cans of non-alcoholic beer.  My record of savvy monetary dealings in Egypt was not looking good thus far.

However.  Dinner happened to be amazing, so that was lucky.  And, they had beer.  Real beer.  Wondrous.  I had a very tasty plate of "chicken with rice and herbs" and a friendly waiter who managed to both put me at ease and not bother me.  The restaurant was outside, on a legit floating pier on the Nile River.  I watched the cruise ships and felucas sail past and finally began to really smile.  I had made it!  I was in Egypt!  And tomorrow, I would actually get to be on one of those boats!

I finished up and went back to my hotel, where I discovered the beer fiasco and so decided to try my luck at the expensive-looking hotel across the street, in the hopes that they might have a bar.  I was afraid to venture far afield, but it was only something like 9:30 and the idea of spending hours just sort of sitting around in my awful little room or the slightly less-awful but more-awkward lobby was not appealing.

The hotel did indeed have a lovely outdoor bar right on the river.  I got a glass of wine and amused myself as the bar's only other patron was a woman in Muslim dress who was enjoying a hookah by herself.  I felt like we should fist-bump or something.  It was blissfully quiet and I got some good journal writing in, until one of the sailors on a docked feluca began to chat me up and refused to be dissuaded by any of the conventional and increasingly pointed signals that I wanted to be left alone.  He told me his name was "Habibi", but as chance would have it, that is one of the few Arabic words I know and it means "sweetheart."  I laughed and told him there was no way I was calling him sweetheart.

I got back into my room a little before midnight, and took a cold shower in my room's very... grotty bathroom.  I got to look forward to a slow morning the next day, as my boat was sending someone to pick me up at 10:00 AM.

And that, boys and girls, was my first day in Egypt.  A lot of confusion, a scam or two, but also plenty of really nice people and an evening spent on the banks of the Nile River.  I was so happy to have arrived and to have conquered my first major hurdles with only a couple of good stories to tell.

I was also really glad I'd be checking out of El Selam, because Yikes.