April 16, 2009
Interesting things I've noticed about Egypt:
- The police are armed with machine guns and they are everywhere. The government is very serious about its police force.
- The car entry that leads to my hotel is a gated security checkpoint with guards and a dog. Every single car coming into the hotel must shut off its engine while the driver checks in with security and the dog sniffs around the car.
- The lobby to the hotel is preceded by a metal detector and x-ray belt scanner for bags.
- Everything everywhere seems to be built using the same formula. Make a
stacked-cube skeleton from concrete and fill in the walls with bricks.
Seriously, that's pretty much it. Observe:
Some buildings have the outside flattened and painted, but this is clearly optional and very rare.
- Egyptian beer is quite good. I've had both Sakara Gold and Stella. (Do not confuse Stella with the Belgian Stella Artois; they are not the same.)
- Egyptian food is also quite good. I've tried a bunch of different things and haven't found anything I haven't enjoyed. Not surprisingly, my experience with middle-eastern food has definitely provided me with experience in many of the foods I've had here.
- A lot of people say things like "You can't imagine how big the pyramids are until you're actually there. Photos tell you nothing." That's crap, at least for me. Maybe I have a good sense of scale, but they weren't any larger or smaller than I expected. That's not to say they're not big, however. They're fucking tremendous. And quite impressive.
- Street vendors are annoying as hell. You can say "no thanks" five, six, even seven times, and that will not deter them from continuing to shove their product in your face and make you offers. More than once I was even followed by vendors trying to peddle their wares.
- My heritage is apparently quite evident overseas. I've been asked, more than once, "Italiano?" This has happened several times already in Egypt, as well as in Germany and even Italy.
- One dollar is, at the time of this writing, worth 5.6 Egyptian Pounds. This is deceptively difficult to track.
- Traffic control is pretty much non-existent. As a result, Egyptians are very aware of the size of their cars. Lanes (when even painted, which is rare) are ignored entirely and roads are pretty much driven in a "put your car wherever it will fit" manner. Additionally, the horn is a regular tool used while driving; similar to Europe, except moreso. In the US, the horn means "What the fuck are you doing?!" whereas here, it is almost casual conversation in a "I am here and I want to move forward" sense.
(12:21)
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