Frivilous Fop

Yesterday, my dogs were barking. I walked so much; the upside is that I get to see things and I get to get in shape. Yesterday, I went to the Greater Cairo Library in Zamalek. Zamalek and Gezira are an island in the Nile to the west of downtown. It is the nicer part of the city, where there are more rich people as well as more embassies and such. It is much quieter, a little cleaner and a alot greener. I passed by a lot of magnificent gardens and and beautiful green areas. I am really starved for green, I don't really know if I am made for city living. I think I require country.

The library itself was not too great except for the architecture. It was a palace of a queen which was later sold because she was poor. It is a beautiful yellow that shines in the sunlight. But the library is small and to my dismay and after an hour of walking I found out that you cannot check books out. I contented myself by reading 20 pages of a Tom Clancy book while resting my feet.

In some places, such as this library, the people there don't speak too much English and ask you to speak in Arabic. Stuttering and scrambling for words I often fail more times than I succeed, hopefully that will change.

I also got somewhat yelled at by a policeman for taking a picture near an embassy. I didn't see the building because I was trying to take a picture of a cat on a wall (which happened to be the embassy). Speaking of cats, AUC has a large population of strays that inhabit Greek campus. They come up to you begging for food and meowing. One tried to climb into my lap in the chair I was in by going between my leg and the armrest. It got stuck. Very funny.

It has been unreasonably cold here for the past two days. In the fifties, I think. For cairo, that is cold, although I know it has got to be warmer than at home.

I noticed a big difference but similarity about how people treat accidents on the streets. In Cairo, if there is an accident a big crowd will gather, I guess talking and arguing about what happened. I would be mortified if I was ever in an accident. In the United States, if there is an accident people slow to a crawl as they drive by. I write this difference off to the mode of transportation that the majority of people take. Cairo=feet and United States=car. But everyone still looks, oh yes they do. You know there has been an accident if there is a group of about 30 or more people on the street not moving.

Just some random thoughts...